We're Back, We're Bad, and We're Ugly: Red 22, Royal 12

Red loves Field 4. That third base line with the dirt on the outside track, where balls go to roll and roll and roll...it's a beautiful thing. Herb Moessing loves that line. Herb is perhaps our most unassuming player. He rarely says anything, except you can always hear him on defense urging us to think 'what are you going to do with the ball?", and keeping us on our toes that way.   But when he comes up to bat, it always seems to be the pivotal point in the game, and he just makes something happen and often times it is just over the third base bag. Today he came up after we had lost our early momentum and blown a 9-3 lead. We were ahead again, but only 14-12 and it was getting late, in the bottom of the seventh. Bases loaded none out, time to make a statement. I had visions of being the hero, as Herb was supposed to get one run home and then I would come up and clear the bases. But Superman was already at the plate. He scorched a low liner that hit just over the bag, and skipped off into foul ground, and skipped and hopped and rolled almost to field 5. The bases were cleared and Herb hobbled all the way around to third base. It broke open the game, and we were on our way to wiping out our two game losing streak. Never mind that they ruled it a ground rule double, and Herb had to go back to second (injustice, but it's the rules), and Pete D'Alonzo had to go back to third. That just gave me an RBI when I got a hit, but the game might as well have been over then. We finished off the five run inning, and put three more up in the eighth, and shut down Royal over the last three innings to win going away 22-12. Bob Eddy hates the line. He also scorched one over the third baseman's head and by the left fielder before it hit that dirt in that eighth inning - he was content with a double but we screamed that this one went beyond the cone before going into foul ground and poor Bob had to run all the way home with a home run. Poor guy. And then there is Mel Burman. Mel had his son and grand kids in attendance. Before they arrived, he had hit a blast that plated two in the first inning to jump start our scoring, but was cut down trying to make it a home run. What does he do? When the kids were watching, he hit a better blast and made the round trip to become the family hero. It was back to back after Eddy's two run job. The side story in this game is that our defense really won it with several outstanding plays at key times. The infield stood up and got a lot of outs in the shut down innings, the 2nd, 3rd, and 7th, 8th, and 9th. Included was a line drive to Rover Eddy that froze the runner on first, and caused the batter to stop running. Bob is either the world's greatest actor, or we got lucky that he dropped it, as he then stepped on second and fired to first. He even complained of a sore thumb from that scorcher...we will never know for sure.   Hank McDermott made an inning saving catch to finish off one of the early innings scoreless as he went down juggling the ball and scooping it off his belly as he fell. And Bob Muegge started a neat 1-11-3 double play. In the fifth, we got an out on third base as Burman got dirty to corral a low throw. The umps had to confer, but we avoided controversy as the outfield ump actually saw what happened and made the honest call, that Mel controlled the ball in time. I think that Mel was just thinking about playing in a sandbox with his grandkids. In the eighth the team utility player playing first that inning ranged far to his right (for an old guy, this means two steps) to get a nasty hop, and beat the runner to first while Muegge on the mound claimed he was just about to cover first. Luckily the fortunate first baseman didn't hold his breath waiting for that. Other hitting stars included Brian Black who had four straight hits including two doubles, Bill Dewlaney 3-3 with line drives every time as he always seems to do, George the running machine Sayatovich also 3-3, and Muegge with another rope down the line and hobble to second included in his three hits. Kravin and McDermott also had three hits and three RBIs each at the top of the lineup. We're baaaaaaaaaack!