Rounding third and headed for home…

Posted on by David Navarre

Gene told Fred he was going. Fred told Glenn that Gene was going. I set up outside. It was a perfect pitch – just outside and a bit above the waist. I stepped forward and grabbed it. (They tell me my foot was on the plate and the batter would’ve hit me with a swing.) Solid catch. Smooth transfer. Good throw. Gene’s just too darn fast.

On Wednesday, our nine-inning game was the “wood bat game” of the week. That doesn’t affect me as a hitter because I’m always swinging lumber from Phoenix Bats. It does affect a lot of other players, changing those long drives into shallow fly balls. Having a single game on Wednesday and letting it be a wood game should allow everyone a little recovery time. After all, the average age this week is 66.

Gene Lee is probably the fastest runner down here at Ponce de Leon spring training. He always goes on the first pitch and doesn’t care if everyone knows it because… it’s next to impossible to throw him out with arms that were in their prime 30-40 years ago. Once he’s on second, he’s in scoring position and he’s always going to try to score. Here’s video from his first scoring attempt, which Steve Liddle asked me to share. Joe Bauer behind the dish.

I’m curious about the consensus, since my opinion is biased. He did this again, later in the game, while I was catching (after the steal in the first paragraph) and it was … so cool! I know I didn’t get him, since the throw was just up the line. I don’t know if it hit him or if I reached the glove out to stop it. One conspiracy theory has Gene grabbing my arm to prevent me from catching it, but if he did, I didn’t notice! Sadly, I don’t seem to have that video.

Over the fall, I spread the word in Asheville about this week of spring training. It worked and I got Joel Huggins to sign up. While Joel hasn’t been able to break the logjam at first (what team that’s over 50 doesn’t have 7 first basemen?), he’s done well in the outfield. Unfortunately, during the outfield specialty sessions on Tuesday, Joel had a fly ball hit his throwing hand before hitting his glove. So, he’s got a badly bruised (if not broken) ring finger on his throwing hand. In batting practice, he said that every time he made contact, it stung so much, he saw stars. There was a play in right field in which he charged the shallow fly ball and it worked out for us – while the ball dropped, Fred was able to scoot back from second and get the runner from second at home. That gave us a runner on first with 1 out and we escaped the inning with a well-timed double-play. When I later made a mistake, Joel reminded me how I needed to let it slide and that everything would work out.

Adrian Rosati started the game on the mound for Stu Clyburn’s team and despite rarely topping 37 mph, he really frustrated us. You don’t need to throw hard down here. You just need to throw strikes. He walked me and I got the first of my two steals on the day. (Yes, my legs are reminding me that catchers shouldn’t steal, especially mid-week.) The score teetered back and forth a little, settling to 7-6 in the late innings, when there is no run limit.

Doug Milman has been a godsend for us in the field. He and John Gardner have split innings at shortstop and I believe there might only have been one error there. Their fielding and throwing has been awesome. We don’t always end up with the out at first, but that’s Ponce baseball for ya. One time during this game, Doug was out in centerfield and he looked out of position to me. I waved him in the direction I wanted, but I didn’t need to. Doug coaches baseball and he moves like a gazelle. So, where he lines up in the outfield is guided by experience and understanding of the game, aided by his ability to get to most anything.

With Gene’s speed, we knew we were at risk once he reached base. As noted above, he stole second despite our best efforts. So, when the next batter hit the ball, Gene got on his horse and motored around third.

I lined myself up in front of home plate, giving him a path to the plate and I saw that look in his eye. The ball was coming in and I thought we had him… but the ball was just behind him and he was safe. I tagged him after I picked up the ball, then threw to second to try preventing the extra base. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that out. It was such a thrilling play, I enjoyed it despite the outcome. I love this game!

The score finished at 9-6 because we just couldn’t find a run late in the game.

I think I’m 6 for 16, with a few RBIs and two steals. I’ll have to look at the score sheets today to get a better handle. It doesn’t matter much how I hit if I can be consistent behind the plate. This week has been huge in getting comfortable back there and I know I’ll be able to handle catching regularly now. Also, it doesn’t matter because this is so much fun regardless of the outcome.

Tight games and tense moments

Posted on by David Navarre

On Tuesday, we started the day against JR’s (John Russell) team. His teams are always good teams. I was going to list ways in which they’re usually good, but it’s in almost every aspect. Only a few players are good at most things, but each player he has can boast of one above average skill. That’s true of most of the players down here. One might wonder how someone who’s around 80 can compete with players 20-30 years younger. If you hit the ball hard or throw strikes or can play catcher, you don’t have to move fast or have another skill.

