West Coast Fantasy Baseball Association
2006 BASEBALL LEAGUE
FROM THE STANDS
Albert Park, San Rafael
August 20, 2006
by Jim Realini
Post Lodi in beautiful San Rafael found quite a few quiet bats as the “ping” of metallic contact was replaced with the most “doink” of handle hits off the wooden clubs of most players. A historic event came and went in a flash, as Mark Gemello became only the second player in WCFBA play to reach the 300 hit mark, Michael Simon is the other. Instead of a big ceremony and a moment to reflect, G-man’s moment was eclipsed by recently acquired Yomiuri player Don Hahn’s overrunning second base on the hit a getting thrown out. Oh well, when you see Mark shake his hand, pat him on the back, or buy him a beer.
GAME #1
St. Louis Giants (Weishaar-Hughey) 7
Oakland A's (Mello) 5
In a tense game played
in a supposedly “non-competitive” spirit, the Saint Louis Giants edged the
Oakland A’s behind some crafty pitching by Heath Keller and Mark Bruzzone. The
win displaced the A’s from the league lead by half a game with six weeks to go.
The Giant’s spotted the A’s an early lead as Mike Hughey looked like”moochy”
(remember the old Mickey Mouse Club series “Moochy at the bat”?) lost his
glove. Maybe if he would just imagine catching the ball like closing escrow and
throwing the ball like pitching his cell phone. The Giants recovered mostly due
to the zillion pop flies to first base caught by a host of Giant corner men.
Moochy and Keith DaCosta led the St Louis Giants with two singles
each while Heath Keller and Doug Meyer smashed long, loud doubles. Bill
Pederson and Mark Bruzzone powered the Giants win with clutch bingles of their
own.
Coach Mike Mello is keeping his team’s official stats a secret
and most off their hits (when Moochy wasn’t erring to the A side) came when I
went next door to get lunch at Safeway.
Yomiuri Giants (Schmuck-Miller) 10 Fresno Giants (Terra-Realini) 4
This game was
all about good pitching. Crafty veteran Mark Gemello celebrated his 300th
hit day by baffling the Fresno sticks for six wonderful innings, backed up by
some solid fielding. Mike Miller finished off the Giants by fighting through
the walk monster. Dr. Guy Peabody tossed five commanding innings working
through several “seeing-eye” hits that produced short rallies for Yomiuiri.
Michael Simon worked the end of the game showing that he still can fling the
horsehide with the best in our league.
Mark Gemello led the Yomiuiri attack with three hits while John Haines, Mike Miller, and Matt Schmuck powered two hits each; Matt smacked a big double in the second. Doug Rusch and Scott Lueders topped off the Yomiuiri day with sharp singles each.
The mighty Fresno Giants only managed three hits on a day of “ATEM” ball. Jim Realini, Dave DeCruz, and Todd West were the lucky strikers on the day.
Next games are a triple-header at College of Alameda.
Reminder to all regular players, do not forget to tell your coach by Thursday morning, before NOON if you are going to play or you will lose your spot on the team for the weekend to a pool player
.