Orange Comeback Tuesday: 13-12 Royal Walk-off and 18-14 White-Wash

Each game was a microcosm of our year so far. In the first game against Royal, we charged out to an 11-2 lead after four, and Royal was on their heels. Then in the top of the fifth, The men in Blue charged all the way back, thanks to the hitting they are capable of combined with a one inning defensive meltdown by the Orange. Then they got the shutdown inning they needed. In the sixth, we had more shaky defense but Royal could only plate a single run. In the bottom half it looked grim when the first two hitters made outs. But the top of the order, Ron Schwab, Mark Edelstone, Mike Saindon, and Greg Wilson smacked four straight hits, and we walked off with two runs.

Edelstone had three hits with a double and a triple, Saindon had three including a triple and Wilson had three including a double. The top four had 10 of our 13 RBIs.

Schwab, Jay Chafetz and the Coach had two hits apiece. Chafetz made any number of great catches in LF and Edelstone robbed Helen Kostoff in shallow LC Willie Mays style on a sinking line drive. The first baseman scooped one in the dirt backhanded to steal an out in the same inning, and Howard Davis, who pitched all 12 innings today, made a great play on the third out that inning.

In the day cap, Orange scored three in the top of the first then went to sleep for three innings. Going into the top of the fifth we trailed 8-4. But we batted around in the fifth to take a one run lead 9-8, and after a shutdown bottom half, batted 15 hitters and more or less put the game away as we went ahead 18-9. White's sharpshooters came back with six runs, but in the end they had dug too big a hole. Final was 18-14.

A word about Davis. He pitched lights out all day, He had batters off balance in both games, and I think he had but one walk in the doubleheader. He started the season fourth on the depth chart of Orange pitchers, but worked his way up the ladder, and today with all the other pitchers missing, he really came through for us. And to boot, after we came back against White in the fifth, in the bottom half, he stabbed a shot up the middle and started a 1-11-3 double play to essentially take them out of the game.

Against White, Vince Franceschi was 4-4, and Chafetz and Lamont "LT" Thompson were each 3-3 with a sac fly each and co-led the team with four RBIs. Schwab also had three hits including two doubles, and Kravin rounded out those with three hits. Everyone else had two hits except Saindon and he had a sac fly and a walk and a hit. Great team effort on offense and defense.

It comes down to next week - we need some help from Scarlet and Royal, and it starts with going up against the juggernaut Purple - but we know and they know we have beaten them three of four so far this year. Fun fun fun!

Orange Squeezes Purple 17-15

Bottom of the seventh (in a game shortened from the beginning by agreement), two outs, 17-15, Mark Pitzlin on second and Paul Lisi on first as the tying run. Gary Tryhorn up as the winning run. Raul Delgado on deck. A gapper ties it, and the Delgado wins it for Purple with a long ball.

That's the way the script reads, except that's not the way real life worked out. You know Orange is doing something right, or living right, or just got lucky, but Tryhorn flied out to Mark Edelstone in left center and it was game over.

What we did right is what Edelstone did. Catch the routine ones. The outfield - Brian Black, Edelstone, Jay Chafetz, and Vince Franceschi made every catch that was catchable, and hustled in to hold the mostly speedy Purple to one base at a time.

Due to a makeshift infield, the game started off rough. We started out with a solid three run first but  defensive lapses and the usual good hitting by Purple propelled them to a 10-4 lead through three innings. It was getting ugly.

But we settled down on defense. Mark Narciso pretty much held Purple down. Except for a four run outburst in the sixth, they only scored two runs he rest of the way.

And so the table was set for a comeback. We burst open in the fifth. After a leadoff double by Steve Sloat, we made two outs. Then with two outs and our backs against the wall, we got consecutive hits from Mike Saindon, Greg Wilson, Narciso, Franceschi, Chafetz, the Coach, and finally a bomb by Lamont Thompson to tie it up at 10.

We followed that with a one out rally in the sixth, again started by Sloat. This time the big hit was a two run triple over the left fielder's head by Edelstone. Purple answered with four to re-take a lead at 15-13, but we answered right back with another two out rally to plate four in the last inning, again all with two outs. Clutch hits came from Art Oller, Sloat (again), Black and Edelstone.

Sloat stood out with a 4-4 day. Chafetz, Edelstone, Franceschi, Saindon and Wilson all had three knocks. Multiple hit games were enjoyed by Black, Kravin, and Narciso. Everyone had at least one hit. Everyone but Kravin scored a run, and ironically everyone drove in at least one run except Wilson, who has been our RBI leader all season.

There were no webgems on defense, but kudos to Wilson for filling in well at 3B and Saindon, Sloat and Thompson (who had not played together in today's positions all season) as they worked out their early problems and got more solid up the middle as the game went on.

It was a meaningless game, except for the fact that we have given Purple three of the four losses they've had all season. Coppa and company have something to think about with the playoffs coming. I just hope we are both in it when we play them in our last game of the playoffs October 5th. Maybe it will matter, maybe not, all there is left is the play the games!

The Cliff of Lake George

Last week my Creaker Team Orange, which enjoys good team camaraderie, talked about holding a team barbeque at the end of the season to celebrate our time together.

Then last night, in our weekly zoom, my good friends from back east decided, somewhat in jest, that we should meet for a road trip to stay in the last remaining Howard Johnson's Lodge, which is in the resort town of Lake George in upstate New York (one of the participants lives in nearby Albany, NY).

So my dream combined the two themes. Here it goes:

Team Orange signed up to play in a tournament in Lake George and stayed at Ho Jos. While we were in between games, we walked into a park which overlooked the lake, and we stood atop a very high cliff. Our pitcher, Mark, who in the dream was from Lake George, offered $300 to anyone that would jump into the lake from on top of the cliff; he said it was a local rite of passage growing up in Lake George. He said he would also give out $10 to anyone that would even go into the lake, because it was very cold (this took place in early spring). There was a path down to the lake from where we stood. A couple of my teammates took Mark up on this. There was one player, a woman, who was seriously considering jumping. I tried to talk her out of it. I said, "One small movement in the wrong direction, you could land awkwardly, and break your neck! Not something you want to do at our age!"

We finally talked her out of it, and then Mark declared he was only joking, and would have called her off if she decided to jump. He said no one had ever jumped from that height.

The next day, we played in the finals of the tournament. In the championship game, we took a one run lead in the top of the seventh. In the bottom half, with two outs, the other team had the tying run on third, and the winning run on second. With two and a half strikes (in softball you get one foul ball with two strikes and then on the next foul ball you can strike out), the batter hit a pop fly up the first base line, which bounced and then started behaving oddly (note - in the dream the dimensions were distorted, and the first baseman had no chance to get the ball. And normally I would be playing first but in the dream I was watching this from the third base dugout). The ball rolled foul, and almost stopped and our team started celebrating. But then out of nowhere, it improbably took a sharp right turn into fair territory and the other team commenced whooping it up, because by that time both runners had crossed the plate, having run with two outs on contact, and the batter had gotten to first base safely. Then the ball, not quite stopped, turned left again and started rolling into foul territory again, and the whole celebration started again on our side of the field. For some reason, in the dream you weren't allowed to pick up the ball before it settled in foul territory, which you would in real life. In any event this process repeated itself again and again, with players from both sides crowding around the ball to see what it would do. Finally, after about the third or fourth cycle zigging this way and zagging that, the ball settled down for good in foul ground, and we had our victory. What a bizarre way to win a championship!

That's all there was to the dream, and I am not sure if there are any life lessons from it, but there you have it. Maybe just that we should all visit Ho Jo's on all you can eat clam strip night, and go from there.