All Things Must Pass, and Green Passed Scarlet, 32-25

Despite a good start by the Scarlet lineup, Green pushed back relentlessly to knock Scarlet out of first place, 32-25.

It was anyone's game as Scarlet jumped out to leads in the tops of first three innings. But Green responded each time, and it was anyone's game as Green led by the slimmest of margins after five, 21-20.

The only thing that kept Green just a little in check were two double plays. One was a 4-6-3 (Tony Gorgone-Raul Delgado-Roc Lumley) grounder.

The other was slicker, a nice catch by Garry Namanny in right center who fired to cut-off SS Delgado to Helen Kostoff at third to get the tagging up runner by a step.

Normally, 25 runs would be enough to win but Green proved too good and our usual one inning defensive lapse turned into a couple today.

Still on the offensive side we had a few players that shined. Gary Namanny won the battle of the brothers (if not the war) with two blasted home runs to left and center and a double to account for six of our RBIs.

Chip Sharpe found his power stroke with another blast over the left fielder's head good for a three run homer. Gary Booth had a quietly clutch game. He was 4-4, and two of his hits started rallies, and a third was a two out RBI hit.

Gerry Dasey and Gorgone made no outs as usual, each going 3-3 with a walk, and Dasey threw in a perfectly placed slicing line drive down the right field line for a triple. Mike Nichols, who is proving to be our secret weapon, had the mini-cycle with a single, double and triple good for three RBIs. Others with three hits were Art Miner and Paul Lisi. Bob Shipway and Charlie Uhlman each had two hits including a two out clutch RBI single. Everyone in the lineup had at least one hit.

So much for going undefeated - kudos to Green for just plain outplaying us today.

Scarlet Juices the Orange, 19-10

I was just making my afternoon espresso (actually a double iced latte since after all it is 90 degrees outside). I was lost in a reverie thinking about my two line drive doubles today, and wondering if I should mention them in my write-up. You know, be humble and all that. Sometimes, when you hit the ball exactly as you wanted to, this game is beautiful. Some guys do this all the time; the rest of us learn to really appreciate and be proud when we make solid contact.

And then I suddenly noticed that the coffee was about to spill over the lip of the espresso container while I was lost in my dream, and barely stopped it from overflowing. Thank God for the overflow tray.

So much for humility.

Today Scarlet remained humble but confident and convincingly defeated the Orange 19-10. After a 0-0 start in the first Scarlet put up four and five and five in the second through fourth and Orange could never really come back from the early 14-2 deficit.

We had balanced hitting throughout the lineup but it was our defense that was the difference maker. Except for a clunker in the fifth inning when we gave them about six outs, the defense was stout and the pitching was stingy on the mound. Chip Sharpe allowed but one run in pitching the first through third and eighth and ninth, thus earning the win and the save. Raymond Aguilera was nearly as good but had to weather the bad defensive inning in the middle.

We turned three double plays. Two were garden variety 6-11-3 and 1-11-3 DPs involving Raul Delgado, Sharpe, Gary Booth, Gerry Dasey, and Kravin. The other one shut down the Orange in the first. Paul Lisi caught a fly and heaved the ball to third to nail Brian Black trying to advance from second. Tony Gorgone made the play work, catching a high awkward bounce and keeping his foot on the bag. Bob Shipley and Charlie Uhlman also made good catches in left field.

Art Miner was the primary offensive hero, He went 4-4 with two triples and a double. He was thrown out at home on one of the triples when his foot was inches from coming to the ground as the ball arrived. On more inch and he would have hit for the cycle. Such is baseball. As it was he led the team with four RBIs.

Sharpe was also perfect at 4-4 setting the table as a leadoff hitter should. Delgado had three knocks including a triple following Miner getting tossed out at the plate. Kravin had the two doubles, and everyone else in the lineup had one or two hits.

Scarlet is on fire!

The Ugly, the Bad, and the Good

I was raised be one parent who was generally an optimist, and one who was an extreme pessimist. Which makes me AFU.