Every year at our spring training, we have a day on which we do “specialties” and the professional coaches do some skill training for the players. Most years, we haven’t had a catching session because the turnout would be pretty low. This year, they had one before the morning game, run by Stan Clyburn. Since I know I’m going to be catching a lot and probably not pitching at all, I had to miss Rick Knapp’s pitching session. One of the best aspects of coming to Ponce Spring Training is that these pro coaches add so much knowledge to the team – they give great instruction and they learn our quirks over the years. It’s what they do when they’re with their minor and major league clubs, so it should be no surprise. I’ve never heard of that kind of skill work when teams go to a tournament – you just play.

In our games, we always have run limits in all the innings except the last one. This avoids destroying the arms of the pitchers. When you have at least 58 innings you need to cover with pitchers and you start the week with only 4 pitchers, having those innings end mercifully is quite important. Each of our four pitchers has to pitch every day in order to cover 14 innings.

The games on Tuesday bounced back and forth. Holding a team scoreless for an inning is probably a bigger deal here than anywhere else. 3-run innings are not rare, but scoreless ones are. The game against JR got rough in Fred Jaffke’s second inning on the mound. His control started to deteriorate and I should have gone out on the mound to give him a chance to reset. Pitching can be a finicky thing and Fred will do fine in his next outing.

Sonny Hill kept racking up the RBIs. The hitters in front of him have done a good job of getting on base and it’s paid off. Not everyone runs fast or throws strikes, but they have a talent. Sonny’s is driving runs in.

We managed to squeeze out the morning win with some shutdown innings from Glenn Strachan. It’s been a delight catching for Glenn as his location is very good and the velocity exceeds the rest of the pitching staff. Sometimes, we get the pitch we watn, where we want it and they still hit it, but more often than not, we’re getting weak contact or swings and misses. Those misses are increasing as the week goes on.

Jerry Spitz started the second game and we weren’t great in the field behind him. The estimates of the number of outs we gave them with errors in the first innings were around 7-8 outs. That makes it hard to win. Jerry did get into an argument with the umpire when an opposing player stepped into the plate to avoid a curveball that hit him… over the plate. Jerry turned in 3 innings with the lead passing back and forth between the teams, with one or the other being one run up.

A late add to our team was Rick Kramer. He’s a little speedster and used to be a “vacuum cleaner” in the outfield. There might be a step lost that prevents him from getting to all the balls he used to, but he does well. His bat speed is exceptional and he’s been scooting around the bases for us, scoring critical runs. When the second game went into extra innings and Rick started the inning on second base, I knew we had that run.

In the extra innings, Glenn felt that his hand was doing well enough (recovering from a line drive off it last week) that he took his turn at bat. Mitch Orcutt was pitching the late innings and kept right on going in extra innings. Mitch sometimes comes inside and, sure enough, he hit Glenn on the first pitch. I went up next and got hit on the hand on the second or third pitch. It’s the hazard of pitching inside and, for me, the hazard of crowding the plate. As a result, we took the lead.

On a bloop that landed at the edge of the grass and bounced to Bill Murray, the opposing team’s runner on 2nd tried to score. Bill made a nice throw, which I caught a few feet up the line to beat the runner by a large margin. Those extra innings are a jumble in my head of what happened when and how.

With the heart of their lineup coming up in the bottom of the 9th, Glenn shut them down and I caught strike three to end the game. Hard-fought and nicely won.

So you want to be a catcher?

Posted on by David Navarre

“All right, so who are my catchers? Joe, I know I’ve got you.”

Silence. No one raises their hand, despite two others having been assigned to the team with the thought that they are catchers.

“I’d like to catch a little.”

So, at the end of the first day, I’ve caught nearly as many innings in one game as I caught last year. I think I caught nine innings last year – never more than three in a day. Today, I caught 8 innings. The last four in both games. It was awesome.

So, I’m down at Ponce de Leon Spring Training, playing at historic Terry Park Sports Complex down here in Fort Myers. At the end of January every year, the Ponce de Leon league from the Washington DC area hosts a balanced tournament and training week. Six professional coaches to coach the 6 teams (including Darrin Garner, who is taking a week away from pre-training with the Arizona Diamondbacks to coach my team). Steve Liddle (former bench coach with the Twins and Tigers) runs the camp for us. They divide all the players into relatively equal teams (with provisions for who wants to play together) and we play 8 games over 5 days (2 Monday, Tuesday and Thursday). There are trainers in the clubhouse to handle preventative care and injuries. Everyone gets a locker and can have the clubbie do their laundry. It’s a far different experience from Roy Hobbs or other tournaments, and also far different from fantasy camps. It’s all about playing baseball – learning a little and playing even games – rather than focusing on retired ballplayers or only on winning.

