Three is not so Charming!
World’s Tournament Game 3
Walnut Grove 2, Greenfield Village, MI
Bay City 13, Saginaw 28
The “Group of Death” that was the Chadwick Region in the World’s Tournament this season reared its ugly head again for the participants. After having played two extraordinary, emotionally draining, and exhaustive matches Bay City now had to play the loser of the Saginaw Old Golds and the Spiegel Grove Squires match. After playing Forest City, last season’s Reserve Champion, and the La-de-dahs, the current Michigan State Champion and two time World’s Tournament Champion, Bay City now had the honor of playing either the current World’s Tournament Champion and 2008 Runner-Up, Saginaw, or the 2005 Reserve Champion and 2007 Runner-Up, Spiegel Grove Squires. As was the Bay City luck on the day they got the chance to play Saginaw, who had just been blanked by the Squires for 6 straight innings before storming back only to fall just short at 16-13.
Bay City won the coin toss, and elected to take the field. The first innings went rather well for the Bay City defense as three of the first four Saginaw strikers sent sky balls to the outfield that were bottled in style for a fine coat of whitewash. In their first the Independents began with Sean “Tanner” Leroux making his first on a fine daisy cutter. Then LeRoux took his third on a blast into the garden by Al “Kid” Garcia, who also took his second. The next two hands would go quietly thanks to the fielding of the Old Golds and the lone chance Bay City had of taking a lead was squelched.
The Saginaw bats came to life, as they had in the final portion of their match against the squires, and they plated 5 aces in their second innings. Their fieldwork continued as well, especially that of Chad Short the left fielder, who accepted 4 of the first 6 outs that Bay City made. After two innings Saginaw led 5-0.
The Old Golds weren’t done there as in the third innings their bats discovered that they could launch sky balls onto the tracks surrounding left field. Three ground rule doubles in all were hit in this innings by the Golds, including one struck by Mr. Dennis Konusziewski that might have left the cavernous Union Grounds in New York. There was only one cannonade sent to the right side of the field, and that was by Mr. Beemer, who strikes from the left side. Mr. Beemer made his second on the blast, but then attempted to take his third on an over throw of home plate, but fortunately the catcher recovered the ball in time to kill Mr. Beemer’s hand at third to end the innings. In all the Golds would tally 7 more runs to put their total to 12-0.
Bay City would try to keep up with the runaway locomotive that was the angry Old Golds, and sent twelve strikers to the plate in the third innings and scored 7 times to match the Saginaws efforts. The whillow whipping on the Bay City side found the railroad embankment only once in the innings when Brian “The Butterfly” Beceril crushed the onion over the tracks and drove home an ace. The Bay Citys would end the match with runners on second and third, and found themselves nearly back in the match at Saginaw 12, Bay City 7.
The Saginaws however wouldn’t be slowed down as six safe hits allowed strikers to take their first, and another shot on the railroad tracks placed 6 more runs in the fourth innings. Then in the fifth innings the Old Golds would match that total, and Mr. Beemer would have the last laugh as he sent another howitzer to the long field that gave him his third. The Old Golds would score 4 more runs in the sixth innings bringing the total for the match to 28-7.
The Bay Citys would finally breakthrough the Saginaws scientific play for 6 runs of their own in the sixth innings. The Bay Citys strikers would find the railroad tracks three times in the innings with barrier busters from the bats of “Rope” Revette, Doc Garcia, and Ray “The Banker” Banister. This round of striking would end the contest as the final score would wind up with Saginaw 28, and Bay City 13.
It would have been interesting to see the final tally in this contest had it gone nine innings, as most assuredly some scoring records may have been reached. As it is this heavyweight match-up landed squarely in Saginaw’s favor with three rounds to the Saginaws, two draws, and one round for Bay City.