So I am not going to sit here and say that Kapsch starting 0-3-1 is great, nor am I going to say is it the end of all hope.

After all, in my continued Tuesday night slump, I may be 1-11 but on the bright side, I have five walks! With that kind of production from the 11 hole, how can we fail??

The good news is that we have battled back in all of our losses. Last night we were down 12-4 and lost by four, ending the game with the bases loaded. Last week we were down 17-2 and lost 18-15. The first week, down 20-5 before succumbing 22-18. You might say that the other teams relaxed after taking a big lead, or you could say we didn't quit and came back.

Either way, what we have to work on is our early inning offense, defense, and pitching. Last night Tom was getting squeezed mercilessly by the strictest most inconsistent umpire I have seen in the 33 years of Pleasanton softball I have played. The strike zone was about 8-10 feet. But Tom adjusted and kept the Ultimate Warriors to zero after the fourth inning.

Similarly, on defense, we played the first three innings like Little Leaguers. Bad ones. We missed balls we normally catch; we didn't hustle for balls that dropped near us; we threw to the wrong base. Then suddenly we looked like the team that used to consistently be the best defensive team out there. Cage and Bo catching everything, Brian doing his magic at SS, Pauly picking up hot shots at third. We even turned a nifty Cage to Bert to D back door double play in the fifth.

Bo, B, and Cage (four RBIs) at the top of the lineup continued to scorch. They went 9-10 plus two walks. Tom got his usual three line drive hits, and Pauly and Coop had multiple hit games. Bert had a rough game but managed the biggest hit we had, a bases loaded, bases clearing two out double in the third.

If we can just clean up our early game woes, maybe there is hope for the season. After all four of five teams will make the playoffs. We can't wait much longer though.

Now, if we could just get some production from the 11 hole...

Scarlet plays the Purple People Eaters, 18-13

On a day that the Purple People Eaters were missing some of their best players, Scarlet played just good enough to overcome a close early tight game to pull away at the end with timely hitting and good defense late to win 18-13.

The defensive play of the day came on the last out. Roc Lumley leapt up for a pop up foul ball and batted it into the air, caught it temporarily with his chest and then let it settle in his glove. Game over. Earlier in the inning Raymond Aguilera made two stellar catches in right field, and Purple could have no ninth inning heroics.

The infielders starred for Scarlet. Tony Gorgone and Raul Delgado both made back handed grabs on hot shots for force outs. Gerry Dasey, in his one inning at the hot corner, fielded two smashes for outs. Scarlet also turned a crisp double play in the first - Delgado to rover Garry Booth to Dasey.

We took a curse of the first lead at 5-2. Does the curse count if it's the home team that plates five in the first? If so, we broke the curse. We let Purple into the game with a five run fifth, and they had leads of 11-9 after that frame and 13-11 after 6 1/2. But a four run two out rally in the bottom of the seventh iced the game as closer Chip Sharpe shut down the opposition with no runs in the eighth and ninth. The clutch two out RBI hits came from Paul Lisi, Art Miner, Delgado, and Gary Namanny.

Miner lead the way with a 4-4 day. Sharpe, Namanny, Dasey, Gorgone, and Mike Nichols contributed three hit games. The latter may have pulled up with a quad injury as he beat out a run scoring dribbler up the third base line with great hustle.

We didn't hit any bombs but we got triples from Namanny, Booth and Nichols, and two baggers from Lisi, Miner and Delgado. We did have a strikeout looking; I won't mention any names, but if he reads this far he will know who is bringing refreshments next week!

Scarlet Walks over Maroon

Scarlet showed a lot of patience and turned 15 walks and solid hitting in between into a 31-19 win on Field 5 today over Maroon.

The game was closer than the scored suggests; Maroon gave themselves the curse of the first by scoring five, and as late as the fifth inning trailed only 17-18. But Scarlet scored relentlessly, putting up the maximum in the second through the fifth and again in the bottom of the eighth.

