3/17/13 Cop Field

The semi finals of the World Baseball Classic proved to be a sticky wicket for the MBC this week, but we made do and managed to have almost a complete game.  With 20 to start with, the homers went with Satch on the mound and Greg behind the plate, and that was how it stayed for the duration.  The visitors countered with a wily and dealing Johnny Bartlett who went almost as long until he gave it up to Carter Rockwell for the last gasps.

The big news was that there was a baseball reunion of sorts, three of the players from the Evergreen State College baseball team of Olympia, WA, other wise known as Sean, John and Will.  Apparently they had a real good run as a squad and won exactly 0 games in their college career.  Monumental.






Sean promised that we could have a Evergreen style blowout in the making, and when we committed 7 errors in one inning, I began to believe as well.  The visitors lineup was a real Murderers Freeway, anchored by the return and seemingly invincible Rick Kvoriak.  Rick drove a challenge fastball of mine so far to left field that I had to second guess whether I had mixed myself up and not thrown what I thought I threw.  But unfortunately  I did. And he tattooed it.  Also in the line up, Lattig, Bob, Phelps, Bartlett, Ed, Nero, Carter, Richie, Duane.  Not as easy out in the bunch.   We were relying on Chris Powell to score our runs, which he did until he had to leave, the score at the time being 7-2?

However, as Greg reminded us, there is no safe lead in MBC, which proved to be a blessing and a curse, as we started hitting and the visitors started muffing, and we ran the score back to tied, then proceeded to see-saw the lead back and forth.  The clock watchers started to get nervous that they were going to miss the WBC game, so we tried our best to play efficient ball, and get in a full 9.  With a neck an neck ballgame in the bottom of the 7th, with about 20 minutes to go, Greg suggested that we give the visitors 6 outs and whatever the outcome, we take it from there.  Seemed like a good idea, and the visitors responded by running a number of tallies across the plate, they were two up by the end.

We got our final ups, and were debating whether we would need our 6 outs, but hit begat hit, as Carter struggled with control, and half of our team left so we had 6 people hitting and we found ourselves tied up, with 1 out and the bases loaded.

Yours truly at the plate, and then it got ugly.

I completely shanked a ball to the right side, Duane called for it, just as Doc called the infield fly rule.  Duane caught it, turned to first, at which point John McG decided to give chaos a chance and raced for home.  Duane caught by surprise, still managed a great throw, and somehow John, who didn't slide, got his foot on the edge of the plate right before Ed applied the tag.  Arguments mounted, but Doc made the call.  Game over.  And for the record, I do not get the RBI on that.  I think it is one of those stats that get lost in the miasma.  A strange way to end a good game.  Final 13-12.

Highlights:

* Thanks to all that came out and stayed out, hopefully you enjoyed yourselves

* Kvoriak and Powell get to share the Long Bomb award.

* My team really got on me for not scoring on a passed ball, that I admit I should have, however, the throw from the backstop from Ed went past Carter and I scored anyway. All in the plan, gentleman.

* Johnny pitched a hell of a game and struck me out with the eephus

* We averaged about 5 errors per inning for the first 5 frames.

* Red Sox Will had a rough outing in left, I thought it was the sun and offered my shades, but he said it was just cuz he missed them.  Honesty.

* The visitors stifled us with a great double play

* With only 6 batters, I almost had the chance to score myself on a hit.

* Phelps was late and left early.  AOY emeritus.

* Nero is currently sporting the Oscar Gamble look.

* Bob did not get hit, but he did swing a a first pitch knuckleball to end the inning. Wah wahhhh.

* John of the Evergreen did his team proud, and had a couple of nice hits

* My team had some trouble with the have it around

* I had a single cum double on the weirdest, highest bad hop in left.  I was glad that it didn't take Bob's head off, it went from a 1.5' bounce to a 7' bounce.

* Good to see some old faces again

* Richie snared a seriously hit line drive to kill our rally

* Someone's car got dented in the cop parking lot.

* Doc put in another great outing as umpire.  We have to keep him close by though, once he gets into a conversation with someone when we are warming up, by the time we are ready to start he's half way through a story.

Thanks for the good time, it may be another few weeks until I can make it out again.

S. Paige