The Games at Last! We just got the bad news that we couldn't use the Stadium and we would have to start late. The freezing weather killed some of the grass at the stadium. I played in this stadium 5 years ago on Harvey's Wallbangers and it's a great Park. This is a shame. It also means that there is a time element involved now. This could be a problem for the baseball games. And of course it turned out to be.
We all know the first rule of Murphy's Laws:
Iif you schedule a tournament around the assumption that the games will last a certain amount of time. They won't .
The Sox hurler had good stuff. Of course he did, Smitty recruited him. Thru 7 innings he yielded 6 hits, and luckily for us one was a Supe 4th inning double and another was a 2Tee 3 RBI 7th inning 2 bagger bomb. Meanwhile Ricky breezed thru 6 3-hit innings and left the game to Buck and Supe with a 4-2 lead.
Ahhh...but it was time for the baseball gods to teach us a lesson about planning a baseball game. With 2 outs in the bottom of the 8th inning and a routine 6-4 bouncing towards our sure handed SS, The Baseball Gods reached down and pushed the bouncing ball a little to the left as it was entering the Nor'Easter SS glove; just enough to delay the throw to the covering 2nd bagger. Safe!Now...The Rest of the Story
Three batters later the score was 4-4
, and Supe's 2 inning tour turned into an 8 inning death-a-thon. Tournament Director John was seeing the writing on the wall and turned to desperate measures to end the game so he could start scheduled Game 3. In the 12th inning the innings started with a man on 2nd base. In the 15th, their first hitter doubled, and the game was over.
We had our chances. In the 9th, we had bases loaded and no outs. They brought a lefty into the game and we were shut down right then, and for the rest of the game. We couldn't touch him. We didn't know then, but losing this game eliminated us from a first place finish in the tournament. But, more good baseball to come.