Scarlet gave up a few bases on defense but for the most part just made all the routine plays. In fact, until Gerry Dasey jumped up to snare a line shot up the middle by Mark Pitzlin sometime around the sixth inning, there were no defensive highlights. I think GD even got about a foot off the ground. It's good to have a tall infielder sometimes. He had a fine defensive day - on a few other plays he grabbed low liners and hard grounders from his rover spot by great scouting and positioning.

On offense, on the other hand, there were plenty of heroes for the Red Menace. Lots of clutch singles and the aforementioned walks, but there were three or four rockets to fill up the highlight reel. Paul Lisi got the first big hit in the second, clearing the bases with a triple to give us our first lead at 7-5.

In the fifth, Art Miner hit a booming opposite field shot over the right fielder's head to plate our last two runs in that inning. In the eighth, when we created our final insurmountable lead, Gary Namanny hit a gapper double to right center to score our first run of the frame, and later the other Gary (Booth) cleaned the bases with a bases loaded triple. Booth led the team with six RBIs total, and his hit kind of closed the deal.

The rest was spread around: Raul Delgado was 4-4 plus a walk, Dasey was 3-3 with two walks, Bob Shipway was perfect with 2-2 and three walks, and Roc Lumley (who had our other extra base hit) and Kravin were each 2-2 with two walks. Chip Sharpe (who pitched a fine game), Mike Nichols, Lisi, Dasey, and Booth all had three hits. Extra thanks to Namanny for pitching the ninth without warning (0 runs!) since our other pitcher regular pitcher was unexpectedly out.

Bad News Coneheads

Here's the perfect way to start a new season:

1. Have one of your best players move out of town.
2. Have one of your best players have surgery and hang up his cleats.
3. Have a player in a tournament that is a makeup because it has been the rainiest winter in years.
4. Have a player mess up his knee playing tennis the day before (which ligament is as yet unknown but he is in a boot).
5. Have another player scheduled in another tournament makeup but it is cancelled and THEN he loses his keys so he is late.
6. Have another player with a calf problem and is two weeks into a four week recovery.
7. Have another player go out and golf 18 holes the day before and then tweak his knee in a morning game the day of our opener.
8. Have a player who needs to take his wife to the airport. At game time.

And then your opener is against the arch-rival team who went 13-1 last year (although we did beat them in the playoffs).

If we had laid down, it would have been understandable. Instead, we played a nearly flawless game and took down Advance Construction 9-3. We had a solid defense including a few web gems, great pitching, and timely hitting featuring some highlight blasts by a few of our hitters. It was a very good combination.

Gene, Sting, Lefty and Haze took turns making far-ranging catches in the outfield. Johnny took away a hit diving to his left for a ball ticketed for right field. Skip turned a double play at rover started by Randy at SS. There was a ball hit right into the sun that Gene nearly caught. When it popped out of his glove, he recovered quickly, and sent it to the infield. Randy threw a perfect relay home, and Chuck scooped up the one hop toss to nail a runner stupidly testing our arms down about seven runs at the time.

But the play of the game was a leaping catch of a hard hit liner headed to left field in the seventh inning by Randy. It wasn't the last out, but it pretty much ended any hope for a comeback by the Advance crew, and the game ended shortly after that with only one run across in the last frame.

Randy, batting leadoff, set the table every time up and went 3-3 and scored every time. Included were two gap doubles. Lefty followed him with a double and a triple of his own and drove in four of our nine runs. Gene and Charlie were nearly perfect as the former was 3-3 and the latter was 2-2 plus a sac fly. Sting, batting last after finding his keys, slashed a line drive single and another gap double, and drove in three runs.

Joe and Chuck deserve special thanks because both are hobbling and played through it. Each had a hit, and Joe even ran for himself to first! Special thanks to Skip and Charlie for filling in on short notice. They played so well there is an open invitation any time to play.

Imagine what would happen if we were even at half strength!