I thought I was coming in here to be a utility player – catch a few, pitch a few and play everywhere in the field. When it was revealed that two of the guys that the league thinks are catchers only did so because their teams needed it, I was both scared and excited. I’d been doing a hundred or more weighted while walking my dog every morning and trying to find a moment to do additional reps (without weight) all day to get over 200 squats. That preparation has paid off.

I picked up a Catcher’s Notebook from Always Grind to use and evaluate whether I can have my youth catchers use them when I coach. So, once I settled with Joe Bauer that we’d split the innings, I went to each of our 4 pitchers and took notes on their pitching repertoire and preferences. I had thought I’d try something like this when I was going to catch in a tournament for a team last fall (canceled by the hurricane down here) but having the structure of the notebook is much better. I’m still a newby here and wouldn’t have guessed what to be thinking. After a day, I’m pretty sure that it will also be a good thing for 12-year-olds to do. They may not have a grasp of all the nuances, but it gets them thinking critically about how the game went, how they performed well and what they need to work on.

The first game of the day was a little brutal. We ended up giving up 3 runs in four different innings (3 run limit in all but the final inning) but I got to work with three of our four pitchers. Glenn Strachan is a tournament pitcher that was allocated to our roster to give us an ace. He locates his pitches extremely well and gets the hitters to hit it where we want it. Being that we’re all old men, that sometimes still doesn’t result in an out. Bill Murray (no, not that one!) came in and pitched a couple of innings and some of his pitches are honestly unhittable. That should work out well this week as long as he’s around the strike zone. Fellow Michigan State alum and Washington Nationals grounds crew member, Fred Jaffke, finished the game out. With a final score in the morning game of 12-4, we were hanging our heads a little.

In the second game, Jerry Spitz started the game with Joe behind the plate. After 3 innings, Glenn and I cam in as a battery. We all managed to keep the game close and when we held them scoreless in the top of the 7th (we’re playing 7 inning games), we eked out a 1-run victory to set us even at 1-1. There was far more timely hitting in this game and, in particular, Sonny Hill banged a hard line drive up the middle that brought in 3 runs while the centerfielder chased it down

I had a reasonably good day at the plate, going 1 for 2 in the first game with one of the 4 RBIs and 1 for 3 in the second game with one RBI. Behind the dish, my blocking was very good and my receiving was good enough. I did have two runners steal – one when I bobbled the pitch and another when my throw was a little off-line. The hard throws in the warmup when “coming down” should help deter much thievery. I did field a few balls near home that resulted in outs and ran down a runner who tried to steal home on a walk. I’m very happy with how I played behind the dish.

We feel like we escaped by getting a split on Monday, and will come back hard on Tuesday to make our drive for the championship.

The morning struggles continue

Posted on by David Navarre

Before the morning game, Rick asked if I still wanted to pitch. I said “As long as I’m not tired from catching.” So he had me pitch the first inning.

The progress I’ve made over the last year showed. I was always around the plate, though usually at the upper end of the strike zone. No walks, but two wild pitches. I ended up giving up 3 runs, but via some hits. I’m happy with the result. I threw strikes and that’s all you need to do for now.

I caught the next two innings for Rick Power. One inning was scoreless and the other was a max (3 runs).

We were making contact, but not getting hits out of it. They held us scoreless through 5 innings.

In the bottom of the 5th, Mike went to catch, so I slid over to short. Chandler took third. With a runner on first and a lefty up, I positioned myself close to second. The ball was hit right to me on a manageable hop…

Last year, during the ‘specialties’, I went with the infielders. Darren Garner was giving the instruction and among the many pieces of wisdom be passed on was that if you dropped the ball, you should just remain calm. Panic might cause you make a second error or more. Remain calm and pick up the ball.

I’d done that at third earlier in the game, remaining calm and making the throw. So when that grounder up the middle bounced off my glove, I just told myself to pick up the ball and get the lead out. There was time still – after all, the average age here is 62 – and I completed another double play to get us off the field.

In the top of the 6th, down 7-0, we needed to at least get on the board. Chandler got single, stole second and advanced to third on Evan’s single. Normally, I’d take that first pitch, but it was perfect. I hit a nice liner between 2nd and 3rd to get us on the board. We couldn’t get another hit, but we weren’t held scoreless.

