This Week's Comic
Game Pictures
Down to 11 players PPB had to dig dig dig deep for a sub today in LF.
Thursday August 4th
Pizza Port 24 Gaspar 16
Village Pie Shoppe 18 Worden Williams 16
Village Pie Shoppe 18 Worden Williams 16
A shorthanded Pizza Port team (read: down to a skeleton crew) got the best of Gaspar in the early game at Pine Field, 24 - 16.
Rich Reynolds went 4-for-6 with 4 RBIs, Mike Maltinsky was 5-for-5 with 3 doubles, a home run, and four RBIs, and Steve Sexton had five base hits in five plate appearances with a home run and 5 RBIs.
Another splendid tag-team pitching performance from Johnny Martinez (three singles and an RBI) and Pete Zavala (two singles and two RBIs) kept Gaspar scoring to a minimum.
The fleet-footed John Paul Bones was the Pizza Port defensive star of the game with several spectacular running catches in left field.
David Ward homered for Gaspar and Brian Turner had three triples.
Thanks go out to Joe Raffa and Leigh Peterson for umpiring the game.
Village Pie Shoppe 18 Worden Williams 16
Village Pie Shoppe 18 Worden Williams 16
Village Pie Shoppe 18 Worden Williams 16
Today was a good news/bad news day for Village Pie Shoppe. The powerful hitting team that is Worden Williams was acutely short-handed with only nine players available. Good Samaritan VPS supplied them with a third baseman and a right fielder. The downside of this arrangement was that the nine WW players in the lineup were all tough outs and many came to the plate six times.
WW manager and notorious gambler, "Riverboat " Joe Paul, went with only four outfielders for much of the game, and VPS took advantage of the yawning gaps to build up a seven run lead through the seventh. At that point, Joe repositioned rover Nanci Watt to center field, which helped bring VPS scoring to an early close. Worden Williams went on a late scoring rampage with nine runs total in the seventh and eighth.
Bottom nine, WW was chasing two and the Village defenders were looking at the top of the WW batting order. What might have been a climactic comeback win for the home team was not meant to be, however, as the scoring wave passed safely under the keel of the VPS vessel and the winners' relief was palpable.
Worden Williams hitters were led by Rich Lavacot, who was 4/5 and hit for the cycle. Mark Riserbato was also 4/5 with a homer.
Village Pie hitting heroes were Oscar Lara, Bob Porter, Johnny Brand and Kathy O'Neil who all made only one out apiece. This posting would not be complete without handing out the game's Most Valuable Player award to our own Jonnie Johnson whose amazing play behind the plate included catching multiple pop fouls, foul tips and a put out of a WW player streaking toward home from third.
We are also grateful for the quality umpire work supplied by Phil Heinz.
The Draft 15 The Landings 4
The Draft 15 The Landings 4
The Draft 15 The Landings 4
We were certainly grateful for an early 8:30 am game at Alga today as the humidity was beginning to get thicker with each inning played. In these conditions, there were a couple of vapor trails coming off hard hit balls that cut through the musty air. After 90 sluggish minutes, The Draft came through with a win of 15 to 4 as The Landing took another loss to the chin while trying to get their first win of the season.
Before the standing room crowd and those in the bleachers (not really) could get comfortable in their seats, Bill Mead was lead off hitter for The Landing and crushed the second pitch of the game high and deep over The Draft left fielder. Bill trucked around the bases for a no doubt home run. A few innings later, also from the Landing, Kirsten Mildbrant took a Mighty Casey swing and hit a screamer all the way to the right-center fence. Before the ball was picked up from the warning track, Kirsten was rounding 3rd base full steam ahead for a home run. Offensively for The Landing, it was a day of good hits that ended up going like magnets directly into defensive gloves. A few feet here and there could have made a big difference.
On defense, shortstop Bill Codner beautifully snared a rocket of a hit ball for an out. Steve Newberg effortlessly glided to each ball fielded for a sure putout. Delta Farrington was heads up, calling defensive plays of encouragement.
The Draft had another well balanced hitting game. Paul Thomas and Randy Benge each went 4/4. Pat Driscoll and Roney Lewis clubbed 3/4. Roney also had 4 RBIs. On the glove side, Tori Prince reacted like a prowling cat as catcher, snagging two pop outs. Gary Roper and Lloyd Thorne were able to knock down hits to keep runners from advancing.
