When the Clippers come to Scranton to play the Little Evil Empire, it always rains. As sure as the pizza is white and the word "you" magically requires an "s" to become plural, it will rain. Tonight, of course, was no different. Sure it wasn't raining real hard, but this is AAA. Shelly Duncan's grand return to the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area aside, not too many people were going to show.

Fortunately for myself, I had found a few other Tribe fans in the seats and we talked Carlos Santana as the rain drops fell idly. We milled about, occasionally peeking inside the visitors dugout to see if anyone was coming out to check the weather. And then, what to our wondering eyes should appear - oh, Trevor Crowe. I wasn't even going over, knowing I'd end up with his autograph (which I did) and then not know what I'd do with it (which I don't). But it turned out to be worth it.

Though not only 5 minutes prior, my new found friend said, "Now if there is one person I could care less about, it is definitely Trevor Crowe," it wasn't long before we were buttering him up. We "love his speed" and think he could have a "great bat". Not to mention, we "love the way he hustles." There it was, properly buttered up, ready to reveal the Tribe secrets.

Now, I've built this up enough, you're probably going to be extremely let down by what is revealed, but here it is anyway. First, he loves Nunnally. Not sure why, it isn't like he has magically learned to hit. But there it is, loves him. Second, he likes Acta's new approach in Spring Training. When asked about Wedge, he didn't bite at first, but after a few moments the truth came out. He said you could go one or two weeks at a time without seeing or hearing from Wedge, aside from game time. As he put it, "That can be nice, but as a young player you're sort of looking for some guidance and advice." Interesting insight.

Those first two nuggets were nice, and he also talked about how he thinks the big league team's offense will heat up and how they're not real sure why Rondon appears to have lost a few mph on the heater, but when asked about Sizemore's slump, he paused. He looked casually down the end of the bench, making sure nobody was coming out from the locker before he spoke. And not in a hokey, I'm gonna trick these guys, but in a legitimate way. Maybe he fooled me, but it seemed genuine. According to the late, great Trevor Crowe, Grady Sizemore is going through swing adjustments. Apparently not as a result of the struggles, but the reverse. He talked about how there is a lot of pressure on him to be a leader, which he feels isn't a good fit because of his nature, and that this is simply amplifying the struggle. The claim laid forth by Trevor is that the slight adjustment in Grady's swing is an attempt to create more contact and minimize the strikeouts. He also said that a year or two ago he adjusted in a similar fashion and that few people noticed simply because his production at the plate wasn't really affected in a negative manner.

So there you have it, as sure as the Crowe flies, he has spoken. Tomorrow, hopefully I'll actually get to see part of the now double header. Until then, I must figure out what to do with the Trevor Crowe autographed baseball. Any takers? It even comes with a photo of the live signing.