FWIW, Normally we don't make a habit of reporting on the tournament teams here but I thought this tournament deserved a short write up since several of our regulars have been playing for the Lake Wales Legends in the Senior Softball USA Winter Nationals down in Ft Myers. The rules were slightly different than our usual Florida Half Century games. For example, the batters start from 0-0 instead of our 1-1 count, the defense has only 4 infielders and 4 outfielders and there's no pitching screen.
In this tournament the Legends Managed by Chuck Duff and Regis Finnegan included Donnie Atkins, Danny Parker, Russ King, Ron Butler, Ronnie Salyer, Gary DeFalco, Joe D'Herin, Bobby Zelazny, Donny Witmer, Don Held, Aaron Phillips and Bobbie DiPetro. If you hollered Don or Ron or Bob during the game, you had to get a bit more specific.
The tournament started with qualifying games on Tuesday. The Legends won two games and lost one but scored a total of 24 runs which was fourth highest. This got us off on the right foot as we were playing on the winners side of the AAA Bracket with 17 other teams including two from Texas and one from Ontario.
On Wednesday, we started off good with a 21-13 win over US Pallet from Collinsville Illinois but then lost to an Austin Texas team, Reyes Logistics, 19-20 which moved us to the Losers Bracket for Thursday's games. I should mention that we were visitors in all 5 games so far due to our lack of ability to call a coin flip. Also I should mention that Ronnie Salyer gets the purple finger award for playing left field through the tourney with a broken finger acquired on a running catch near the foul line fence. Of course, many of us were bruised and banged up and playing with various ailments too but Ronnie's injury was on the middle finger of his throwing hand.
Thursdays games provided us with an opportunity to win the whole thing but we had to win 7 straight games to do so.
We started off Thursday at 8am with a 14-12 win over the Windsor Chiefs (from Ontario) then we defeated Tampa's MCC Marketing team 14-11 in a game where our third baseman, Gary Defalco, started a triple play with a step to the bag, a throw to Danny Parker at second and a relay to Donny Atkins at first for the around the horn rally crusher. We then took on another Texas team called the Leftovers and beat them 19-11. We actually won the flip and for the first time in the tournament, played as home team.
The next game against Globe Trailers from Dunedin ended up tied at 15 each after 7 innings so we played an eighth inning. We scored 12 runs, batting around in our half of the inning and finished with the win 27-17. Did I mention we had lost the flip again?
Next we had to play the Reyes Logistics team again as they now had lost a game to move down into our bracket. Win this game and we're on to the finals where we'd have to win twice to earn the trophy. We won the coin toss for only the second time but ended up losing the game 15-17 for a final third place finish (8 and 2) just two games from the championship. I think we left the last of our energy in the eighth inning of the Globe Trailer game.
This tournament wasn't just a lot of fun it was huge fun. I'm ready to play again. Oh Wait, tomorrow's Friday, I AM going to play again. See you there.
Capt Ron
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