The Pause that Refreshes

What did we do without Charlie? It was in the middle of the game yesterday sometime, and something is attracting Chuckles' attention. It is so quiet you can hear the slight breeze. Then we see he is tilting to the right - there's a dog walker with a squeaky little white thing in tow along the third base line, and I don't mean the dog if you know what I mean. Is that too racy? sexist? racist? It's very important to take a pause in a softball game, to gather your thoughts. What I don't remember is if that was in the fourth and it inspired Charlie to shutout the Outlaws, or if it was the fifth, and he lost his focus as they plated five. It doesn't matter, you can pick your own truth, that's the age we live in, so whatever you wish. OR for that matter the second inning when he got a good hitter to strike out in a one-two-three inning.

The Outlaws were missing a couple of their best players, but you play against the guys on the field. At least one of the replacements was a tournament player that I played with years ago, and he made several nice catches in left and hit a gapper home run to boot.

And so, it was a neck and neck game throughout. After the Outlaws' initial three run inning, and our two five run innings early gave us a 10-5 lead, and after that we were never more than three runs apart, ending with a 16-15 win.

In the first we had a couple of hits and walks and then Dave Balfour drove in two with a triple. Mark Childress did him one batter and just blasted one over the left fielder and raced around the bases to give us our five.

In the third, Howard Reeves started us off with a double down the line. A walk to Clay LeChe, and Randy Cobb came through with a gapper for two runs. He was chugging coming into third! A couple of more hits, and we had our five that inning.

After that, we kept answering their rallies with just enough to stay ahead. In the bottom of the eighth, we ominously left two in scoring position after getting just one, and it stood at 16-13. In the bottom half, they had scored two and the tying and lead runs were on base, when Charlie got one of their lefty sluggers to bounce one just over the first base bag (a little controversy there), and I grabbed it and tossed it to Charlie covering to end the game.

I don't have many defensive notes. There are a few total bombs that were caught by LeChe, Balfour and Cobb in the deepest parts of the field, always tough. Lamont Thompson made a nifty double play, rover step on the bag and throw to first.

The kind of game the Crows can win, just keep it close and make the plays defensively and get timely hits. I guess that goes for all teams.