The Lantern is Lit, Green 19 - Scarlet 8

Sometimes you play a nearly perfect game. Today Green did as close as a bunch of old men can come to doing that. We made but one error and it was in the first or second inning, on our way to routing Scarlet O'Hara ("Frankly Frank, I don't give a damn") by a score of 19-8.

Scarlet's lineup is intimidating. We managed to get out of the first and score four of our own before they came up with five in the top of the second. But after that, Mark Narciso and Chris Nielsen and our defense allowed but one run in innings 3-8. We scored our only five spot in the fourth to go up 11-6 and never looked back. Scarlet finally broke through in the ninth for two runs, but Nielsen had shut them out against him until then in four straight innings.

The defense was tremendous and unrelenting. We made all the routine plays and then a few turned in spectacular ones as well. Lamont Thompson caught a line drive on the first play of the game at first base. When he moved to rover in the fifth, he came in on a ball in no man's land between the mound and second and snared a soft liner. In the next inning playing catcher, he hustled out toward third base to catch a popup that is usually a back breaker when it drops. Very few Creakers make that play.

Matt Meredith is a revelation at 2B. He leapt high in the seventh (OK in Creakerland 'leap' is a relative term) to snag a shot ticketed to right center field. On another tough grounder with a runner on second in the fourth, after catching a one hopper, he moved toward him to freeze him on the bag, and then fired to first for the out on the batter. Textbook. He made two of the outs that inning. Mike Nagy at third made his usual couple of plays on hard hit grounders trying to get to left field, including getting the speedy Lee Namanny for the third out with runners on in the third to keep Scarlet scoreless in that frame. Darren Bobosky made a great running catch in the sixth in deep left center. And Nielsen shut out the heart of Scarlet on four pitches in the eighth.

Let's face it, Scarlet turned even redder many times in the game as they gave us gift after gift when we were hitting. But we made the most of them. Bobrosky, Greg Wilson and Nielsen were each 4-4. Darren scored four times, and Wilson drove in a single run in every at bat to lead the team with four. How's that shift working for our opponents?

We hit .630 as a team, and everyone with one unnotable exception (not mentioning any names) had at least one knock. Tim Orr, Tony Gorgone, Angelo Rizzuto, Nagy, Nielsen and Meredith had long balls and although none were home runs, all but Orr's leadoff double in the first produced runs.

The Green Lantern is Lit!