A little
late, but lots going on outside baseball these days. The game was great, classic old school
Mission baseball, complete with replacements, late team changes, complete games
and people on injured appendages making plays.
The teams
seemed a little lopsided, and indeed they may have been, given that we had five
pitchers and four catcher on one side, out of 16 people. After the first inning, we swapped out an AOY
for a player to balance the sides and that seemed to kind of be ok. As you can see, the exact memories are a
litte murky for me right now, but gimme a break, I can't remember what I had
for lunch yesterday.
The best
part of the day was that Jen and Dani came out and both played, and I believe
both had hits and RBI's! Dani was
sporting her fancy Terminator-like knee brace that apparently is to protect and
support her knee reconstruction. So of
course the logical thing to do in that situation is play 9 innings of
hardball. Glad that I was warned after I
threw a pitch that bounced close to the leg.
She also had a bunt that would have been perfect if she had actually
bunted it rather than chopping it, it was fielded by D. Skiles who is coming
off his own knee rehab assignment, the glory of Mission baseball, hobbled
warrior against hobbled warrior.
I think it
was Phelps pitching for the homers, with Sean as his relief, starting how the
lefties seem to stick together, some sort of cabal I think. Whoever it was, we had a real tidy game going
into the first few innings, your classic score and scratch a run. Satch was
pitching for the visitors, and Satch closed the game too, after more than a few
weeks off, it was a pleasure.
Round about
the 5th inning, we had "the inning."
Suddenly, we couldn't get an out to save our lives. More dribbled and bobbled balls than we knew
what to do with. But as all bad innings
must, this too came to an end eventually, and we made back the difference an
inning later when the homer had their own piece of bad luck. The score and the inning was a little hard to
track at times, but I think we did alright.
The final-
14-7?
Highlights:
* The
defense was stellar for most of the game on both sides
* Sean
called his damn shot and then put it right where he said he would. I guess as long as you do that, you can't be
punished. Or can you?
* I had a
nifty slow motion catch of a pop up in no man's land behind the mound. Glad I didn't step on a spare ball
* First game
in a while that Greg didn't catch at all
* My last
inning was 95% knuckleballs
* Jen had a
knack for stepping way out of the box on her first swing, and then the second
swing stepping right at me and slapping the ball. The whole game, I kept being on the verge of
saying something, and then she kept stopping me by doing the right thing
without any advice. Great job, hope this
means you will keep coming out.
* We had a
situation ripe for a squeeze and no way to communicate beyond yelling down to
the runner, "Hey, SQUEEZE play!" We need one sign, just for that.
* Mike
Lattig was unstoppable at the plate
* Tony has
to work the next few Sundays. Major
bummer.
* Hardest
hit ball of the game was right to somebody.
* AOY
attendance was high, and discussion of next year's inductee is already
underway.
* Elvin was
blamed for a few things. Too bad he
wasn't there to defend himself.
* We are
hopeful with each passing Sunday that we are closer to the reappearance of
Johnny Bartlett, who is doing great by all accounts! Hooray!
S. Paige
