1/27/13 West Sunset

It was a great day out in the sunny yet frigid field of West Sunset.  If one were to take and examine a picture of the day, it would have appeared to be July, except everyone had four layers of clothing on.  We had 18 brave souls out for what proved to be a pretty damned exciting game.  Johnny and Carter started out hurling, with Doc behind the dish giving out the balls and strikes.  The teams seemed fairly well matched, we certainly had enough versatility on each team so no one got stuck having to play any one position the whole game.

The crispness of the day lent itself to the bats, and line drives were the main course.  The wind was curiously strong (and cold) and anything that got up into the air was pushed all over the place, and sometimes straight down.  So we made do with short drives and ground balls.  After 4 innings of work, Johnny gave up the bump to Satch, who was ready and willing to throw as many as anyone would let me.  And as it turned out, that was a lot.  I ended up going the rest of the game and into legitimate extra innings.  Phelps came in for the visitors and then the mop up artist, G. Snyder.

The game itself was pretty amazing, not a particularly high scoring affair by MBC standards, but the way that we went back and forth, each team had the lead, lost the lead, tied it up, ahead, behind, tied.  It was a true see-saw battle.  There were more than a few judgement calls on foul/fair, out/safe that we didn't realize would play a major part of the outcome later.  

By the end of regulation play, we were deadlocked at 6-6. 

An inning of nothing.  

Then the visitors came alive and pounced on the homers for three runs and that seemed like all it would take to finally end this thrilling (and chilling) spectacle.  But sure enough, we homers were not about to go down with out a fight, and we managed to thread together a rally of our own, and tie the game up again, turned away from the victory at the last moment by a well caught fly ball.  

9-9.  

We debated playing more, but we had already lost a few players, everyone was done, and the real cold was descending rapidly, so we reserved the right to play it out a later date, called it a tie and hustled to our cars to turn on the heat.

Highlights:

* I bought a Shoeless Joe Jackson Model bat at WC Sports, and it is awesome.  I hit the ball hard all day, and it has one of the best sounds when it connects

* Sean made some great stretch plays at 1st

* Mitch got to some of those aforementioned fly balls that died in the wind, that no one else would have

* Maybe the hardest hit ball I had all day, died in the wind and Tony moved three feet and caught it

* Bob is officially a baseball magnet, he was HBP x2, HBFoul, almost HBFoul again

* Adam owned me all day, every time I thought I had him, he'd get a hit

* I owe Doc an apology for pissing and moaning a bit on the mound.  But some of those pitches were preeeeettttttttty good.

* Loren's gf bought out a blanket this time, smart girl

* Mike Gaspar managed to confound a pitcher enough that he eventually took his free pass

* Ed played while his two boys circled him in the outfield

* The line drive double play was a big sigh of relief

* Bob hit a ball so hard it refused to be pushed down by the wind

* Phelps did too

* A foul ball that Johnny was after at 3rd, almost was pushed fair by the wind!

* Both teams (especially the visitors) had a number of bases loaded, and only one or no-one scored innings, so many killed rallies. All the defense work of the game was pretty stellar!

* Next week is 11 am start, in deference of that other thing.  Just remember: