Green Folds up the Tent, Loses 22-16 to Gray

Dark Green led the league in a couple of categories. One was games missed, one was always being the last team off the field, that's how much we enjoyed each other's company.

Today, as usual, we were the last team to leave Pleasant Oaks. Of course, we didn't have a Gerry Dasey to take us out for a victorious lunch. But then you have to win first, don't ya, and we went down 22-16 to a very good Gray team.

It started with errors by two of our solid defenders. And in the second, Leo Kay makes a valiant effort to snag a ball in the RC gap, and it's off his glove right into his nose. Not a good sign. And so, we found ourselves down 5-0 in the first and then 9-5 in the second.

In the third we once again came roaring back, scoring five with just one out. Frank Coppa got the last hit in both five run innings, including hustling all the way to third in the latter on his bomb to left, even though the runner in front of him was the fifth run.

And so, we were neck and neck through six, actually leading 13-12 going into the sixth. Then the floodgates opened. Gray plated two straight five run innings, and we just couldn't string together enough hits to counter.

Kudos to Kay for coming back into the game with tissue stuffed up his nose - he's a real gamer. He even went out to his usual RC position in the ninth, and started our play of the game (see below). Jeff Olsen was perfect 4-4 with a triple, and even in addition had a bases loaded walk for an RBI. Coppa was 4-4 with the triple. Michael Callahan went 4-5 with a double. Helen Kostoff and Robert Dousa were each 3-4 with a double. Shel Perham was 3-5 and Heffe and JD Dills had a couple of knocks.

There was one inning that featured three outstanding plays. First Olsen made a great running catch in LC, then Kostoff snagged a high line drive headed to left center, and then the first baseman ran in toward the enemy dugout to outrace a pop up and juggle but hold for out number three. Kostoff was involved on our play of the game when she took a throw from Kay and fired to third to Coppa to nail an errant runner who dared test Kostoff's strong arm. And Perham made a great catch in deepest RC in the eighth. We also turned a double play when Perham grabbed a grounder, stepped on second and threw in the dirt but the first baseman held it against his leg to turn it.

We had one of the most fun teams I have had the honor to coach. With a little luck and more skill we could have competed with the big boys and girls, but we won a few spectacular games, and still had fun when we lost. Now we are rooting for Gray, so we can say we were barely nosed out by the champs!

The Pause that Refreshes

What did we do without Charlie? It was in the middle of the game yesterday sometime, and something is attracting Chuckles' attention. It is so quiet you can hear the slight breeze. Then we see he is tilting to the right - there's a dog walker with a squeaky little white thing in tow along the third base line, and I don't mean the dog if you know what I mean. Is that too racy? sexist? racist? It's very important to take a pause in a softball game, to gather your thoughts. What I don't remember is if that was in the fourth and it inspired Charlie to shutout the Outlaws, or if it was the fifth, and he lost his focus as they plated five. It doesn't matter, you can pick your own truth, that's the age we live in, so whatever you wish. OR for that matter the second inning when he got a good hitter to strike out in a one-two-three inning.

The Outlaws were missing a couple of their best players, but you play against the guys on the field. At least one of the replacements was a tournament player that I played with years ago, and he made several nice catches in left and hit a gapper home run to boot.

And so, it was a neck and neck game throughout. After the Outlaws' initial three run inning, and our two five run innings early gave us a 10-5 lead, and after that we were never more than three runs apart, ending with a 16-15 win.

In the first we had a couple of hits and walks and then Dave Balfour drove in two with a triple. Mark Childress did him one batter and just blasted one over the left fielder and raced around the bases to give us our five.

In the third, Howard Reeves started us off with a double down the line. A walk to Clay LeChe, and Randy Cobb came through with a gapper for two runs. He was chugging coming into third! A couple of more hits, and we had our five that inning.

After that, we kept answering their rallies with just enough to stay ahead. In the bottom of the eighth, we ominously left two in scoring position after getting just one, and it stood at 16-13. In the bottom half, they had scored two and the tying and lead runs were on base, when Charlie got one of their lefty sluggers to bounce one just over the first base bag (a little controversy there), and I grabbed it and tossed it to Charlie covering to end the game.

I don't have many defensive notes. There are a few total bombs that were caught by LeChe, Balfour and Cobb in the deepest parts of the field, always tough. Lamont Thompson made a nifty double play, rover step on the bag and throw to first.

The kind of game the Crows can win, just keep it close and make the plays defensively and get timely hits. I guess that goes for all teams.

