Troubles with travels in the bus leagues are nothing new for a baseball team – and for the Boise Hawks, it is no exception, as the latest installment of “What’s Wrong with the Bus” happened early this morning.

(Click Here for Thursday’s Boise/Spokane Game Notes)

Around 2:15 in the morning, about 10 miles outside Ontario, Ore., the engine of the Hawks coach died – literally, with smoke, oil, and other fluids pouring profusely out of the carriage.  We stopped dead in our tracks, right on the side of I-84.  And we waited, and waited, and waited.  A good two hours or more until a relief bus (which didn’t smell particularly good) got us the rest of the way home.

It brought back memories of 2004 – when heading to the Tri-Cities after a five-game sweep of Everett, the fan belt blew in the bus on Snoqualmie Pass (with no AC for the rest of the trip in 100 degree heat).  In 2008, an air-line broke going down the Ladd Canyon grade outside of La Grande, Ore., holing the team up at a truck stop for two hours.  An last year, the infamous blow up atop Satus Pass on our way from Yakima to Salem – and the shenanigans with horseshoes and a rabbit.