A thanks to Al Cabacungan for stepping in to ump our game.
Nucci's 24 Hennessey's 16
The Draft 15 The Landings 4
The Draft 15 The Landings 4
An exciting competitive game today with good defense from both teams through the first four innings with Nucci's holding a 7 to 4 lead over Hennessey's. Nucci's scored 3 runs in the 5th and 6th. Then Hennessey's scored five runs in the 5th and 6th inning to take a 14-13 lead. Nucci's scored 4 runs in the 7th, none in the 8th and then WHAM got 7 runs in the top of the 9th. Nucci's took the lead 24 to 14 and Hennessey's came back scoring two runs but couldn't catch up.
Hennessey's Highlights: Carlos Cevallos 5/5 coming off the injured list, Gene LaChimia 5/5. Donato Domaguin 3/5 with a homer, 3 RBI's, and Oscar Castillo 3/5 with a bases loaded triple and 5 RBI's. It was good to see Janet Wood today supporting her team and umpiring.
Nucci's Highlights: Rod Johnson 4/5, Mark Lehman 4/5 with 4 RBI's, Craig Wheatcroft 4/5 with 3 RBI's. Dave Hartzog 4/5 with 5 RBI's, Al Cabacungan 4/5 with 4 RBI's, 3/5 hitters were Rick Skidmore, Dan Griffin, Tom Carney (with 2 homeruns). Sheree Lovick 2/4 with 2 RBI's
A "Special" shout out to Nucci's pitcher Rodney Johnson for his 20th winning pitching series. 10 from the previous season (Pizza Port) and 10 from current team Nucci's..
Tuesday August 2nd
Hennessey's 25 The Landings 16
Hennessey's 25 The Landings 16
Hennessey's 25 The Landings 16
The early game at Pine today had HEN showing up missing six players. With no subs available, LAN was gracious enough to loan us a catcher and right fielder to get HEN to eleven players on defense. Fortunately, those nine players came to play perhaps their best game on both offense and defense and closed out the eight inning game with a 25 to 16 victory.
Both teams came out swinging early, with both scoring five runs in the first inning. Both teams were scoreless in the second inning, but then HEN scored in every inning thereafter including three more five run innings. HEN's defense then held LAN scoreless in three innings and gave up only a big six run inning in the 7th to get the score to 20 to 15.
Did I say the HEN defense was awesome? Both the infielders and outfielders made some great outs, with Donato Domaguin getting the Hoover Award for sucking up everything hit to second base and throwing out numerous frustrated LAN hitters. Only Steve Newberg and Kirsten Mildbrandt going 4 for 4 and Bill Mead and Marlon Moore 3 for 4 with a homer apiece nicked the defense and pitching of Vickie Asaivao and Barry Anderson.
With only nine in the batting order the HEN hitters got plenty of opportunities and took advantage of that with every player getting multiple hits and at least one RBI each. Donato, Gene LaChimia, Oscar Castillo, Rich Berkley and Barry Anderson were all 5 for 6 with Barry adding a homerun. Al Castaneda was only 4 for 6 but one was a homer. Near the bottom of the order Harry Peacock had a career day going 5 for 5 with 2 RBIs.
Thanks to "Honey" Peterson for a fine job umpiring and adjudicating several appealed plays in the field.
The Draft 11 Village Pie Shop 9
Hennessey's 25 The Landings 16
Hennessey's 25 The Landings 16
Mickey Mantle once said, "Sometimes I think if I had the same body and the same natural ability and someone else's brain, who knows how good a player I might have been.”
Today's game between Village Pie Shop and The Draft at Pine street was well played with the least amount of mental errors . Oh sure there were the usual physical mistakes but they were kept to a minimum. It was a close game in the final innings with The Draft hanging on to an 11 to 9 win over Village Pie Shop.
Defensive performances on both teams kept runners from getting on base, advancing or from scoring on numerous opportunities. Bob Porter played like a 20 something year old, coming up with a couple of slick infield plays. A nice Gold Glove highlight from Johnny Brand was on display as he raced in from the outfield like a racehorse to snow cone a falling star hit for VPS. A well timed, jumping spear catch by Randy Benge robbed a sure hit. Tori Prince was like a Venus Fly catcher with a steady glove behind the plate hanging on to a couple of tricky fly outs. Such defensive gems kept both teams from scoring more runs.