And Now Not For Something Completely Different, Raiders Lose on a Walk Off, 16-15

I looked it up. At senior-recreational-softball-reference.com*. The record for consecutive losses in a season is 5. The Raiders are close at three. We can DO this.

In another nailbiter, Duh Raiduhs came from ahead and lost to the Warriors 16-15. We started out hot out of the gate for once - scored five in the top of the first (curse?). In the bottom of the inning a crucial error let the #3 hitter off the hook, and the gates opened for four two out runs. Then in innings 2-7 it was a run here, two there for both teams as it stayed close, 10-8 Raiders going into the eighth. In the top half, the Raiders did it differently. There were two outs and no one on when we had six hits around an unintentional intentional walk to David Gerds to load the bases. Dave Balfour had the big blow, a three run triple following the walk. Don't try that again!

The Warriors answered with five in the bottom half setting up a crucial ninth. We had a two run lead, and both teams had the lower half up. But we couldn't get a runner past first and their bottom came through for three runs, and it was over.

Don Devencenzi led the way with a 4-4 day, one double. Balfour was 3-4 including the triple and a double and led the team with five RBIs. Joining him with three hits were Jay Sankey, Ray Oducayen, Randy Cobb, and David Gratz. Gerds, Max Martin, Patrick Kiesling, and Jeff Kravin all had a couple of knocks. We turned a hit to Devencenzi in deep right to rover Cary Mitsuyoshi to SS Gerds to home for a putout to keep the second scoreless. Sankey made a running catch on a bomb to LC for the third out in the fifth. Oducayen made a great stop at the hot corner in the seventh.

*I made this up in case you had a doubt.

Dark Green's New Old Not-so-secret Weapon

You might think the streaky Dark Forest Green juggernaut is in a bad spot going into the playoffs. A few weeks ago we were knocking on the door of the two teams tied at the top. But unfortunately the latest streak is a losing one, three games. And our shortstop and cleanup hitter is going AWOL to vacation in Greece for the first two weeks of the playoffs.

And yet, we now have a not very well kept secret weapon - our octogenarian power hitter extraordinaire Mike Howard. The opposition cringes when he steps onto the field. You might have thought it was because he is the most feared pitcher in the league, but now he has added another wrinkle to the mix - smashed extra base hits down the third base line. Grown men fall down chasing them. Lucky for Gray, Charlie Uhlman saved the day or that hit may have led to an entirely different outcome in the game yesterday, in which our ninth inning rally came up short and we lost 20-17.

Our story, and we are sticking to it, is that we didn't want to show Gray too much, as we will meet again next week in the first round. So we only had two big innings, the first and the last, scoring five runs in both. I thought the curse of the first only covered the visiting team but this game we proved otherwise. After shutting Gray out in the top half, seven hits (including doubles by Leo Kay, Michael Callahan, and Bill Jeha) and a walk tallied five runs in the bottom half. Gray chipped away, and then it was a seesaw battle that saw four lead changes between the third and seventh innings, settling at 12-10 the Bad Guys. Gray picked the right time to get their first and only five run inning, the eighth, and suddenly 17-10 looked like a huge deficit. We made a valiant attempt answering with two in the eighth, but they added three on in the top of the ninth to get a comfortable lead.

Then it was Howard's turn to set our torch on fire. His epic shot down the line gave us the chance as we turned over the lineup. We got a two out RBI single from Jeff Olsen, a two run double from Jeha, and a two run single from Shel Perham. But it proved to be too little too late, and the third out was made on a well hit but routine fly ball.

Olsen (HR, four runs, three RBIs), Jeha (three doubles, five RBIs), and Perham (four RBIs), the heart of the order, were all 4-5. Heffe was 3-4, Kay and Dick Stanley were 3-5. JD Dills was 2-3 plus a walk.

We turned an unorthodox SS(Jeha)-C(Frank Coppa)-3B(Howard Davis) double play in the fourth. Olsen in LC made a great running catch in the sixth. Michael Callahan, not to be outdone, made a diving grab in LF on the very next play. Davis turned a step on third throw to rover Helen Kostoff covering second DP to end the top of the ninth and keep Gray from getting the open inning out of hand. Kostoff handled every grounder up the middle flawlessly.

If we play our best, we have the hitting and the defensive talent to go deep into the playoffs. Time to find out which Dark Green team will show up. And of course, we have pitcher extraordinaire and now power hitter Mike Howard to get us that much further!

