Today was a beautiful summer day at Pine field in Carlsbad.  Almost perfect!  The skies were a nice azure and the ocean breezes keep coming.  Monarch butterflies in the air and a perfect 72 degrees.  Peaceful… until … some person forgot how to work their car alarm.  The peace-and-quiet was interrupted for almost 30 minutes of a car alarm going off.  Here’s a Public Service Announcement – When you get a car alarm the first thing to learn is?  YES – you guessed it - How to turn the thing off.  Enough of that …  Team purple scored 5 in the first and never looked back. Over the course of the game, Team Purple put up 8 more and ace Rich Keefer shut down the inn - as in kept them to 4 total runs.  The inn had two people who did very well at the plate.  Runs were scarce for the inn, however Vern Blough hit a first inning homer and “old reliable” David Bentley was 4 – 4.  Team Purple had many contributors at the plate.  Three players had home runs – David Bosque – a perfect 4-4, David Ward and Joe Maher.  Solana Spa newcomers Lucky Bishop and Rick Kamien contributed at the plate and on “D”.  Play of the game – The Inn is mounting a bit of a comeback with a couple runners on and newcomer Rick Kamien catches a foul tip off the bat of Dan Miserany to shut down the inn.

They say that good pitching and defense wins ball games and such was the case with Cultura’s 14-8 win over The Draft in a closely contested game at Alga. Until the 8th inning Cultura was only up by 4 until a 5 run outburst that lengthened the lead to 9. The Draft scored 3 in the 9thbut were unable to close the gap any further. Homeruns by Bob Porter and Al Galaviz and 4-4 hitting by Brian Turner and Joe Paul and 3-4 by Karen Smith powered the offense, and solid infield (including turning a slick DP by Karen Smith) and outfield play kept The Draft off the bases. Steve Berry pitched another outstanding game for Cultura. Newly acquired Paul Thomas singled and drove in a run in his first at bat and went 3-5. Gene LaChimia led The Draft with a perfect 4-4 day at the plate. Typical of the friendly atmosphere of league games were the comments of The Draft after the game; “we came with a good spirit and left with a good spirit.” Thanks to Bob Baptista who did a professional job of umpiring.

The Plotkin Group came out swinging in the first inning, with three singles followed by a grand slam by Carlos Cevallos.  Nucci’s scored one run in the bottom of the first on a lead-off home run by Dave Koch, and took the lead in the fourth, scoring five runs that began with Dave’s second home run. NU scored another five runs in the fifth, but PG came back to narrow the lead to 12-11 after seven. NU resumed the hitting attack in the last two innings, scoring nine runs to win the game 21-17. Leading the NU hitters today was substitute Skip Moyer, who went 5 for 5 with a home run, and Pete Penseyres, who also went 5 for 5. Dave Koch went 4 for 5 with his two home runs and Dave Ash also went 4 for 5. Dwayne Zon, Greg Newman, Steve Wagner and Lil Keehan all went 3 for 4, and Marty Topper went 2 for 3 with a sacrifice fly. The infield had some sparking defensive plays, led by Dwayne Zon at rover, and turned three double plays to keep PG runners off the bases. Oscar Castillo led the PG hitters, going 4 for 4, while Jesse Jackson and Ron Silverman each went 4 for 5 and Ken Armentano went 4 for 4.  NU thanks its injured shortstop Steve Sexton for a great umpiring job.

It was hot this morning at Calavera--not just the temperature, but also the hitting for both teams. TPP put 5 on the board in the first; so did PPB. TPP added 5 more in the 3rd; so did PPB. TPP only scored 2 in the 4th, but PPB scored 4 to take the lead. Then suddenly both teams stopped scoring for the next 2 innings and going into the 7th PPB clung to a 14-13 lead. In the 7th, led by a single from Neil Cohen, who went 3 for 4 batting at the bottom of the order, the top of TPP's order pushed across 5 runs to take a 18-14 lead. PPB cut the lead to one going into the 9th, But again led by a single from Neil, the top of TPP's order scored 7 runs and held on for a 25-20 victory. TPP was led by Bob Blachford's 3 homers and 10 RBIs, and 5 for 5 games from Dave Granum, Barry Anderson and super sub Bob Buscher. For PPB, Mike Weinreich had a homer; Dave Irwine was 5 for 5 with a homer; and Eddie Gillette was 4 for 5 with a homer! Hugh O'Neil would have had a homer, but his pants fell down rounding 2nd base. Defensively, Rony Lewis made two great assists. Thanks to Gary Linder for filling in for PPB.