There's Gas in the Tank: Gold Comeback Win Over Purple 22-21

They were clamoring for the Gold players all over Heather Farm the last few weeks. "We'll take Namanny!" "We want Katzer!" "We need Hugh!" "Break up Gold!"

We thought, we gotta tank a game. And there were the Powerful Purple People Eaters next on our schedule. Perfect! How do you spell Tank? G-O-L-D.

And before I could explain to the rest of the team how to make it look like we were trying, but actually play like the 1919 Black Sox (I did show by example by letting an easy ground ball elude me), we did just that without any purposeful effort - played bad defense, didn't hit, left runners on base. And to boot, we had the curse of the first, when we scored five on seven singles and a walk without making an out.

It was all going swimmingly well, we were down 21-9 going into the top of the eighth. I heard Dasey yelling over from Field three, "Are you enjoying the tanking?"

And then...

Four straight hits started us on our way, and a critical error turned the lineup over, and we didn't stop until we had tied it up. Big hits from Jeff Merten and Rob Katzer (doubles) and Steve Mastronarde (triple) highlighted the comeback. By the time I came up, we had batted around, and with the tying run on third, all I had to do was hit a grounder through the gaping hole they gave me at shortstop and it was all knotted up.

There was still the matter of getting the Purples out for two innings. In the bottom of the eighth, Merten went out to right field, and made two tough catches to keep them scoreless. Bear in mind that he had been beaned last week running to second base on a grounder, and was playing on day seven of a recommended nine day layoff. And he tripped on the second base bag earlier in the game and thumped his head pretty good again. But he gutted it out and helped save the day.

In the ninth, we scratched out a run on two hits and what amounted to a bunt when Steve Bedrock hit a grounder to first to advance the runners to second and third. And who was up - of course Merten, who got the hit to put us ahead.

It wasn't much, but in the bottom half the first baseman dug one errant throw out of the dirt, and he ran in to catch a pop fly in foul territory on the next batter. Then pitcher Tom Gonzales coaxed a third pop up in the inning, and when it settled in shortstop Hugh Vasquez' glove, it was all over. Fun game.

It was a total team game. Every single hitter drove in at least one run. All but one scored at least one. Katzer had a monster game, 5-5, four RBIs, double, triple. Right behind him, Steve Alvarez knocked in five runs on three hits. Four hits by Gonzales, Mastronarde, Doug Carlson, and Vasquez. Three by Bob Fugham, Namanny, Alvarez, and Joy Dardin.

Besides the late inning heroics, we turned a 5-11-3 double play from Carlson to Fulgham to first in the second, and on a pop fly to Vasquez in shallow left, he fired to second to double up a runner that wandered too far off the base.

As it turned out, Gold had some gas left in the tank!