Satch was off in the West, enjoying a relaxing long drive with the family. There is a real slice of heaven in Westcliffe, CO, I can tell you... Mike Lattig was at the game, in fact, he was the game as it turns out, and he filed this report.
When Greg hadn’t heard back from the ‘usual suspects’ who take the gear when he can’t, it was pretty obvious that we were going to be shorthanded this weekend. Add to that the knowledge that Satch is up in the Rockies, having Bob teach his boys to hunt squirrel for dinner. And Anna has joined Nick and his family at their estate (or some such) in Maine. And Urano has disappeared. And… well, you get the picture.
And it was pretty bleak as 3pm approached. At first, it was me, Mitch, and a bunch of gear. Then Adam and Mike N trickled in. Then, John and Arson after a long absence. And HR after time away in the mountains… things were getting intriguing. But we still didn’t have a solid 9, let alone enough for a game.
So we bided our time with some infield. Then started into batting practice when, voila, out of the cornfield came the cavalry. Dan, Don, James, Stoner, and Marcy all made the scene. Giving us an excuse to put the bag of balls away and call it an even 6 on 6. Even better, Marcy got on the horn to secure a couple more participants, who arrived just in time for the 2nd inning.
We decided to keep the outfield to 2 so as to reduce the amount of switching and such, which was about the spirit of the game. Really, not one I was going to write up except for… the no hitter.
Sure, it was just six innings. And sure, we were all in a pretty lackadaisical mood considering the turnout and the encroaching fog. But, as I had told Adam when we were warming up, my arm was feeling good. And boy if that didn’t turn out to be true. The slider had a little extra tilt. The curveball tighter and later breaking than usual. And one by one, the week grounders and pop ups piled up.
I didn’t even know it was happening until we came off the field in the fifth and I was planning to hand the ball over to HR. But once we figured out that, indeed, there had not been a hit - just two base runners from errant throws on cleanly fielded ground balls - I had to go out for the sixth.
And right out of the gate, Marcy smacked a line drive up the middle. I thought the fun was over, but Dan had her shaded, fielded it on one hop, and made the throw. Then Marcy’s friend (sorry to forget her name, it was her first time swinging a bat and she made contact both times up!) came up and knocked one right back to me for out number two.
Up came Mike N, who had the only really hard hit ball of the game leading off. But it was a liner to left, where Mitch was waiting. For the first time all game my command faltered, and Mike had to wait out the first two walks of the game before grounding one to short - which hopped up on dan and went off his glove then chest. A ‘hit or error’ debate ensued. And two pitches later, after another week groundball out by John, we decided it must have been an error. The no hitter was complete!
- Shoutout to John for towing the rubber for the other team and consistently throwing strikes. We were pretty light on pitching, and Mike N had to catch. So in lieu of sending Adam, Stone, Marcy, or James to the mound, the game was his from start to finish…
- Mitch continued to rake, getting us off to a quick start that we never looked back from. Maybe it ended 8-0 or so?
- Don was a vacuum at third for our side, contributing greatly to the no hitter
- Arson called a great game, really understanding when the curve and slider would best be deployed
- I’ve apparently developed a bad habit of not running out groundballs. I’ll have to rectify that…
Same time and place next week. Hope to see more of you there!
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