We’re 2-3, but still competitive. I added another hit and RBI, so the bat is alive. Most importantly, it’s all a lot of fun.

Evening it up

Posted on by David Navarre

Steve Liddle, who runs the camp, but is the bench coach for the Tigers during the season, always says that you see things at Ponce that you never see anywhere else. Our umpire in the second game (played in the stadium at Terry Park) got to see something he’d never seen. Teams are limited to 3 runs an inning in our spring training, but he’d never umpired an entire inning without recording a single out.

20190128_090151[1]
Steve Liddle laying some wisdom down on the Ponce players as he gives the schedule for the day. Coaches Rick Knapp and both Stan and Stu Cliburn in the background.
The fortunate thing for us is that while we continued to max out every inning, we slowed the bleeding by only allowing a single run in the third and one other along the way. So, our margin of victory was quite pleasant.

My patience with my productivity at the plate paid off. I’ve shrugged the lack of hits off because I knew I was contributing defensively and in those not-in-the-stats kind of ways that players giving 100% do. After a walk in the second, it was nice to come up with runners in scoring position in later innings and… ground a couple of single through the infield. I think that I’ve been thinking a bit too much about hitting the other way, but those happened to work. I’m going to go back to just hitting the ball hard and seeing what happens.

As noted previously, we have a father-son combo on our team. Rich has pitched well for us and gotten the chance to pitch to his son, Mike, a couple of times now. If you think back to all those times having a catch with your Dad and son, could you be any happier than having the chance to be a battery mate with them? Fred Jaffke and his son, Andrew, did that one our team a couple of years ago and it was great to see. Today, Rich and Mike achieved a different milestone, both cranking the ball deep for extra base hits.

Dan Bechard took over for me behind the plate after Rich and I couldn’t stop the max-score innings early on. Dan hasn’t caught in about 5 years and worried that doing so again wasn’t a good idea. He was completely wrong. With Dan’s fans in the stands, he moved behind home plate and called a game that basically shut the opposition down. It’s like falling off a horse – once you do it, you never forget how.

I noticed long ago in team sports that are very “recreational”, it matters far more how much players improve than whether your good players play well. So, when I play coed softball down on the Mall, I’m always working with the folks who don’t play particularly well. Typically, no one has ever taught them anything about playing.

Now, this isn’t meant to ride “Big Game” Al Ferlo down, but last year, he struggled. Rick Knapp likes to joke that Al is the only playing who’s ever missed every pitch in a batting cage session. Well, that was last year. In today’s afternoon game, Al’s improvement really shone through. In his first at bat, he singled to drive in the third run. His second time at the plate resulted in another single. While at bat in his third plate appearance, he missed a pitch and turned to the bench to complain that “it’s not my bat”. None of us were quick enough on the uptake to realize Al had grabbed the wrong bat when he went up. Either Al or those of us on the bench should have called time and gotten the right bat into his hands. He ended the game 2 for 3 because he didn’t take his own bat up the third time.

We faced poor Joe Facenda, whose batting average I devastated last year (he hit it to me for an hour on every play I was on the field for, regardless of what position I was playing). Well, Joe came up to bat and was thinking about shading another step to my left off third. I didn’t move because it was too late, but he hit it right there. It was close enough that I stopped it, but too far for me to make a decent throw to first. So, perhaps Joe has broken the curse now, but perhaps not….

I believe I finished 3 for 4 on the day, with two walks and a few runs. There were likely some RBIs in there, but I’ll want to check the scoresheet on those. Better offensive day for a day when I struggled a bit behind the plate. With the win in the afternoon game, we moved to 2-2 for the week. It sound like there are 4 teams in the middle at 2-2, with one at 3-1 and the other at 1-3. So, we’re on track to challenge for the championship again.

Extra inning heartache

Posted on by David Navarre

In prior years, Mike Golden commented that it’s easier to write when you’re playing well. As noted previously, my bat hasn’t been all that hot. I did manage a Ponce single – pop-up to 2nd that dropped. I almost had another on a grounder to the right side, but it didn’t have enough juice to get through. Nonetheless, I’m having fun and glad to write about it.

We dropped the game this morning in extra innings. It was a hard fought game, but we just couldn’t get a run across in extra innings.

More on this game later…

Behind the dish for the first time since 1978

Posted on by David Navarre

I have very vague memories of putting on the catching gear once in 1978. I was the best player on a terrible team and the coach thought it was worth a try. I’m guessing it didn’t go well because I don’t remember doing it a second time.

