10/21/12 West Sunset

10/21/12 West Sunset

                Seventeen showed up and waited for a league game to end. A crisis was averted as the league umpire called the game a tie after an agonizing 4 or 5 run 9th inning where the batting team got only one hit, a leadoff single.

                Sean took the ball for the homers, he didn’t give up a hit for three innings.. Staked to a 4 run lead after one, he kept the visitors down, but did not hold them scoreless. He ended up giving up only two aided by 2 runners thrown out at home.

               

                Carter threw for the visitors and was bled for 4 runs in the first. Mostly dinks and dunks, but it did look like it was going to be a long afternoon for the younger Rockwell. He did recover to shut down the lefty heavy line up (M. Lattig, M. Gaspar, Sean, Rich and Tony). Carter gave up no more runs in a total of 6 innings. Red Sox Will pitched the 7th and Mitch the 8th, with no damage.

                Tony Relieved Sean, in the 6th or 7th and gave up a single run in his last inning. Rockwell the elder, came in for the last inning. After 2 outs, Mitch reached by beating out a grounder, stole second and third before I grounded out to end a very good game. 4-3 Homers.

Highlights

*The weather was not miserable as I had anticipated

*I don’t think any of us mentioned to Tony what the score of the Giant’s game was, even though a few of us knew.

*I was thrown out on the bases via a pickle. No, no, I wasn’t picked off, but was on 2nd when an apparent double play ball was hit, but Rich decided to throw behind the runner at third after the force at second. He may be better at baseball than we thought.

*Carter was HBP. His new-Bob status is secure.

*Lattig was hit by a carom off the backstop. No new count was awarded.

*Gaspar threw Red Sox Will (can we get him a new name) out at the plate from right.

*I hit the ball OFF THE WALL. Ok, it rolled there after bad routes taken by the center and right fielders. Suffice to say, I HIT THE BALL OFF THE WALL (disclaimer: it may not have made it all the way to the wall)

*There were a lot of strike-outs on both sides.

*Not many errors, maybe 2 unearned runs out to the 7 total.

*There may have been, but I don’t remember any outfield put outs.

* Apparently Sean, as a firstbaseperson, only needs to pay attention to the final 1.75 seconds of any ground out.

*Hat tip to Greg for reminding me to take pitches as Mitch stole his way around the bases in the 9th. “I shold have stole home,” lamented Mitch after the game

* Rockwell got the loss and Rockwell got the save. 

9/30/12 West Sunset

An Amazing day for baseball, the A's were not yet the champions of the West, but were well on the way.  The sun was shining, the field and the mound were in great condition, and we had 20 hardy souls out for some Sunday baseball.

Classic match up of Sean and Satch, and we dueled it out for a good 6 innings.  A low scoring affair for both sides, as we relied on solid defense and the occasional strike out.  Sean was resplendent in his high school uniform, a cunning ruse, as it blinded all those who gazed upon it for too long.  The teams were fairly evenly split, with some new guys filling on both sides.

Neither team scored a run fora while, and we visitors finally did get on the board, it was through some old fashioned shitty fielding, in true MBC style.  Loren provided the pop to score the runs, dropped ground balls provided the runners in the first place.  The sun played hell with the outfielders all day, but more about that later.

The homers notched their own rally, and we were tied at 2 going into the home stretch.  Sean conceded the horsehide to Tony Rojas, who was mixing it all up, side arm, top arm, underarm, arm and hammer, you name it.  Satch stayed in and battled through, helped by more than a few sub-10 pitch innings.

In the 7th, we took the lead, and started to get excited about the prospect of a close win.  Our team had started to unfocus however, missing a throw down in warm ups was the shift in momentum, from there on things went down hill.

The Bottom of the 9th however,  the wheels came off of our defense, and we watched as the homers strung together a rally created from a strong double by Chris, and about 5 missed out opportunities, mostly foul balls that we couldn't get to or couldn't see.

Winning turned to losing as the homers swept us aside and took the prize for themselves on a glorious sunny day, Final 4-3.

Highlights:

* That fucking uniform

* Bob got hit in the leg, when Tony's side arm went sideways

* Adam's dink over the drawn in infield was perfectly placed

* The knuckleball was really working

* Satch went K-Mitch in the 3rd, barehanded a play at first, well, if you look at my hands, they are basically as big as a baseball glove anyway

* Thanks to Nick for the pics

* The new guy in right made some great plays

* Tim came out for the first time in a while, and wore his MBC uniform!

* We almost completed the 4 out inning

* Visitors really hustled to beat throws all day, which was one of the reasons we scored any runs, our hitting was not spectacular

* Milo did a great job of bouncing back from getting smashed in the teeth with a baseball.  Theo did not understand what the problem was....

* We had a nice line out double play, started by Duane

* I finally got back in the hitting mood, with a double and a crazy hopping single that hit the lip and changed direction by a good 40 degrees.

* JT's car took one for the team, our first MBC casualty, feel free to contribute to the JT Windshield Relief Fund.

* Just a great day of baseball, thanks to everyone who came out

S. Paige