My mom played mahjong in her little circle when I was growing up. I had no idea what was going on, but they were always saying stuff like "Crak, Bam, Dots, Mahjong!" I was clueless but they were very excited about those tiles.
Today, it was Two Pair, Seven Trips and Bam! Team Gold smoked Cardinal Red 20-7.
Two pair - Any spokt reader in the last year or so had to endure Steve Mastronarde's lectures about playing the sun at Heather - "It's simple," he'd say, "just wear about four sets of welder's goggles over your sunglasses and the ball remains in sight" (paraphrasing here).
Well, in the top of the seventh, Maestro made an incredible catch for the third out in the bright sun in left field to squelch a Red rally and keep them to just four runs through seven innings. He kept his head high considering all the lenses over his eyes. At the time we had just scored our fourth inning of four or more to go up 20-2.
Seven triplets - Gold had seven players with three hits: Bob Fulgham, Garry Namanny, Steve Alvarez, Jeff Mertens, Curt Wade, the Maestro, and yours truly. The seven to ten hitters (the last four in the list) went 12-12. And Hugh Vazquez, Rob Katzer, Tom Gonzales, and Steve "Bedrock" Bedrick (who hit a gapper between the two center fielders!) had two each.
It's not like we were hitting the ball out of the park. In the first inning Vazquez, Fulgham, Namanny, Alvarez, Gonzales, Mertens, Wade, and the Maestro, sandwiched singles around a forceout in the middle to get our first five runs. In the third it was more of the same, but Maestro ended the rally with a double this time (I became the leadoff hitter my first two times up behind him). In the fifth, Gonzales and Wade knocked in the last three with back to back doubles.
We hit .714 as a team, and the only things that may have been better than our offense were our pitching and defense. Gonzales and Bedrock served up, mixing up short and deep in and out and high and low to keep the Red hitters off balance (I think they had but one walk) and the defense behind them was just about impeccable.
Mertens had a couple of innings - he played 2B most of the game, and one inning he snagged a hard grounder to his right, and also a line drive headed to right. Vazquez made a leaping catch and corraled a couple of hot shots, but in his inning out, Mertens filled in and made two great plays, one a lineout he climbed high for and another a running catch on a pop up. In Merten's great inning at 2B, Kravin also snaggged a high line drive at first to make a perfect 3 for 3 Jeff inning, and snagged a couple of one hop errant throws off the turf.
Namanny made his usual assortment of running catches in LC, and threw out a runner at 2B on a 'single'. Alvarez made a tough catch in RF as well.
Overall it was about as close to perfection as a Creaker game for old men can possibly be. I can't wait to see if we can repeat this over and over.
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