Will and I were at the ballpark Saturday from 8 am until 6 pm, but it was a fun day. Matthew had his team photos taken at 8:15, then both boys warmed up for their 9 am games. Ceil and Anna walked back and forth between the two close fields during the games.
As the Pony team warmed up, Jake Ellis showed up sporting a brand new uniform, tennis shoes, and spikes, since all his family’s possessions had been lost in the house fire early Thursday morning. Coach Tracy Ellis showed up with new gear as well, and he gave me much needed relief in the batting cage. He later said he knew what to do on the ball field, meaning in the course of the week’s strange events, he was doing many unfamiliar tasks. As the morning wore on he would receive many more hugs from the many men he had coached with for so many years.
Will’s Warrior team was involved in an interesting game down on the Pony Field. Wanting a strong defense against the top of the Shaw Park batting order in the first inning, I placed Will behind the plate. He was able to tally two assists in the inning, neither throwing out base stealers – quite an oddity for a catcher. Both plays involved a throw to third that sailed past the base. Both times Will chased bown the ball near the third-base dugout and quickly tossed the ball to third for the putout…once to third-baseman Jake, and then a second time to Curtis, the pitcher backing up the play.
After Corey led off the game with a walk, Will belted a line drive over the right-fielder’s head that rolled to the fence. Will raced around the bases and beat the relay throw to the plate by several steps, finishing his inside-the-park home run standing up. David and Clay both walked, then Jake tomahawked a high pitch over the left-fielder’s head for a two-run triple.
Curtis completed his second fine inning of pitching by chasing down a short pop, then throwing to first to double off the runner. Will added a putout at short. Then the Warriors first nine batters scored in the bottom of the second, to go ahead 14 – 5. After fouling off several pitches, Will worked the count full, and walked with the bases loaded. He later scored when Jake smashed a hard liner off the second-baseman’s foot. The ball caromed all the way into left-center field, all three runners scored, and Jake wound up at third.
This half inning took a long time, and considered leaving Curtis in to pitch the third. But I stuck to my script, and gave hard-throwing lefty Nick some experience. Nick struck out the first batter he faced, and got a second out after shortstop David committed an error. Then another infield error, and the rival RiverCats plated ten unearned runs to take the lead.
There was time for only one more Warrior at-bat, but with the bottom third of the 15 batter order due up, the RiverCats retired the side to win the game.
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