Red Finish Undefeated, 19-17 over Navy

As I sit here twelve hours later, one sight and one sound stand out from today's game between the best two Creaker teams this half. One was exhilarating, and the other was a dud.

The sight was the end of the game. After Red let the seemingly unsinkable Navy storm back to tie us at 17 going into the bottom of the eighth, and we took a precarious two run lead going into the unlimited ninth, Navy had a couple runners on with one out. Even though we had last ups, the game was hanging in the balance.

Crack - a sharp grounder up the middle. Tony Gorgone, our second baseman lunged to his right and on one hop stabbed at the ball, backhanded, and it stuck in his glove. He flipped it to Al Kidwell covering second, and Al fired as hard as he could to first. The runner was out by two steps, game over. It happened so fast, it was hard to believe at first. Then everyone slapped hands and agreed we all something great go down.

The sound was much earlier in the game. It didn't make much sense we were playing on Field 3 with Field 5 open, and I had a sense of dread that our last two games were there, what with the harsh penalty for hitting one over the fence. It proved to be prescient. James Del Rio came up in the third, and tried to hit a line drive to the opposite field. But he got a little under it, and it hit the top of the fence. But instead of dropping back down onto the field of play, it kept going, and the sound is ball hitting wood - thwack! - it next hit the telephone pole sticking above the fence and then slid down on the other side.

We will see what Leadership decides - the rule simply states that the player is suspended, with no guideline for how long. It does not even say he is suspended for the entirety of the game. I may be biased, but I personally would hope that the Creakers would want all teams at full strength for the playoffs. If I were our opponent, I would want to beat the best the other team has to offer. It's not like Del Rio picked a fight or cheated or performed any other criminal act - he merely hit a ball too hard on a field not designed to be played on with Senior bats in the hands of powerful men.

Navy jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first but we answered with five, highlighted by Del Rio's triple. In the third, before the dreaded 'out' by Del Rio, Mark Pitzlin hit a gapper to right center good for two runs. After Randy Crase plated Mark, we had built a 9-4 lead. It closed up to 11-8 in the next inning but after a shutdown top of the sixth, the top of the lineup again produced five. Included were extra base blasts by Rich Brown (triple, one run), Pitzlin (double, one run) and the closer, Lamont 'LT' Thompson, a booming double for the last two runs.

The rest is Bob Muegge being Muegge, one run allowed over three innings until the eighth when we faltered. In that inning our defense relapsed and Navy is just too good to not take advantage. But that just set the stage for Gorgone's dramatic play to end it.

Pitzlin was 4-4 with four RBIs and four runs scored. Yours truly also reached safely four times, but there was some, ahem, Navy help involved and some generous score-keeping. Kevin Kane continued to be leadoff hitter extraordinaire, going 3-3 and a sac fly. Bill Marthinsen and Crase, two models of consistency, rounded out those with three or more hits. A true team effort as we hit .681 as a team with everyone having at least one hit and all but one with an RBI. That's 18 RBIs for 14 guys - pretty well balanced (the actual game winning run scored on a double play, so there was no RBI).

Next up, we seek to continue this roll we are on to the end of the playoffs.

Chicken Little

The Coneheads started 0-3, as I said in my previous post, unprecedented. We had lost three in a row (once) but never at the beginning of the season in the Modern era of Conehead ball (post 1997), and never had we lost four in a row.

I was like Chicken Little running around screaming "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"

Joe, who never found a hope that couldn't be dashed, was convinced that the sky was not only falling but in fact had already fallen, and crushed us.

And then a funny thing happened. I got to the field and if you looked at each team warming up, you couldn't tell which team was 3-0 (the Snorts) and which was 0-3 (Coneheads). Our guys were laughing and talking just like it was any other game.

We are either a team of dumb goofs or maybe, just maybe, this is why we are the Coneheads - we never give up.

More importantly then we went out and proved we are not an 0-3 team, coming back to win 14-11.

Oh we had our all too frequent bad inning - we gave away four unearned runs in the top of the first. We left the bases loaded in two of our five innings, hit into a bases loaded double play, failed to score on confusion with the base coach, and left at least two on in every inning.

But after falling behind 8-2 we started playing defense and got enough clutch hits to score every  inning and overcome the Snorts.Patrick made the catch of the game look easy as he tracked down a deep fly Willie Mays style over his shoulder. His Dad leaped high for a liner over first base for an out. Gene made a couple of great catches, one on a knuckler toward him and one in the RC gap. Johnny threw out a runner at home. and Lefty also ranged into the RF gap to gather in a well hit ball.

It also didn't hurt that Larry got two scoreless inning in the middle of the game.

In the third, we had a mini-Conehead inning (five runs) to close the gap to 10-9. We nearly batted around and nearly everyone had a hit (including Gene who had a 'hit' but a runner got forced out from the outfield). Clutch two out RBI hits from the bottom of the order. Everyone batted except Pope, who promptly led off the next inning with a solo blast for a homer. That tied it and later in the inning Chuck put us ahead to stay with a run scoring single. The top of the order gave us a four run cushion in the fifth, and Joe came in to close the deal despite a bases loaded walk to the cleanup hitter (he wanted to get lower in the order according to him) (ahem).

