Smoke and Mirrors make Green Green, 15-14

I know I just said this a few weeks ago, but I am petitioning the league for another team name change - from Orange to Smoke and Mirrors.

Because once again we tried to gift away a game (nine unearned runs in the seventh and eighth innings) but came through with a three run rally in the ninth on a gap shot by Mike Byrnes to walk off the 15-14 win. We were lucky - Green was missing three starting outfielders - and perhaps we were good too - clutch hits won the game.

The trick was that Patrick Heide and his wife Penny brought a feast for after the game. The team seemed disinterested in the game for oh the first six or seven innings. But I told them that I was taking away the food and drink if we did not snatch victory from Green. Well that was it, suddenly we meant business (p.s. Chester has already defected to our team).

Seriously though, it was a pitchers' duel through six innings. The score stood at 5-4, we were up one. Mike Elmore had continued his magic from last week as he followed Mike Howard by keeping Green off the board in two of three innings. In the mean time, Steve Bedrick was hitting the front of the plate on nearly every pitch, and the rest we were beating into the ground to Ozzie Robelo. Several times we hit nice line drives right at fielders.

Then the Orange flood gates opened in the seventh and eighth, and suddenly Green was up 11-7, which seemed like a mountain in this game. But in the bottom of the eighth, finally we got patient at the plate and three straight walks and a couple of hits (including a Rick Evans triple) gave us five back. The stage was set for a dramatic ninth. Green pushed across a run for a 14-12 lead, and got the first out in the bottom half. But Steve Rousso started the rally with a single, his fourth straight, and Jeff Waters followed with his second double of the game. El Heffe then slapped a hit by the outstanding SS Ozzie R and took second on the throw home trying to keep the tying run from scoring. Byrnes then followed with his heroic blast.

Another one run game - we are perhaps the first Creaker team in first place after 11 games with a negative run differential (-1). But we will take it and pray it can continue.

There were some outstanding plays. Howard got Steve Sloat looking at strike three in the first - always entertaining. We turned a double play on Ozzie on a great turn by Helen Kostoff - no mean feat. Elmo had an inning in the third when he grabbed two hot shots at second base. These followed a swinging bunt where Heide pounced on it and threw a strike to first for the first out. There was a nice stop by Byrnes at second and he threw one in the dirt that the manager scooped up. Finally Tony Gorgone made a nice running catch in RF in the eighth that prevented Green from getting the fifth run, and that proved pivotal.

Rousso went 4-4, and led us with three RBIs, although on one hit he had a nice view of the subsequent play at home when he should have been stretching it into a double. Waters was 3-3 with two doubles and a Sac Fly. Vic Santini also had two doubles, and Michael Callahan was 3-4 with a double leading off.