Apparently attendance has been light for the past few weeks,
so if you are reading, this start making plans to come play on Sunday and not
go to brunch with your significant others friends from the South Bay, who you
really don't care about anyway and who will be 30 minutes late and then talk
about their trouble with finding suitable and trustworthy dog walkers the whole
time.
Nothing could have been more appropriate on a Father's Day
to have the younger generation figure in the game and figure greatly they
did. Aiden, Liam and John all played
like All Stars, made some amazing defensive plays and in general made us feel
like we were part of something pretty damn special. Mitch and Satch squared off on the bump, both
going the distance and both keeping the game within reason through a mastery of
defense and gutsy pitches. I can say for
my part that the defensive skills of Aiden, Liam and John went a long way in
making this a close game. Aiden’s first
catch seemed like a lucky break, in that he caught it instead of being killed
by it (a frozen rope that curved into his glove). His second was a rollicking backwards leap
that surprised everyone, Aiden included, who confessed his eyes were closed in
the last second. Not to be outdone, the
next inning, Liam gets a high, windy fly ball that he tracks down with confidence
and aplomb. An inning after that, John
Carey makes a diving catch in the no man’s land of left-center, I tell ya, it
was a thing to behold. I know Bob and John M. were proud papas. Not bad for an outfield that ranged in age
from 9-15?
For the first 8 innings, the teams were pretty tight, we
both scored 1 run in the early part of the game, and that held for a few, then
the visitors went up and then the homers scored and there we were cruising into
the 8th and it wasn’t even 5 pm yet!
The homers were pretty stacked with hitters though and it was only a matter
of time before the defensive odds caught up with us. Not coincidentally, Rick K., another father
who rarely gets Sunday playtime was also out and was a sizable contributor to
the game, including the laziest triple in recent history.
With a 4-2 lead in the 9th, we visitors felt we
had things fairly locked down, but no lead is safe, and with a misplayed
infield pop up and then a barrage of hits, the homers came back, tied it up,
then Mitch (who had been robbed several times in his at bats) stroked one up the
middle and the homers were victorious 5-4.
Quidam id mihi damno ludos.
Highlights
*
Defense!
*
The grass in the infield killed every ground ball
* Mitch
pitched a hell of a game and deserved the win.
* Explaining
the Gaspar shift to the kids proved to go against everything they had learned
about the game up to that point
* First
game I pitched in shorts ( I left my baseball pants on the garage floor) since
the infamous post-Bay to Breakers game of 2003.
* There
were some very close plays at first, John Carey was HUSTLING!
* For
not coming out often, Rick was on the ball as usual, including a texas leaguer
that fell due to the outfield was playing him at 490.
*
Satch and Greg, Strike ‘em out, pick ‘em
off, that was pretty awesome
*
Liner back to me, almost knocked the glove off.
The hand doesn’t hurt today though, so that is something
*
There were an inordinate amount of line drives right at people
* I
love a quick tight game.
*
Duane isn’t swinging at my curveball anymore, making it much more difficult to
get him out…
* I
threw one of the nastiest knucklers in history to Gaspar, for strike
three. Unfortunately so nasty that Greg couldn’t
handle it either and Mike made it to first.
* Happy
Father’s Day to all of you
Post
Script
Tony
Gwynn died today at 54. He was that true
jewel that loved the game and it loved him back, pure and honest. How many players these days will play for
only one team in their career? A
cautionary tale in smokeless tobacco use. RIP Mr. Padre.
