I have been playing softball at Heather Farm on and off (mostly on) for about 40 years. I thought I have experienced everything in softball, including in all those games at Heather.
But Tuesday was different. We all know all about our feathered friends that love the sod there for some reason. Well, Tuesday, as I innocently sat in the dugout keeping score, teammate Darren Bobrosky points up to the sky, and says, "the geese are getting ready to drop their load," or some such thought.
I thought no way, we are under a roof in here, they aren't that good. and then suddenly SPLAT! SPLISH! SPLASH! The Red Baron would have been proud!
I'm telling you they got me on the arm, on my outer shirt, on my undershirt, on my LIP, and all over the scorebook. The only parts of me untouched were my underwear and my knee pads, which fortunately I wear under my pants.
I'm a little paranoid about it - my grandfather once was pruning his rosebushes and must have touched some bird shit, and then rubbed his eye, because he contracted a reaction so bad, he was nearly blinded. So I came home and thoroughly fumigated myself. And I am burning the scorebook.
And on top of all that we ended up losing (25-24) on a walk off gapper in a game we had full control of early on. We jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first, Brian Black setting the tone with a lead off double, followed by four more hits. In the second we added three more, and in the third, Art Miner led off with a solo homer, and we were on our way building a 15-7 lead after five innings. In the sixth, Miner added a two run triple and after six and a half we were sitting pretty at 20-9. But Tie Dye woke up in the bottom half, and closed to 20-19 before we could blink. We helped them out with a couple of crucial errors, but it's senior softball and they were bound to make a run.
In the top of the eighth, Sandy Camp and Heffe started us off with a couple of walks, but we hit a lineout and a fly out and it looked like the 'rally' would fizzle. But Miner came through once again, this time with a double to complete the cycle, and hits by Bobrosky, Tony Camillo, and Johnny Gutierrez completed a four run inning. We held TD to two in the bottom half, and led 24-21. A few runs added on in the open inning, and we're in business right? But two pop ups to the catcher and a flyout were all we could muster.
And then the curse continued as we made a crucial error in the ninth. With the bases loaded and a run in, up strode Mike Herrera. We had held the slugger in check all game. He had one infield hit when Camp made a great stab on a hot shot grounder in the 3-4 hole, but I couldn't get back to the bag with her errant throw to tag him.
So Herrera was overdue, and showed why he is one of the most feared hitters in Creaker Land. He launched a sizzling liner deep in the RC gap and the runners raced around the infield, and all we could do was get in line to congratulate Tie Dye for coming back.
There were some defensive highlights: In the second Bobrosky made a fine catch in RF, Camillo made one of his sliding catches in shallow RC from his rover position, and Black snagged a shot up the middle for an easy put out at first that all kept TD off the board. In the fourth, Dan May charged a weak grounder at third and threw an awkward one hopper to my right that I managed to hang onto. Helen Kostoff stretched out to catch a high throw from 3B in the fifth. In the next inning, she ranged to shallow right to catch a high popup from 2B. Also that inning Miner fought off the sun to catch the second out.
Miner led the offense with a 4-5 day, and the cycle brought home 5 RBIs to lead the team. Joining him at 4-5 were Bobrosky, Gutierrez and May. Tim Orr and Camillo added three knocks, and Heffe was 2-2 plus two walks for a perfect OB day.
p.s. The next day, playing in Danville, I noticed the Bombers got my softball bag as well, even though it was fifteen feet away outside the dugout. I'm bringing a rifle to the next game.
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