Something to Crow About

The only interesting thing about the Danville league this summer is the battle for third place. I mean who cares about games between the Titans of the League, those Hornets and the Team that Tony Built to Take down the Hornets. Ho Hum.

No, the real battles are the games between Winn/Kia and the Crows. Pretty good players on both sides and evenly matched. The season series was tied 2-2 going into Wednesday's game.

We shut them out in the first inning with their best hitters up. It was almost like we didn't know what to do after that, so we couldn't score in the first (after opening with two walks) or the second. In the mean time W/K built a 9-2 lead and it was like "here we go again". 

But then the fire was lit under us. It actually started in the third when our newest rookie Joe Silva hit a two out two run double to get us on the board. Then in the fourth we loaded the bases and Dave Balfour smacked the ball to right field and by the time he motored around the bases, the lead was down to 9-6, and the floodgates had opened up. We scored thirteen runs in the next three innings and took control on the way to a 20-14 win.

Included was five straight two out run scoring hits in the fifth (Mark Diaz, Silva, Clay LeChe, Randy Cobb, and Chili Hernandez), and a similar inning in the seventh.

The hitting was spread out, three hits by Cobb, Mark Childress, Balfour, and Don Devencenzi, and a pair from another six. Balfour led the way with four RBIs in one at bat, and Silva and LeChe contributed three. Not a lot of notes were taken by the recorder but Childress did make a great running catch on a pop up from his shortstop position in the seventh to keep W/K from scoring.

Hornets? Outlaws? Bah. These were the real teams.

The New Raiders, Same As the Old Raiders, Fall 18-17

The Raiders are adding another method of losing to our repertoire - you must admit, it is quite varied. The last two weeks - the art of coming up just short. Last week, via the nine run bottom of the ninth walk off by the opposition. This week - the Raiders had the ninth inning comeback, but left the tying and go ahead runs on base and lost 18-17 to the Mudcats.

Still, it's better than a blowout. We spotted the Cats 10-2 and 13-4 leads after three and five innings. But then we found our bats! Who knew you were supposed to use them to hit the ball where they ain't! We scored five in the seventh and ninth to make it respectable.

The infield had a pretty good game defensively. Don Devencenzi made a great catch roaming into shallow right from 2B to catch a pop up in the second. Cary Mitsuyoshi turned a nifty rover unassisted to first double play in the fifth. But it was first baseman Jeff Kravin who had the best day defensively. He stretched to all 5'7" twice to nail high throws from his compadres with a toe on the bag. And then, in the seventh dragged his slow legs down the line and stuck up his glove just in time to catch a foul ball with two outs to keep the Cats off the board for the only time in the game. It came at a key point, after the Raiders had tallied five to get back into the game.

Jay Sankey returned to the leadoff spot and banged out four hits. David Gerds went 4-5 with his customary three doubles, but also added a three run homer in that seventh. David Gratz added a two run shot (among his three hits) later that inning. David Balfour, Ray Oducayen, Devencenzi, and Kravin rounded out those that contributed three knocks. Everyone had at least one.

Raiders Outlawed in the Bottom of the Ninth

For eight innings, the Raiders played about our best game of the year. We had the Outlaws on the ropes. The game was a seesaw and close through six innings - there were five lead changes. We put up five in the seventh, and shut the Outlaws down in the bottom half. We added on five more in the eighth, and they responded with three. In the ninth the Raiders scored four runs with two outs and no one on base with six straight hits. We were in the driver's set, up 24-16. But a couple of dropped fly balls at key moments cost us in the bottom of the ninth, and we let it slip away.

Still, we have played the first place team tough in three of our games against them, beating them once. It's been a season of what ifs...

The first four in our lineup (Cary Mitsuyoshi, David Gerds, Dave Balfour, and David Gratz) all had four hits. Behind them, Randy Cobb had five. Balfour drove in seven runs. Gerds hit three doubles. Balfour and Gratz hit back to back home runs in the fifth.

The rest of the lineup contributed as well. Don Devencenzi, Jeff Kravin, and Max Martin contributed three hits each and Ray Oducayen had two plus two walks including one intentional that backfired in the eighth when with two outs, Devencenzi followed him by knocking in the fifth run. All of the above drove in two runs.

We also turned three or four double plays, two by Gerds stepping on second and firing to first. The third was on a great stop by Oducayen, who stepped on third and threw to second. Gerds also ranged far into shallow center to snow cone a ball for the third out in the sixth to shut down a potential big inning.

It was a tough loss, but at least we can hold our heads high that we gave the Outlaws everything they could handle.