What a perfect day for the opening of the Creaker season at Rudgear Park! About 65 degrees and sunny as can be with a slight breeze.
Still, both teams had a little rust from the long winter.
Gold jumped out to a 4-0 lead (narrowly avoiding the Curse of the First), scoring all the runs with two outs. Back-to-back doubles by Curt Wade (two runs) and Tom Gonzales (one) got us going and Steve Mastronarde finished up the rally with a single.
Orange answered with two two run innings and eventually took a 10-9 lead after four. But consecutive five run innings while Steve Bedrick and the defense allowed just two put the Oranges on their heels and they never really recovered from the 19-12 deficit and came up short at 25-17.
Stan Bielecki at rover (on grounders) and LC Gary Namanny (running catches) each made two early plays to keep Orange's rallies from getting out of hand. Joy Dardin also made a great catch on a pop up in the second inning.
But the get dirty play of the game was yours truly stretching to all 5'7" and scooping an errant throw in the eighth inning and poking my toe back to catch the corner of the bag before the runner arrived. Momma always said I have big feet. Or was that a big mouth? You'll never know and I'll never tell.
Gold didn't quite hit on all cylinders, but quite a few players had good games. Everyone had at least one hit. Bob Fulgham was 4-4, scoring three times. Wade did one better, 4-4 with four runs and two doubles. Steve Alvarez was 3-4 and led the way with five RBIs. Namanny was 2-3, including a double and unselfishly took a walk with the bases loaded that put us ahead to stay in the fifth. Rob Katzer had only one hit, but it was a bases loaded, bases clearing double to give us the five run inning after Namanny's walk. Gonzales, Mastronarde, and rookie Doug Carlson (in his Creaker debut) all added three hits.
A good start!
