I-80 was closed from 5th street to 16th St going south. So all the Bay Bridge traffic had to exit immediately after the bridge. They had warned us about it for a week prior so we knew it was going to be bad. I needed the game badly, and I wanted to bring Charlie out for a game since it had been awhile. I decided the best bet was to take the long cut across the San Mateo bridge. It ended up taking about 90 minutes to make it to the field, but we made it while not sitting in any traffic. Reports from other East Bay players put it at 2+ hours to get across Bay Bridge and to the field, so as far as I can tell, we were just fine.
Beautiful day!
We had 20 players, a welcome change, and when we got to the field, Mitch was throwing lights-out ball in the first inning. He kept on going through the first half of the game, and kept everyone off balance. We were giving up hits, but kept being able to put the brakes on the rally before it got out of hand. Sean was dealing his usual bag of tricks, but we had the bats to keep the ground attack going. Every inning, we were scoring a run or two, and they started to pile up after a while.
By the later innings, it was about 9-0, Patty had replaced Mitch, but the homers were still not getting the breaks they needed. The game had gotten a little despondent, though we were still having fun. There had been an attempt to hijack the game by declaring each run the homers got, counted for 5, but never got the traction it needed.
I came in for the last two innings and did my best to boost morale. The first inning I lucked into some outs, thanks to a good outfield, and in the 9th, the homers finally woke up and started pushing runs across the board. Unfortunately, we had build such a substantial lead by that time that while they made it interesting, they ran out of chances.
Final Score, 11-4, Visitors
Highlights
* We were on a hitting team, and everyone contributed
* Say what you will, the visitors turned 3 double plays on us, to close the gaps when needed.
* Charlie had a great game of one's: 1 hit, 1 run, 1 RBI, 1 put out, 1 stolen base
* A new guy came into pitch for homers that I had not seen before
* My changeup was not fooling anyone
* It was sure nice to have an excess of players
* I had three hits on the day, but only two that I am proud to claim
* Mike Naldony with the deep drive
* The pop out I induced Sean to hit with runners on was my best play
* Good to see Noah out after a long absence
* Same for Adam, who is maintaining that healthy balance of rack star and ordinary Joe
* I have noticed a trend in the MBC games of going for lead runner outs or outs at home, rather than sure-fire force outs. We had two plays of such variety, and both produced outs and better defensive positions in the innings. I am just not sure how I feel about it yet. For a long time it wasn't done because we weren't good enough—or at least not reliable enough. These days we have the talent on both sides of the play. It's a quandary. But a good kind of problem to have, more to come.
