Tuesday, October 17, 2023

Black Turns Blue Blue, 19-15

I am going to start with an apology. This is to Gary Tryhorn. I am sorry for what I am about to write. My past history calls me out to report the facts and the things that stand out though.

If you live long enough, maybe it is true that you do see everything. Things that you thought you would never see. And today we saw Gary hit a pop foul ball with two and a half strikes and it goes down as a strikeout.

As we know, Gary is an all world player, literally in the National Softball Hall of Fame, and if he has ever done that before I am sure in the thousands of games he has played, he can count those on one hand. Gary, after all, has better bat control than anyone I for one have ever seen. So we did get to see history today.

There was a game too. It was a back and forth affair with five lead changes. Early on, Team BS was missing on offense and had a few problems on defense. But we persevered.

In the first, even though we started with two outs Darren Bobrosky came up and smashed a ball that turned out to be our only home run of the game.

We gave up the lead in the second, but in the third with two outs and no one on, we hammered eight straight hits (with only one extra base hit, a double by David DeWitt), and when the dust cleared we had our five for a 7-5 lead.

Blue answered with five the next inning and the seesaw was on. In the fifth, Curt Wade hit the first of two RBI doubles and eventually we scratched back to 10-10 in the sixth, but Blue jumped out with four more. Not to be outclassed, we answered with a five run seventh. Leo Kay started it with a double and later Brian Black matched that. In between Heffe had a two run single and DeWitt cleaned it up with another one.

Starter and Closer Greg Mathers came back in and pretty much shut the Blues down. In the open inning we added four, punctuated  by Wade's two run two bagger.

As it was a Creaker game, we had to have controversy and in the bottom of the ninth there was a play by pitcher Mathers where he came from behind or not from behind the screen and the punishment was or wasn't a warning or the batter was or was not awarded first base, and the play stood or didn't stand, to make the last out. There was an argument and a rule look up and in the end the argument fizzled out when everyone decided this was getting in the way of the post game beverages. Game over.

The play of the game came in the seventh with Black on the mound. There was a short popup up the first base line with the bases loaded, and Black lunged to get it. He got a glove on it and it bounded into foul territory. Catcher/manager Dave Rose hustled over for it and raced back to the plate to get the third out and preserve our one run lead at the time.

DeWitt made a couple of nice running catches in right center. We turned one double play - 2B Steve Rousso to Rover Gerry Dasey to heffe digging it out of the dirt. Mathers went deep in the 3-4 hole on a grounder and 2B Sandy Camp and 1B Dasey made good plays to keep Blue from getting much of a rally going in the open ninth.

On offense no one was perfect but Black, DeWitt, Art Miner, Mathers, Rousso, and Roger Gawne led the way with three hits.

Just another day in Paradise, world events be damned!

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