Yes, it's true that the final score in the first-round over-62 playoff game between the Americans and the Peppers had one winner
and one loser: the fourth-place Americans edged a very scrappy, fifth-place Peppers club, 11-10.

But this was the kind of game that, if there were lights, we would have been right to say: "Hey let's go nine, or more, and see what happens."

For guys staring at geezerhood, that's saying something.

Fact is, these are old guys with talent and it was on display at Watervliet High on Tuesday evening.

It's a Casey Stengel paradox, and the Old Perfesser got it absolutely right. Both clubs started fine hurlers on the hill, Bob Bolt
for the Peppers and Steve Lounello for the Americans, but somehow both clubs managed to put the bat on the ball, and suddenly,
runs were scoring for both teams. Casey framed the idea this way: "In baseball, good hitting will always beat
good pitching, and vice versa." Perfessors know from paradoxes.

The point is the 7-6-2 (you read that right, 2 ties) Americans would score, and then the Peppers (who had a 2-12
record but played more like a club with a 12-2 record) would put up numbers so that the lead changed places
almost every inning, as pitchers came and went throughout the game. Precisely how those numbers fell into boxes
from inning to inning, I can't say: I don't have the book with me. But take my word for it, that's what happened.

Two of the prettiest plays occurred in the middle of the game, where the Americans' Mike Aiello, playing on sore legs,
made a running-away-from-home, over-the-shoulder grab in deep left near the foul line. Roughly about the same spot in the game, the
Peppers Charlier Freer, playing on a sore ankle, made sweet stretched-out catch of a Steve Lounello shot to right center.

Entering the final fame with the score tied at eight, the Peppers sent up the top of their lineup, consisting of Bob Bolt, Charlie Freer,
Jim Kidd, Greg Magione, Tony Mogavero, Jim Allen, Dan Durbak and Frank Kerbein. It was one single or double after another, as the Peps
twice loaded the bases with solid hits and emerged from the frame with 10-8 lead.

Half an inning to go.

Defeat may have been in the air for the Americans, but they didn't breathe it, and the top of that team's lineup, consisting of
Mike Aiello, Vince Koster, Rich Garbarino, Mike Kane, Steve Lounello, Ralph Caputo, Don Ball, and Mike LaBarge simply kept hitting
until they'd scored three runs and won the game.

But there was so much good hitting, that especially, and plain old good play, that while it's true that one team won and one lost,
it's hard to say it.

Instead, we say that both teams won, and, in lots of ways if you think about it, that's so.

-Mike Hart




-- Edited by mikehart on Wednesday 21st of August 2024 02:23:01 AM