The field had a little water left from a rain that no one could remember, and the pickup guys before us were kind enough to let us get on early, for the second game of the 2010 season. Starting for the visitors was Johnny Bartlett, resplendent in his Mission uniform, and willing and able to go the distance, which he did. Satch started for the home squad, warming up on the bump as his team was morphed to make sure that we had a competent shortstop, and not too many big bats.
The first few innings were bang bang, as one hit, an infield single from Vic was all any of the batters could muster. Johnny was keeping it all around the dish, mixing his slurvy stuff with his wrinkle stuff. Satch kept the changeup in rotation, mixed with a fastball that was livelier than usual, maybe due to the brisk temperature, and a knuckle that had some funky hard dive.
Finally in the third, we got to Johnny, and quickly put three runs on the board. They answered right back with 2 of their own, and a ball game was underway. The runs started to mount up, on both sides, and by the time Satch left the game in the 6th, the visitors had retaken the lead with a 5-4, which then became 7-5. Johnny had settled down and was throwing stellar ball, and we homers were befuddled as what to do. Satch had an emergency call from the wife, a cluster-fucked de-railer and chain mishap, had to leave the game for a few minutes. I lead off the inning with a first pitch single (frustration hit), got a ghost runner, and when I returned the team had capitalized and the score was 8-7, us. We went to the 9th, and the visitors suddenly came alive and scored 3 runs, 10-8, demoralizing turn of events….OR was it?
Girding up our reserves, and relying on the 6 men we had left (injuries and Punk rock had drained our team of more than a few members) we followed guffed ball, with line drive and sacrifice fly, and before we knew it, we were bases loaded and Sean up at bat. He promptly sent a sacrifice fly that scored the tying run, and we had men on first and second; the score knotted and tied at 10. In stepped the seasoned Nick Smith, who waited for the pitch he wanted and laced a drive over the infielders collective grasps, Gaspar hurried home and the game was won (Thanks to JT for remembering this final bit, good thing I was not the go ahead run, with my head that far out of the game).
Johnny (once again, a great game, all heart) kept his head high as we collected the bases, shook hands and wandered off to our lives for another week.
Highlights
*Johnny, too often you get the raw deal in your Complete Games, but you looked good.
*Thanks to everyone who stayed to help finish the game
*Sean, for looking great in his new Evergreen uniform, and pitching three innings of strong close out ball
*Dennis, not the best idea to talk shit to a pitcher when you are in the batter’s box, or ever for that matter.
*Edwin, with a great catch on my hardest hit ball of the day, could have been a double!
*Anthony, also with a much needed catch in right
*Johnny again for the over the shoulder snare in the no man’s land of the infield
*Thanks Tim for squeezing a couple of foul tip third strikes
*Johnny and Greg took me to the woodshed a couple of times, with runners on, thought I was being cagey, turned out I was just foolish
*Some strong in-fielding plays: Gasper, Tony, Chris, and a double off play in the 9th.
*Gaspar recorded 4 of the first six outs for the homers, once again proving his utter versatility
*Nice play on a troubled grounder to the right, JT!
*No Bob, so no HBP…
*Good to see Vivek, short though it was, hope the elbow is healing
*Lattig, once again, there is little chance of stopping him at the plate (but slow curves can do it once, never twice…)
*I muffed a picture perfect double play ball, then dropped it a second time trying to get one, I hate that!
A lot of rain, but we will keep our fingers crossed.
S. Paige
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