KANNAPOLIS— Razor Shines has his team of baseball players. Todd Parnell has his team of baseball players.

The difference is, when rain takes away a game, Shines’ team will always get the opportunity to make it up.

Parnell’s team — the business end of the Kannapolis Intimidators — never makes it up. A rainout always goes in the loss column.

Tuesday afternoon, the sun was out. Busloads of kids were arriving at beautiful Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium for a doubleheader that was to begin at 11:05 a.m. It wasn’t humid. It was a perfect day for baseball.

Well, not quite.

Forget the sun. Forget the pleasant temperatures. The doubleheader with the Delmarva Shorebirds was never played. The reason: hazardous field conditions.

Amazingly, it was the fourth time during a six-game homestand that the game was called off.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” sighed Parnell. “Four rainouts in five days — that’s totally unheard of.”

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Todd Parnell’s team is slumping.

The Intimidators’ general manager, president, concession stand worker and crowd favorite was only 2-for-6 (.333) in the homestand.

That average would be great for one of Razor’s guys. On the business side, it stinks.

The Intimidators were expecting a lot of bucks to roll in during this homestand.

“We probably lost in the neighborhood of 11-12,000 people over those four games,” Parnell said. “All of the days would’ve been big.

“It’s lost revenue. We’ll just have to bounce back.”

While Shines sets his sights on a second-half pennant, Parnell looks no further than the next homestand — in this case, July 2-9. Which brings a smile to Parnell’s face.

“We’ll pack the place during that week,” he predicted.

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A threat of rain to a general manager of a low-Class A professional baseball team is like the threat of your best player’s injury keeping him out of the lineup.

Parnell’s lineup card has 4,700 positions (the number of seats in Fieldcrest Cannon Stadium) and he’d like to fill every single one. So he agonizes when the clouds form.

Raining out Friday night was bad enough. But on Saturday, it was more waiting and wishing.

“We’d get through a storm and another would pop up,” he explained. “We never got a good feel. We had opened the gates and there was a pretty good crowd anyway. It would’ve probably been in the 4,000 range.”

For a team averaging half that, Saturday would have been a major boost.

Luckily, the clouds didn’t hand Parnell a black Sabbath. Actually, it was one of the better 2:05 p.m. Sunday crowds ever seen at the stadium.

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But Monday? A rainout. Tuesday? A rainout in the sun.

Groundskeeper Jamie Pruitt did all he could to dry the surface but center field was a lake. The umpires, the managers and Parnell knew the game was off, despite the long faces of so many fans.

“Hopefully, people understand that when you’re in professional sports, where you’re putting players on the field that mean a whole lot to a major-league organization, you have to be careful,” Parnell explained. “It wasn’t even close as far as being safe for the players.

“You don’t like not playing when the sun’s out but the field was not playable. I was out there. Look at these shoes!”

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One thing you’ll learn from being around the unflappable, always optimistic Parnell. He finds a positive in everything.

For instance, if someone tells him, “The bad thing about your job is, your wife Kelly won’t see you every single night,” Parnell will respond with something like, “Yeah, but the positive thing for Kelly is, she won’t see me every single night.”

And that’s the same demeanor he used Tuesday afternoon. He was muddy, sweaty — and looking at the bright side of 13 inches of rain since Friday. In fact, don’t be surprised if John Cougar Mellencamp is calling for Parnell’s involvement with the next Farm Aid.

“People around here wanted rain and they got it,” he said. “It helped the farmers. And hey, we love farmers.”

And that’s why Parnell has this advice for the people who work the land.

“Check the team’s schedule. If we’re home, plant some extra stuff.”

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Contact Ronnie Gallagher at 704-797-4256 or rgallagher@salisburypost.com .