3/11/12 Big Rec

Ahhh, Spring....

A return to the big time, for some of us it was the first game ever at Big Rec, as we have shied away in the last few years, due to traffic, parking, etc.  It was nice to have people watching our little game, and we had a drunken heckler, which was a first in a while too.  The day was amazing, warm, humid, cool for about five minutes, and then muggy.  Daylight savings made it seem like a long game, but it was a tidy 3 hours, with an extra.

We had 18 show up (19 with a late appearance by Loren), and a nice split of talent between the two teams.  Brian Phelps and Noah started on the bump and did some real nice battling.  The visiting squad jumped all over us homers, and ran up a big lead by the 3rd, somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-1.  Ouch. The drunken heckler had some legitimate points, as we threw the ball around, let it roll past us in the outfield, and in general, had trouble getting the third out.

However, baseball is a long endeavor, and anything can happen, especially in a MBC game.  We homers started our comeback, and with a error and poke rally of our own, we closed the gap to 7-5 by the middle innings.  Satch came in for the long save in the 4th and took it the rest of the way, in an effort at last glory before what looks like a month of "other" time.  We tied it up round about the 6th and then inched forward with the lead.

Noah kept battling, but eventually handed the pill over to Dustin Skiles, who did not do his usual overpowering schtick.  We kept tacking on runs, helped in turn by the visitors turn at throwing the ball around and muffing ground balls.  By the end of the game it was us homers who were ahead by 6 runs, and that's how it ended, just in time for the sun to finally disappear and the chill to set in.  Final 15-9.

Highlights:

* Duane had a three run home run, which was pretty awesome

* Adam Pfahler had a base clearing double that really put the game out of reach

* Noah pitched his heart out

* All the catchers did a great job of blocking all day

* I hit Bob with a slow curve, making it an official game.

* Elvin came out after a long absence and made a great catch, and had a nice hit

* Phil Snyder was out gathering photos and making his brother nervous in the batters box

* Another infield fly rule play, that we all recognized.

* Jay had a big rip on a legit curve ball, should have gone with my catcher

* Phelps took third on a heads up base running play, got to cover those bags people

* Scott came out after a long absence, his throwing style has gotten even more submarine in nature, and he had a nice hit that was unfortunately, Mitched

* Long lost Rob came out too, resplendent in neon green soccer cleats (yikes) and made a nice grab in right and had two hits

* The visitors turned a nice double play and had a home to first that almost worked.

* Loren had a nice drive

* The change-up really ruined a lot of people's at bats, I had a couple of innings where the ball never got out of the infield

* The Pink bat got a lot of use

* It wasn't all errors, a lot of people had some real nice contact

* I had a 1.000 OBP, my first four were all hit to the exact same place, with varying degrees of velocity

* The 1st and 3rd dupe didn't work out, as I got picked off on purpose, but then Ed was gunned down at the plate

* Line of the day:
Drunk Heckler- You guys are like the Bad News Bears,
Adam- You're like Walter Matthau in the Bad News Bears....

* The game ended on a screaming line drive come backer...glad I caught it

* I played JT's opposite field line drive perfectly, much to his chagrin

* All our thoughts for a speedy recovery are with old timer and MBC original, Doc Maggrane.

S. Paige