The hitting performance from both teams produced a few Rod Carew punch it through the infield hits along with classic Tony Gwynn slaps to the outfield. There were surprisingly only a couple of deep hits to the outfield. Both pitchers, Mike Enderman for VPS and Steve Berry for The Draft had exceptional performances moving the ball around and preventing the perfect pitch to hit.
Coming up with solid knocks to get on base and or push runners across home plate for Village Pie Shop were Johnny, Bob, and Oscar Lara each going 4/4. Along with 2 hits each from Leigh “Honey” Peterson and Dave Grull.
The Draft hitting across the line up was well balanced as no one went 4/4 but instead contributed with timely hits here and there. Randy smashed a bases clearing double to start a 5 run inning. In the final at bat inning for VPS, they pushed 3 runs across with 2 outs and a runner on 1st and almost tied up the game.
Pizza Port Brewery 24 Worden Williams 16
Pizza Port Brewery 24 Worden Williams 16
Pizza Port Brewery 24 Worden Williams 16
It was Worden Williams versus Pizza Port Brewery at Alga today in the second game of the double header. At least until first pitch. Then it was 13 PPB players versus 12 WW players including 2 loaners. At least until the first time thru lineups. Then it was PPB 12 players versus WW 12 players including loaners. Until the 5th inning. Then it was PPB 11 players plus a loaner versus WW 10 players with one hurt and two loaners. Until the 7th inning. Then it was PPB 11 players versus WW 11 players with too many loaners to count. Until the 8th inning…ah forget it, you get the picture. It was a damn battle of attrition is what it was out there today.
As for the game, hitters had a busy day spraying balls into vacant outfields of three or four players. HRs were rolling like a bowling alley to the wall all day.
For Worden Williams, Dan Smith kept WW ahead for most of the game with 2 HRs and 5 RBIs. Mark Riserbato put up a 5/6 day and MaryAnn OBrien had a clutch 2 RBI single to give WW a 4 run lead mid-game.
The PPB bats were relentless though as the team batted over .700 into the vast outfield canyons. Mike Maltinsky 4/4 had 2 HRs, Steve Sexton 5/5 and Rich Reynolds combined for 9 hits and Jerry Galily had 4 hits including a HR. Kevin McBarron had 4 hits and a HR and saw his average drop as MaryAnn O’Brien joined Bob Peters as the only two fielders to get him out this year after snagging a wicked line drive down the third base line.
But after all that hitting it came down to the bat of Johnnie Martinez who came up twice in the late innings of a close game and rocked a couple electric Homingles. That would be HRs turned into singles. Johnnie sent two balls to the fence and by the time they were retrieved he was comfortably on the bench sipping his Gatorade as he settled for the greenie! The big RBIs helped PPB pull away late for a 24-16 win.
Thx to Joe Raffa for umpiring and to all the players for being patient during player refills throughout the game.
Nucci's 20 Gaspar 12
Pizza Port Brewery 24 Worden Williams 16
Pizza Port Brewery 24 Worden Williams 16
Both teams were ready to play at the 8:30 game while it was still cool.
Nucci's started off scoring five runs in the first inning. Gaspar answered back scoring two runs in the second and three in the third to tie the game 5-5. The squad on Nucci's scored three at the bottom the 3rd bringing the score 8-5. In the fifth inning Pitcher Rod started the inning off with a single along with Tom Carney homerun scoring 4 runs. Gaspar team scored five runs in the 6th including Brian Turner homerun. Nucci's put five more runs on the board in the 7th inning. Rick Skidmore scored a run in the eighth and Gaspar scored 2 in the 8th but didn't score in the 9th.
Gaspar Highlights: Dan Frye 4-4, Brian Turner 3-4 with a homerun.
David Ward, Skip Moyer, Jeff Gorman had 3 hits each.
Nucci's Highlights: Rodney Johnson, Tom Carney, Al Cabacungan ,(4 Rbi's) Dave Hartzog hit 4-4( with 4 RBI's) Craig Wheatcraft 3/4 with 3 RBI's, Mark Lehman 3/4, 4 RBI's, Rick Skidmore 3/4 1 RBI
Sheree Parsons and Sheree Lovick were hot at the plate hitting 3/4.
THANKS to Paul Shook for umpiring !!!
2022 Season 2: STANDINGS AS OF 8-4-22
Standings are posted after all scores have been received (in a timely manner)
2022 Season 1
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