I've played approximately 1900 softball games since 2000. That's about 120 a year on average. A little embarrassing - how could I possibly have a life outside softball with that much time on the field and writing the blog, and getting players, and doing stats, and all the other trivial duties of being a softball slut.
Well, maybe I do or maybe I don't have a full life, but once in a while you play a game that is tense and dramatic, and tautly played, and you just wonder why it can't always be like that.
Tuesday night, Transdyn came into the game in the doldrums. One and four. One season after going undefeated and bumped up to the Upper League, we couldn't get enough players on the field, almost literally at times. We hung in there - we lost four games by a total of thirteen runs. We just couldn't turn the corner and play up to our abilities.
Sons of Pitches came in confident. Although they had a 29-29 tie with the Ringers, their other games (which they won) were not close. They are the token tournament team, they just come out for batting practice like many other teams that play the rec circuit. In this scenario, we could have just folded up and given it up.
Instead we played one of the tautest games we have in a long while. The game featured five lead changes - the cry of "Lead Change" rang out of both dugouts at times. In the end it was Tom shutting them down by mixing up front and back, short and tall, and in and out, and keeping them just enough off balance. And making great plays on the mound. You see they went up the middle far more than we did, even though later their SS was crying about it when Jason hit one off their pitcher's glove.
And the rest of the team made all the routine plays, and a couple of great ones - Brian made one of the ESPN highlight stops of the year deep in the 3-4 hole, and even nailed the lead runner at second. Cage threw out a runner gunning for second, but not sliding, by a hair. In the mean time, the Sons made a few gaffs, especially on the infield to gift us a few runs. In fact that was really the difference right there.
The Sons probably thought they had the game as they started to solve Tom in the middle of the game and plated four in the fifth and sixth to take the lead once again at 11-9. But after the middle of our lineup produced the game winning rally (to take the final lead of 12-11), in the top of the seventh he shut them down and even though we had the heart of the lineup coming up in the bottom we had no need for further heroics.
The big hits were booming doubles by Berto and D. Cage also slashed a double down the left field line, and Coop had a twister double over the right fielder's head to start a rally in the fifth. One of the highlights was a warning track sacrifice fly from D with runners on second and third. I was coaching third and I didn't bother trying to stop Brian coming from second - I could see the fire in his eyes that he was going to score - and he did. Two ribs for D.
But it was the little ball rally from Mark, Pauly, Heffe, Chopper, and Coop that finished the scoring to put it away. Everyone contributed in this game.
Afterwards you could tell players from both teams felt that this was one of those games in which it was great to have a part. And amazing things can happen if we could just get our team whole on the field - playoffs are not out of reach if we play like this every week.
Milestones:
9/8
Cage 500 h (#5)
Chopper 100 h (#22)
9/15
D 20 sf (#5)
Tom 100 h (#23)
Well, maybe I do or maybe I don't have a full life, but once in a while you play a game that is tense and dramatic, and tautly played, and you just wonder why it can't always be like that.
Tuesday night, Transdyn came into the game in the doldrums. One and four. One season after going undefeated and bumped up to the Upper League, we couldn't get enough players on the field, almost literally at times. We hung in there - we lost four games by a total of thirteen runs. We just couldn't turn the corner and play up to our abilities.
Sons of Pitches came in confident. Although they had a 29-29 tie with the Ringers, their other games (which they won) were not close. They are the token tournament team, they just come out for batting practice like many other teams that play the rec circuit. In this scenario, we could have just folded up and given it up.
Instead we played one of the tautest games we have in a long while. The game featured five lead changes - the cry of "Lead Change" rang out of both dugouts at times. In the end it was Tom shutting them down by mixing up front and back, short and tall, and in and out, and keeping them just enough off balance. And making great plays on the mound. You see they went up the middle far more than we did, even though later their SS was crying about it when Jason hit one off their pitcher's glove.
And the rest of the team made all the routine plays, and a couple of great ones - Brian made one of the ESPN highlight stops of the year deep in the 3-4 hole, and even nailed the lead runner at second. Cage threw out a runner gunning for second, but not sliding, by a hair. In the mean time, the Sons made a few gaffs, especially on the infield to gift us a few runs. In fact that was really the difference right there.
The Sons probably thought they had the game as they started to solve Tom in the middle of the game and plated four in the fifth and sixth to take the lead once again at 11-9. But after the middle of our lineup produced the game winning rally (to take the final lead of 12-11), in the top of the seventh he shut them down and even though we had the heart of the lineup coming up in the bottom we had no need for further heroics.
The big hits were booming doubles by Berto and D. Cage also slashed a double down the left field line, and Coop had a twister double over the right fielder's head to start a rally in the fifth. One of the highlights was a warning track sacrifice fly from D with runners on second and third. I was coaching third and I didn't bother trying to stop Brian coming from second - I could see the fire in his eyes that he was going to score - and he did. Two ribs for D.
But it was the little ball rally from Mark, Pauly, Heffe, Chopper, and Coop that finished the scoring to put it away. Everyone contributed in this game.
Afterwards you could tell players from both teams felt that this was one of those games in which it was great to have a part. And amazing things can happen if we could just get our team whole on the field - playoffs are not out of reach if we play like this every week.
Milestones:
9/8
Cage 500 h (#5)
Chopper 100 h (#22)
9/15
D 20 sf (#5)
Tom 100 h (#23)
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