ND: Unknown Shade of Green 31, Purple 20

For the second year, I am managing a team that has only the promise of new shirts as the season begins. Forest Green, Dark Green, or as the Handbook says, Silver - the color doesn't matter if we hit the ball the way we did today, winning going away 31-20 over a feisty Purple team.

It didn't look good in the first couple of innings, as Green threw the ball away and misjudged fly balls. We spotted Purple a curse of the first five - their hitters looked like Goliaths next to ours. But in the second, on a grounder to second, with Frank Coppa yelling "throw to second", Pat O'Day made a savvy veteran play, chased the runner down going by, and flipped to first for the DP. Suddenly we discovered defense and when Brian Connell took over 2B in the third, we turned a 4-11-3 double play with Helen Kostoff in the middle for another shutdown inning.

In the meantime our bats came alive. In the fourth, with two outs and nobody on, Bill Jeha's triple started a string of six consecutive hits by Dick Stanley, Jeff Olsen, Connell, Heffe, Howard Davis, and Kostoff, sandwiched around a walk to Coppa and we had five runs. In the fourth, more of the same, hits by O'Day, Michael Callahan (his second triple), John Banker, Shel Perham, Jeha and Stanley again, plated five more.

Suspect defense and the strong Purple lineup kept it close - it was a seesaw battle that saw six lead changes. Again in the seventh we scored five (Jeha had a three run triple), but we led just 22-19 going into the ninth.

Mike Howard, closer extraordinaire, took a flat pitch ball four that wasn't called with two strikes leading off the top of the ninth. After a walk and a flyout, we had nothing going. Then once again the two out heroics started. The next ten batters reached safely. After we scored a comfortable six runs, Kostoff strode up to the plate with the bases loaded and still two outs. She deposited a slicing line drive to right center, beating the Purple shift, and by the time she landed on second base three more had scored as we made it 31-20. All that was left was Howard shutting  Purple out in the bottom half and the celebration began.

Callahan with his two triples was 4-4 plus a walk. Kravin was also 4-4+BB. Coppa was 3-3 with two walks. Perham, Olsen, and Connell were 4-5. Jeha was 3-5 and all his hits were three baggers. "Superman" Davis had two doubles out of his three hits, and Banker, Stanley and Kostoff also all had three hits. Kostoff and Jeha led the team with six RBIs.

Not a bad start at all!

Practice Makes Imperfect

Well, since Team Green had a practice game, I thought I should do a practice writeup.

The final score was 18-15. It's too bad we couldn't pull it out - Howard (Superman) Davis would have been quite the hero. All he did was go 5-5 with a couple of clutch RBI hits and pitched well enough in the middle innings to have won if we didn't stop hitting while he was at the mound.

We built a lead of 10-6 through four innings, thanks to a five run fourth that featured back to back two run doubles by Leo Kay and Michael Callahan after the bottom of the order loaded the bases with no outs.

But Team Gold kept getting three run innings when we couldn't quite shut the door - in all they had six such innings to account for all their runs.

After falling behind, we closed to 15-14 with a four run seventh that featured seven straight hits by Dick Stanley, Heffe, John Banker, Frank Coppa, Helen Kostoff, Woody Whitlatch, and Davis.

In a good start defensively, we turned three double plays in the first few innings - Rover Kostoff was in the middle of all of them including one she took herself to the bag and then fired to first. Kay made a diving catch in the first - it may or may not have been worth it as he had sore ribs the rest of the game - we hope he is ok. In the second we prevented a run from scoring on a throw in from Stanley to SS Shel Perham to Whitlatch at the plate.

In the eighth, even though Gold scored three, the outs were loud. Callahan made a sliding catch for the first out. Later, Coppa snagged a hot shot at the hot corner, and Perham snared a shot at SS that seemed headed to LF to keep Gold from getting five.

Davis had the five hits, and Callahan had four, including a double and a homer good for a team leading four RBIs. Kay (two doubles), Stanley, John Banker, and Kostoff contributed three. Kravin had two and also walked three times - the starting pitcher wanted nothing to do with him.

We were missing some components, so it was a good start all in all. We will see next week when the games start to count.