Baseball can be a vexing sport to shoot. There can be lots of runs scored, but no actual "plays" happening. Even if there are plays, you have to have the right lens and the right angle to get a good 1/2000 sec image out of it. At yesterday's Trenton Thunder game, I had the luxury of being able to spend an hour and a half before my next assignment, so I had high hopes for something good happening. It didn't, so I thought I better go with the old stand-by pitcher picture. I crouched between rows to at least get an angle where the pitcher's release lined up with an interesting element on the wall behind him. I remember reading a quote from Sports Illustrated photographer Walter Iooss. "Watch your backgrounds." I thought that was a strange thing to say, since sports photography is so subject-oriented, but the advice comes in handy in a case like this.

Trenton Thunder's # 28 Carlos Mendoza is tagged out at home by catcher #24 Drew Butera. For those who might not know, The Thunder are the Double-A affiliate of the New York Yankees. I heard the crowd groan when their guy was called out, but I guess the photo proves the umpire right, but at full speed, who could really judge?

It's now little league season. The kids are fun to photograph because they're not so automatic on routine plays. That's one way to put it. I normally like shooting baseball with as big a telephoto lens as possible, but in this case I put a standard 50mm lens on and poked it through the chain-link fence just in time to catch a kid coming in for a landing stealing home on a pass ball.

Summer has officially arrived and it has arrived for real around here. You know the routine, a string of ninety-degree days and TV goes crazy trying to convince everybody it's the end of the world. It also means a guy like me has to find hot weather pictures to accompany weather stories. I went down to the river looking for some nice sunset scene, but the sky was dull and hazy. As I left the river access, I noticed the crowd at Debbie's Snack Shop in Florence NJ.

Choose from these captions:

1) For those of you tired of seeing pitcher pictures, double plays, or steal attempts at 2nd base, this one is for you.

2) This is a lucky photo, luck being where preparation meets opportunity.

3) If you give typewriters to enough monkeys, sooner or later, one of them will produce something good.

I'm coming up on 23 years full-time at the Trenton Times. I've labored through quite a few innings of baseball hoping to see something a little different happen...and actually be ready. Shooting baseball has a way of dulling your concentration until something unexpected happens and then I find myself saying "Wow! That would have been a cool picture," after it's too late. I work with two camera bodies. Most pictures are done with the big lens, 300 or 400mm, on a monopod, but when I saw this player running toward me, I swung the 70-200 from my shoulder and one-handed this picture. Thank you, autofocus.

Lois Hector still holds onto hope as she holds onto a photo of her husband, Gordon Hector, 81, who has Alzheimer's and has been missing for over one week now. She said, "We have been surrounded by friends and family which helps, but the sadness is setting in."

The search continues, with family & friends on a door-to-door campaign and distributing flyers. Below, Trenton Police Det Armie Robinson, riding "Ranger" searches along the D&R Canal for clues.

Rescue personnel led by the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, NJ www.marinemammalstrandingcenter.org prepare to net a seal beached at the Delaware River near the Scudders Falls I-95 bridge. This character was spotted in the area for a couple of days and he was starting to look lethargic, so the professionals were called in. I thought he was dead, but he perked right up when the put the net on him. I literally had to go over the river and through the woods to get to a spot where I could make this picture, but it was worth the hike, the trek down a hill in chest-high undergrowth and the brush with the law for where I had my car parked.