For a model of terrific scorekeeping and game summary let me direct your eyes to Arachnids' manager Jim Edelman's account,
a few entries back, of his team's 6-4 victory over the Americans in an over-62 game at Watervliet High on Monday..

The only thing Jim missed was to record the comments of the seven or eight fans watching the game next to his team's dugout.
Otherwise, almost every pitch and swing and sore tendon is accounted for. Well done.

Which frees me up to talk about the events, the chatter and the jabber coming out of the Americans' dugout. To start things, we Americans
were eager to see if we could stay on a roll. We started the season with a 1-2 mark, then won two in a row to give us a 3-2 record
coming into the contest.

Would we win three straight?

It wouldn't be easy. In Darrell Duncan we were facing one of the division's best pitchers, a righty with a fine hummer, breaking ball
and knuckler.

Our task was made harder when, in the first, the Arachnids' Ken Wellington, a lefty, tore into one of Scott Ross's good fastballs
and sent a rope almost to the base of the right field wall for an inside-the-park dinger. As pure ropes go, the ball went from bat to fence
in a nano-second..

A few weeks back the Americans' manager Mike LaBarge and I were chatting about how close outfielders should play to the infield
in the over-62 division.

Mike's notion: "Close. Most of the action takes place in the infield in this division." I agreed. And as Casey Stengel might say:
"Everything in this game is true except when it's not." Translated to our division, that could be: "Play close except when you shouldn't."

Down 1-0 after the first half inning, the Americans entered the dugout saying, "C'mon. We can come back." Said on the upbeat.

And we did it. Scott led off with an infield single, then stole second. After an infield out, shortstop Vinny Koster hit a fine line single
to left, scoring Scott. A moment later, Mike Kane stroked a rope very similar to Vinny's, and Vinny scored. You could say that
all the upbeat talk in the dugout gave us gas for the lead. Or you could not say it. In any event, we scored two runs and were up 2-1.

Neither club scored for the next three innings, so the dugout sounds turned to comments about plays on the field,
Ed Rogers was cheered for a nice catch in right, and to talk about how to play this game.

One conversation circled about ways for batters to see and hit the ball better. For good hitting tips, Vinny referred
me to "Ultimatehitting.com" on Youtube. (I think that's the site.)

Then Ralph Caputo said he liked the idea of hitting off a tee (as I do before games), because, he said, "It forces you to keep
your head down."

Then Gibby Travis and Vinny talked about way you hold a bat, how the knuckles should or should not line up. The universal
agreement seemed to be different strokes for different folks, or, experimenting with different grips is generally a beneficial thing.
Except when it's not.

Dugout baseball talk. You almost don't get it nowhere else these days. Except when you do.

Then the Arachnids put up a four spot in the fifth, the big hit being Joe Parker's booming double to left with the bases jammed.

The Americans scored a run in the fifth and seventh, which accounted for the end of things. The 6-4 final score was the same
score as the first contest between the two teams on April 25th. The Americans three losses are by a total of five runs.

After the game, we talked baseball movies. Ralph's wife Zuzu joined us, and she recalled that years ago I said I didn't much
like "Field of Dreams." Still true? She asked. I said she had a great memory, and that yes, it was the worst baseball movie
I've ever seen, it's likely one of the ten worst movies ever made.

Which drew an objection from Jim Porter (who, back to reality, made a fine catch in left in the second inning), who's a fan of the flick, as is,
I should note, Bob Costas, who wasn't there but who praised it in a TV show filmed in Dyersville, Iowa (home of the famous field.)

Then Mike LaBarge asked if anyone had seen a baseball flick he had really enjoyed called "Long Gone." The answer was no.
"Boy," he said, "that was a good film."

With that, we walked out the gates, Mike closed them and we all went home.

-Mike



-- Edited by mikehart on Thursday 8th of June 2023 02:20:45 AM