Monday, July 26, 2010

7/25/10- Cop Field

Another real barn burner of a game, we had exactly 18 players, and everyone gave it their all, I must say. While I was on the losing side of the diamond, it was exciting to be a part of this game, and that is sometimes better than winning (although James might disagree).

Blustery day, but with pockets of sun here and there, but definitely July sleeves weather in SF. Satch and Sean squared off again in a classic match up, Sean was fresh from a limited session last week, and man did he dominate. We couldn't seem to string two hits together and while the defense was a little screwy now and then, he pitched his way out of some good jams. Estimates of Satch's pitching performance put the K's at around 10-12 for the day, which felt good, the problem was that every ground ball I got, seemed to take the worlds worst hop before it reached the infielder. A tailor made double play ricocheted into the outfield, Edwin's easy hopper suddenly gained 20 mph and bounced off his shin. This is no to say that the visitors didn't do their share of hitting, having Richie, Lattig, Mitch and Sean to face in a row was less than pleasant.

We homers scored first, with a frozen Adam Pfhaler getting a second chance after neglecting to go home on a ground ball, but the visitors promptly took back the lead and and we see-sawed for a few innings, tied it all up in the 4th, then the visitors took the lead, 5-4 and never looked back.

The score stood 9-4 for a few innings, and we started to get despondent, but a hit, an important walk by Satch (hey there's nothing that says we can't take a walk if we want to....) and some errors by the visitors, and we were right back in the game, by the top of the 9th, it was 9-8, and we were positioned for a great comeback. But, instead we choked and went down meekly 1,2,3, Satch providing the final out with a squibber up the 1st base line. Sean had his victory, well earned. James had another loss, and a new haircut, Satch had 9 innings of work and a blister.

But, hey, where else would any of us want to be?

Highlights

* The powerhouse of the visitors provided some big doubles and triples

* Ben was the trickster of the day, I got him 0-2 twice, and then he managed line drives to right, got to find a new out pitch

* Gaspar and Adam both had epic battles with Sean, and unfortunately Sean won both times

* Double plays for the visitors!

* For every bad hop we had, the other team got the cleanest ground balls....

* More foul balls when people are stealing, swinging while there is a runner is a practice that works when we are 9 years old or MLB, but not in between.

* Gaspar gunned two guys at third, lightning quick!

* Gaspar also beat out a close play at 1st, then came around the paths to slide into home on another close play and just barely got under the tag

* Tony had the biggest hit of the game for us, actually coming through with extra bases and men on
* No win for James, but karmically he has to be doing pretty good having donated 2 years worth of hair growth to the Lock of Love organization. And now he doesn't have to look like a dirty hippy anymore too!

* Curve ball is working again, and I threw a sidearm ball, since I didn't want to feel left out. And a submarine knuckleball which is just silly.

Final SQ game coming up, but for now, same place same time

S. Paige

PS
Here is a couple of photos of the our local bon vivant, Johnny Bartlett, educating the Paris frogs on what the MBC is all about. Send me pictures you have of your MBC pride, and I'll post 'em!




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