The first day of Ponce de Leon Spring Training 2019 was, however, quite a different experience. In our pre-game meeting, I mentioned to Rick Knapp that I’d like to try catching. Camp is a little short on both pitchers and catchers this year, so we only had one player who identified as a catcher. We all figured this meant several of us needed to put on the gear to ensure that he didn’t have to catch every inning and didn’t exhaust himself.

Chandler and I tried to convince all of the Team M players and anyone else we met, to come down for spring training. It’s always a lot of fun and I always get better as a result. Having coaches who coached in the majors and minors gives you access to so much knowledge if you just keep your ears open.

One example was related several times by our left fielder in the first game, Tom Sharkey. With a runner on third, I had been playing close to the bag, foolishly thinking that the catcher might be able to throw a back-pick. From Tom’s perspective, he had a great angle in to the batter, with no obstructions. Then, for no apparent reason, I moved off third base and right into his line of sight. When the ball was hit, it bounced right into my glove for an easy play at first. He thought it was my genius in positioning. Of course, it was not. Knappy saw where I was playing and moved me off the bag, into the perfect position.

It didn’t make a difference in that game, which we lost 3-1. In Ponce, if you hold the other team to 3 runs, you ought to win! Most of us were hitless, so we didn’t have many runners to drive in. In my first at bat, I walked and sprinted out of the box, just out of habit. When I got to first, I was waved to keep going. The ball had gone past the catcher and he lollygagged after it. So, I got a two-base walk. I advanced on Rick Powers sacrifice to the right side and scored when Tom hit a nice line drive to left.

I caught with Evan Katz on the mound in the third and fourth innings. It was a great experience. As a catcher, you’re involved in every play. I loved that about pitching in softball. Warming Evan up down in the bullpen, I was nervous. A few of his low pitches skipped right past me. That didn’t prove to be a problem in the game. I did let a few by early, when no one was on – and I think I did let one go with a runner on. While I didn’t get a chance to throw anyone out, when the bases were loaded, they hit a grounder to Evan which he tosses to me and I forwarded it to Chandler over the head of the batter. That got us out of the inning.

Our bats were far more lively in the second game. We scored the max (3) in the first two innings, giving us a cushion to work with.

I started the game catching, with Richard Brouillette on the mound. Rich brought his son, Michael down. Mike’s only 30 and is our one declared catcher. Rich told me he only throws fastballs and to just put my glove where I wanted it. He usually hit it, with occasional variations that worked out for us anyway. We were facing one of their better hitters and he’d battled, pushing the fastballs foul. With his quick swing and the fact that Rich had only thrown heat so far, I waggled three fingers down to call for a changeup, in case he might see it and throw it. He did and we got a nice infield fly out of it. Unfortunately, in Ponce, there are no routine flyballs, so it dropped just out of reach of the second baseman. Nonetheless, it worked and gave him confidence in that changeup. We’ll probably see that again this week.

Rich wears number 4 and we joked after that game that he lived up to his number by pitching 4 innings. With the shortage of pitchers, they extended the number of innings that they could throw to 4 for the starter, with a maximum of 7 innings a day.

I’ve been playing third the last few years and headed over there after my three innings behind the plate. I was hitless on the day, though I had a great drive to center that Craig Tasens ran under. It was frustrating to hit the ball so well finally, but watching him catch that on the run was a true joy. I love seeing a good play, even if it’s the other team.

Evan was bringing the heat again in the second game. The strike zone wasn’t always to his liking and our lead had narrowed to 7-4. After we got the first out, Evan walked a batter and Craig Tasens reached first on catcher’s interference. The ball had been dribbling down the third base line and I wondered why Craig hadn’t left the box. So I scooped it up and they called the play dead.

So, with runners on first and second, our reliable catcher from last year, Shaun Quill, stepped into the batter’s box. Somehow, his line drive moved in slow motion into my glove. It had me moving toward second, surprising the lead runner, who assumed (like everyone else) that the ball was going through and he was going to score. I realized after a step that I was way faster than him and throwing was a risk. So, I ran him down – nearly back to second – to close out the game.

After the game, I was told that it changed the week and that it made Evan’s night. Finishing the day 1-1 beats the heck out of losing two. We also woke up our bats and played some good defense. We’ve got a coach that has taken his team to the championship 4 times in a row, so I like our odds.