Knight was 3-3 with a line drive single that nearly took the head off the third baseman, and a LC gap double. Johnny stayed hot, also 3-3 and Pope kept pace, also with three hits. Heffe broke out of his slump with a 2-2 plus a walk that ignited our last rally. Lefty had the other extra base hit, a double among his 2-3 plus a walk evening. Larry led the team with three RBIs on two hits.

It's not too late as it turns out to come back to make the playoffs this season if we play like that. Baby steps. Stay dumb and happy!

Milestones:

8/28:

Lefty        300 h (#18)

9/11:

Pope         50 3b (#2)
Lefty        450 ab (#19)

Knight     20 bb (#19)

9/18:

Pope        140 hr (#1)

9/25:
Pope        1100 ab (#6)

Unprecedented

Of course before Joe even sent the email a out our 0-3 start I had already done the research. In fact, I had started a blog post – called it “Unprecedented”.

But I didn’t finish it. I could say I have been too busy getting ready to move but that is not it. I just have a hard time writing about losing, unless there is some compelling angle to it.

At any rate, here is what I said (note the optimism!):

The bad news - we started the season 0-3, unprecedented in my 18 years on the Coneheads.

The good news, the silver lining - I hit the archives, and the last time (and I think only) time we lost three in a row in that time was in 2004. We ended that season 8-6, and then reeled off 15 wins in a row to take the Orinda playoffs and go undefeated through the Walnut Creek fall season and playoffs.

And in 2013, we started the Orinda season 0-2, and then finished 8-3. What’s more, that was the year we spotted St. Mo’s a win in the first game of the playoffs, and then took six in a row to win the championship.

We were however, a lot younger then and we played OLD Monday night…(to be continued)

Or not.

So there you have it. It’s up to us to play better and turn the season around. Maybe we are getting too old for this league but we still have tremendous talent if we put our minds to it.

My two (non-coach) cents.

Milestones:

8/28:

Lefty        300 h (#18)

9/11:

Pope         50 3b (#2)
Lefty        450 ab (#19)

Knight     20 bb (#19)

9/18:

Pope        140 hr (#1)

Gray Sees Red, Red wins 21-12

The problem with the Gray team is that they have a drab color to represent. They are in every game, and then they go all drab in the late innings. If I were them, I would demand the season be played over with, say, Silver or Warrior Slate uniforms. Think how different things might be.

Red hasn't actually been playing as well lately as we were early in the second half. I think we have read too many of our press clippings.

But today we scored early and we scored late, and had pitching and defense throughout, so we beat Gray going away, 21-12.

Jerry Ginochio, getting ahead of a lot of batters early, held the Gray lineup to two runs in the first three innings. In the mean time, we scored five in the first, including a massive drive for a triple by Lamont Thompson, and then put up two in the next two innings for a 9-2 lead.

The bottom of the lineup, in a pre-cursor to late inning heroics, produced two runs on three successive hits (Howard Davis, Al Kidwell, and Ginochio) and two walks plus Kevin Kane's two out single. In the third, it was the middle's turn as Randy Crase doubled and this was followed by singles from Kravin, LT, and Bill Marthinsen, and a bases loaded walk to Tony Gorgone.

Then, as has been our habit, we gave up almost a game-tying six runs in the top of the fourth. We didn't answer in our half and this set up perhaps the most important at bat of the game. In the top of the fifth, Gray loaded them up with two outs and Mike Saindon at the plate. A hit ties it, and an extra base hit puts Gray in the lead. Instead, we got Saindon to hit a one hopper to LT playing Rover and that was all she wrote for Gray that inning. Lead protected.

It stayed close with just two runs on each side until the bottom of the seventh, and we held onto an 11-10 lead. Then the bottom of our lineup performed their magic. With no outs we got consecutive hits, all line drives from Gorgone, Davis, Kidwell, Ginochio, Bob Muegge, and coach Larry Rafferty, good for four runs. Kane and Rich Brown had no choice but to follow with singles of their own to finish off the five run inning. In the eighth, Mark Pitzlin, James Del Rio, and Crase continued the streak of all told nine straight Red hits; It was left to yours truly to fly out to right to end the streak. LT and Marthinsen picked it up to knock in our fourth and fifth that inning, and the score settled to its final version of 21-12.

Red played excellent defense today to keep Gray at bay. Brown ran a long way to catch a potential gapper to keep Gray to just one run in the first. LT made a Rover step on the bag throw to first double play, as well as the stop on Saindon. Marthinsen had a hot day at the hot corner, making two outs in the sixth, although the line drive out may have been more self-preservation than anything. Pitzlin came from nowhere in the eighth to grab a sure extra base hit that had Gray muttering to...well, out loud. And Gorgone grabbed everything in his reach at second, including starting a second to rover to first double play.

LT led the way with four hits. Del Rio had five RBIs on three hits. Crase, Kane, Marthinsen, and Superman Davis also had three. Coach Rafferty had three RBIs on a hit and a walk.

This couldn't be complete without mentioning our pitching. We had one bad inning, the fourth, but other than that, Ginochio and Muegge held Gray to six other runs, and despite their record, they have a very good lineup.

One more next week to clinch the second half and two more to go!