Day of the Greens: Dark-G Squeaks By G-Gray 22-21 in the Thrilluh at Heathuh 3

There we were, rolling along and building a lead, inning by inning, all the way to 19-8 with just two frames to go. Dark Green had won every inning except the second and was cruising.

(Roll the Twilight Zone theme). Then it happened, Green Gray, which does have some talent, hit a bunch of line drives, bleeders and bloopers and throw in some absent defense by the Dark team, and G-G came storming ALL THE WAY back to tie us WITH NO OUTS in the eighth and it stood 19-19 going into the open inning.

You can never be too comfortable, and you can guess Dark Green was no longer comfortable. We were lucky, we had the bottom then top of the lineup coming up in the ninth, but we could only manage to turn that into three runs.

GG started down the same path as in the eighth, notching two runs and getting the tying run to third and the winning run to first. But Opener and Closer Mike Howard induced a pop fly to Helen Kostoff at Rover, who took a step back and squeezed it for the 22-21 win. There were 14 audible sighs by the visiting team, and the call for the ambulance for the Dark Green Manager was canceled.

It was an instant Creaker classic. Neither team should have lost this game. Kudos to the GGs for staging an incredible comeback, and to DG for digging deep and shouting down the nerves to cement the victory.

There was so much clutch hitting, it was tough to name the best hits.

We scored five runs twice; in the fifth inning rally, Jeff Olsen, Bill Jeha, Shel Perham, and Jeff Kravin got two out RBI hits. In the eighth, we scored all five with one out.

Jeha was perfect at 5-5 with a triple and a double and four RBIs. Right behind him was Perham, 4-5 with two doubles and he matched the four RBIs. John Banker matched the four hits with four of his own, and Michael Callahan and Woody Whitlatch stroked three hits apiece.

But as it is often in a close win, it was the bottom of the order that made the difference. Superman Howard Davis, hit two doubles among three hits to knock in three runs. Pat ODay crushed a two run two out hit in the sixth and knocked in our fifth run in the eighth. And Robert Douza, batting last, went 4-4 to set up the top of the lineup to bring him around.

Leo Kay was a nuisance to the GGs with two hits and drew an important walk in the ninth to get on to score the go ahead run.

Jeha made a couple of impressive catches on liners to SS. Frank Coppa made a great stop on a hot shot at 3B. Pitchers (M) Howard and Howard (D) each tossed a strikeout (If Curly Joe Ragazzo ever comes back from his injury, we might just field a team with all three stooges on it!).