My batting stats aren’t good, but I understand how it can affect catchers. I was tired when I stepping into the box a few times. So, 0-4 with a walk and a run scored. I think taking second on that walk counts as a steal.

On defense, 5 innings catching and two double plays (one at third, one catching). There was a nice throw to the plate that made for an easy out in the second game. Two passed balls, since the ones with no one on don’t count.

Photos and scorecards will be added here later.

42 is the key

Posted on by David Navarre

Heading into the afternoon matchups, three teams had a shot at two championship game. One team sported a 6-1 record and the other two carried 5-2 records. With the 6-1 team playing the other 5-2 team, all three teams COULD finish with the same record. That would mean we’d check the head-to-head records. Interestingly, each head-to-head matchup had resulted in a win and a loss for three teams. So, the next tie-breaker would be total runs allowed.

2018 Game 8
Bad photo of the scorecard…

We didn’t worry about any of that, since none of it mattered unless we won. We faced Mitch, who is one of the harder throwers in the league. Since they’d allowed all pitchers to go 4 innings on Thursday instead of the normal max of 3 innings, we had a tough row to hoe. The bottom half of our order would face him to start the game. They set the tone for the game by hitting him hard, with Bill, Richard and Russ all scoring to get max runs for the inning. “Game Time Al” Ferlo drove in two runs with a timely single to right. Al didn’t have a lot of hits during the week, but this was incredibly timely!

Ric Power headed out for bottom of the inning and shut them down. One of the keys to our success has been good pitching, backed by solid defense. Ric held them scoreless in the first, gave up 3 to allow a tie in the second, but landed wrong on a pitch in the third. JT stepped up to the mound and their scoring was over.

I didn’t have much success against Mitch, but it didn’t matter, as most of our team did. I put the ball in play the second time around and we maxed out that inning as well. Evan, who had pitched 4 innings in the morning came on in the 5th, stymieing our bats. So, we entered the top of the 6th ahead 6-3.

I’d hit him really well last year, so I was being my usual positive verbal influence on the team, telling them we could hit him. We also had fans for the first time, with Craig’s family showing up to cheer on old #51. Evan must have been tired, but I think that our fans and my encouraging words helped.

Craig's FansWhatever the reason, we just kept getting on base, piling on the runs. I put one in a challenging spot in the infield (only challenging in Ponce!) and reached on a 75-foot, weak liner. We racked up 8 runs, giving us 14 for the game. I think everyone scored, but this was my one really bad photo of the scoresheet.

The other game resulted in all three teams finishing with 6-2 records, and 1-1 records against each other. When they totaled the runs given up, we had 42, Team F had 44 and JR’s Team A had 46. So, we made the championship game!

Age is just a number

Posted on by David Navarre

In our morning game, our starting battery was 139 years old. Richard Toikka was consistently throwing strikes at 73 years old, while catcher, Bill Arnold, is a spry 66 years old. When Dave Wheeler stepped to the plate at 79 years old, we were watching 218 years of experience.

Rich pitched three fantastic innings and JT finished it off. We had some great defense by Russ Ryan and Craig Tasens among others. With double plays and deft catches on shallow flies, we tightened up our defense.Richard throwing bullets

I also got to see my favorite part of an outfielder’s uniform – the back! My second at bat forced him to turn and run for the ball, giving me my second double. I’m at 9 for 18 now!

Russ Ryan smashed a pair of doubles and really had a fantastic game. The whole team is contributing and the potential for a championship remains.

End of wood bat Wednesday

Posted on by David Navarre

Chandler Fox hitting batting practice from Rick Knapp

I love Wood Bat Wednesday, because then everyone is playing MY game. Contact is about the same, but players who normally get hits from the aluminum of their bat instead of the quality of their swing become… unproductive. As we noticed in the morning game, this makes throwing strikes even more important.

In our 6th game, we played JR’s team. They’re all over 60 (except one) and live for wood bat play. Bob Duff started on the mound for them and frustrated us in the first. In the second, we managed to string together some hits, but this was another encounter with a big strike zone. I drove in JT with a ground out to first on a ball that may have been high and outside — I couldn’t afford to take a chance, but knew I could knock it down in the direction of first base. I drove in another (great hustle by Craig Tasens, as usual) on a sky high single too deep for third and too close to the line for the left fielder.

They had gotten to us, though, pushing across 7 runs in the first three innings. JT came in to try shutting them down, but they managed to add two after we added two in the 5th. They ended up edged us, 9-5. Well, it seemed like a tight game all afternoon.

We’re 4-2 and close enough to retain those championship hopes.