A strange day for sure, it was sunny, and warm-ish, but with gale like wind bursts. I lost my hat about 9 times off the pitchers mound.
Also strange because at last count we have approximately 70 people on the email list and at 3:07 only 10 people had showed up for the game. We cobbled together 12 and started a Havana 6, which worked until Chris Powell and John McG and a guy named Casey showed up. Johnny was pitching for the homers and Satch went to work for the visitors, in a pre-SQ warm up. The wind was pushing so much, I figured all I could do with the fastball is hurt myself, so I threw a lot of change ups, which the wind did a great job of pushing around. Johnny was solid as usual.
The game was close for the first inning or so. Then the homers really went to work, and by the 4th inning it was a kind 12-4. Our team had some trouble with the defense, and I had some trouble giving up big hits. But we seemed to muddle through and at times, were down right solid ourselves.
After a hurling a pitch, Johnny's game eye fetched loose and went blurry and we were all understandably concerned. Hopefully it has cleared itself, but a scary incident. Mitch came in for pitching duty and did well, he said his arm felt alive for the first time in quite a while. Will mopped up the last inning.
I bowed out after 6 and handed the pill to John McG, who is working on his style and accuracy, and he did a great job after he settled down. By that point, the score was probably 18-4, so throwing lots of strikes was all we all we were interested in.
The game ended with sliding catch in center field, made by Casey. It was briefly questioned as a trap, but nope, we were just out and the game was over.
Highlights:
* Bob got hit, first in a while
* I managed to really screw the pooch with bases loaded and got through two counts, and then popped up in the infield. Real ugly.
* Mitch was Mitched, joining an auspicious club
* Powell caught my monstrous rip to center field, as payback for striking him out...then I struck him out again
* Hank had another full day of batting
* Daniel made some much needed plays in the outfield
* Greg just missed his chance at the 3 fastballs I threw him
* We had some confused base runners
* The wind helped me throw a curve that broke about 4 feet
* Daniel had a rough outing from the left side, for the first time.
* We did a good job of not throwing the ball around too much, in our long innings where the first out eluded us.
* The visitors also had a great, cutoff man relay to get an out at the plate
* Jimmy hoovered up a lot at 3rd
* We all got our exercise for the first three innings, covering defense, then batting, running the bases and the back out to the field
* Sonny Smith, one of the MBC pioneers, came out and played well for a man without cleats.
* I had a defensive game, one on a great play by Hank at first to stop a ball, and me racing as hard as I could to cover, arm span at full reach to catch the ball and tag the bag and I made a sliding catch in the no man zone of the infield, when we needed an out, badly.
Into the gates of San Quentin ride the valiant 12 this Wednesday. Shivs and sunflower seeds are not allowed.
S. Paige
No comments:
Post a Comment