Ouch. Four straight losses over nearly a month's time. The head spins. Legs wobble. Straight walking is difficult.

On Monday, July 11th at New Scotland, a fifth straight defeat is near.

The fourth-place, over-62 Peppers are three innings, a mere nine outs, from another thumping, this time to then second-place Americans, who drubbed the
Peppers four days earlier, 15-4.

And then, all of a sudden ... wait, reader, you know where this is going don't you?

Another comeback tale?

Well, yes. And no.

In what seems improbable, given the cast of characters and their recent fates, the (3-6-1) Peppers rallied in the fifth inning to turn a 5-2 deficit into an 8-6 victory
over the (5-4-1) Amerks in seven innings.

Straight walking is suddenly possible. Wobbly is out. Once more, the eyes can focus.

So, the question, is not so much what the Peppers did to secure the win. There, the answer is familiar: they hit, they fielded, they pitched. That's never easy for any club.

But some say they had help. Some say that a mysterious lady was on the hill with the Peppers, Lady Fortune, and she turned things around.

Is that so? And if so, why would she do that?

Consider: Who would think the Peppers had a shot to win at the evening's start when you factor in these calamities and troubleisms?

The Peppers played the game with two players just out of their covid beds; another had a sore throwing shoulder yet he told himself he could, if the wind was
behind him, make the cross-diamond throw; another had a balky knee, making the second-base pivot sound crunchy, and another was checking his still tender
bones after getting knocked off his bike by a hit-and-run driver ($1,500 bike was smashed but he was OK). Could this team do anything? By itself? Without some outside help?

There was more, more trouble, more difficulties facing the boys in vegetarian red. For four innings, the Americans were sailing, leading 5-2, behind the devilishly
fine sidearm pitching of Jimmy Konstantakis, and some really good hits, a triple to right by the speedy Anthony Torre and a long, high double to right center off Mike Lannon's bat.

Yet, the Peppers who came to the plate in the fifth inning were somehow different from the batters of the previous four.

How else to explain that two of the oldest and creakiest players on the club, your 75-year-old scribe and the 69-year old pitcher and generally acknowledged baseball metaphysician
Frank Montagano, both of whom are former Cougars, both of whom had whiffed in their first at-bats, and both of whom would start the inning with back- to-back doubles?
Not just doubles, but mirror doubles, one to right center, one to left? How to explain that? And then a minute later, Charlie Freer, would sock an RBI single, and suddenly
it's a 5-4 game, no outs.

The Peppers then scored two more runs on timely bat work from Tony Mogavero, Dan Durbak, Brad Maione, Frank Kerbein and Tom Japour to leave the inning with
a 7-5 lead. Each team notched one more run after that. Peppers manager Dave Plew pitched a marvelous sixth and seventh frames, leaving in each Americans'
hopes stranded ninety feet from home.

So the conventional explanation was that the Peppers entered the win column the old fashioned way: hitting, fielding, pitching.

And you can believe that if you want to.

But if you squinted across the diamond in the fifth you might have seen something.

I happened to be squinting at the time.

At the start of the fifth inning, minutes before the first double, lovely Lady Fortune, sometimes known as sultry Fate, waved bye-bye to the boys in deep blue jerseys
and sashayed in her long slinky dress and bare feet from their dugout by the parking lot, past the backstop, easing to the other side of the diamond and up the hill
under the tree limbs, where, in her husky voice, I heard her say, or I swear I heard her say, "Hello, boys! I'm back. Like a little luck, would you?"

Seconds later, the Peppers' bats cracked, fortunes changed.

So, was that proof of Lady Fortune's presence?

No?

Well, there's more evidence.

For starters, it was a warm night, but, in the fifth, when the rally started, gentle breezes moved the leaves on the hill. Then, I could have sworn I heard a female voice float
through the air. "I'm still with you, boys," the voice said." Mmm, hmmm. And love that red."

I looked around. I saw two of our traveling and supportive fans, Loretta and Judith, but both hadn't said anything. Hmmm.

Now, reader, if you doubt that Lady Fortune was there, you're certainly welcome to that skepticism. Actually, a part of me shares it. But ... but she or someone
left a mark in another way.

It was in the scorebook. The Peppers had nine hits in the game. Five of them were doubles, which included, beyond the two mentioned, shots by Durbak, Mogavero and Plew.

In earlier games, we might get two, and once in a turquoise moon, three doubles. So, five two-baggers out of nine hits?

Someone, or something else, was there, yes?

And why did she sidle over to our side? Hmm? A mystery. my friend.

But know this. She'll be welcomed back.

- Your Peppers' scribe



-- Edited by mikehart on Tuesday 19th of July 2022 04:42:22 PM

-- Edited by mikehart on Tuesday 19th of July 2022 05:52:47 PM