The rally hawk was in pure form on Sunday, he swooped and dived through the game, tussled with a crow, and snatched a gopher out of a hole and flew around showing off his kill to the game. Unfortunately, the dynamics of the game were similar, my team was definitely the gopher.
On paper, we were a dangerous bunch, even if there were only 7 of us, and the game was saved from being a 13-man affair by the arrival of John Carey. But we had Lattig, Duane, Mitch, Adam, Tony, me and new guy Ken, who is the Rambler from the East Coast game that Dave emailed us about. I would take that team any day of the week. But we couldn't field or hit our way to anything. All day.
Cap tip to Sonny for a masterful complete game, he kept us off balance and the one time we strung some runs together to tie the game, it was short lived. The other team, comprised of Sonny, Bob, John C., Elvin, Chris, Abe, and James, capitalized on every error we made, and played a tight game of defense. It was the difference.
I don't want to take away anything from the homers, they had some big hits, but we should never have been in the position for them to hurt us as much as they did. We had a plethora of pop flies that fell in between two fielders, overthrown plays at first, and one very suspicious misplay in right field.
I threw the whole game as well, and felt good, it was nice to know that my elbow issue has, for the moment, subsided, though I kept it at about 65% the whole game. Great to get in a full game though.
We were down 3-0 by the end of the second inning, and we roared back to tie it up but that was the last time that we ever got anything close to a rally. The score kept mounting, 5-3, 8-3, and we didn't or couldn't answer back.
In true Titanic versus the iceberg style, the game ended on a short fisted bloop that James crashed in from third, caught in the tip of his glove, then fired to first to hang me out to dry, as I was stuck in no man's land waiting to see if he caught it or dropped it, which would have forced me to run.
The final score: 10-4.
Highlights:
*The mystery of his successes continues, but can't take away from the face that Sonny pitched a hell of a game
* Chris Powell hit the ball hard all day
* I had a great battery mate in Mitch, but I think we lost some of the integrity of our outfield
* We ripped the ball a few times, but the wind killed it
* Lattig was stranded on base at least 4 times, he came up with 2 out hits all day and we couldn't help
* Elvin was my angel of death all day, hitting left handed, I would get 2 strikes on him, and then he would bloop one right in the middle of everyone
* No one killed the slackliner that was practicing in the left field foul area
* Bob and Mitch did great as the sole catchers of the day
* I picked Elvin off at first, as he stood slightly off the base talking to Adam, and then took a lead, while I was nowhere near the rubber. It also helped that I threw the ball to the space in between him and the base.
* Sonny also came up big for his team with a double and a couple of RBIs
* Abe was thrown out by Mitch at third, by a significant margin, something that surprised us all
* Adam, by his own description, contributed very little in every arena
* Tony managed to get a few hits, but is still not comfortable running, evident when he was unable or unwilling to take an easy 2nd base after his hit
* I think our team gave 3 free bases on out of bounds overthrows at first
* We need to make a concerted effort to enforce the slide rule and /or teach Elvin how to slide. As Mitch said, otherwise someone is going to get hurt. When there is a play, sliding is the safest course, especially in a friendly game such as ours. It protects the fielder from full body collisions, unintentional though they might be, and directs the play away from the head and body to a much safer ground level.
For those that are more visual learners:
http://www.wikihow.com/Perform-a-Baseball-Slide
S. Paige
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