Know Your Teammates Tuesday

In today's 'Know Your Teammates Tuesday' I'm featuring Bill Wolfe.   I think Bill is the only ex-professional ball player now playing with us.  Bill was a pitcher who played with the Cleveland Indians or Philadelphia Phillies  organizations mostly on affiliated minor league teams. He pitched in 276 ballgames for teams that ranged from Pawtucket in the Eastern League to Portland in the Pacific Coast League over a ten year career that was cut short by injury.  You can read his record sheet here. 

What the record sheet won't tell you is that he pitched and played against some of the greats of that era including the Pirates Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and Bill Mazeroski and the Cardinals Tim McCarver, Curt Flood and Lou Brock not to mention the Cincinnati Reds Pete Rose, Tony Perez and Lee May. Sure he pitched against them in winter ball or maybe spring training but not that many guys make it even that far. 

Say Hi to Bill one of these days, maybe buy him a beer, he's got some great stories to tell. He's promised to send me some articles he's saved from those days so stay tuned.

Submitted by Ron Butler

Today we fell two players short of having enough for three teams. With twelve and thirteen on each team, it was enjoyable to be able to sit for a while in comparison to Friday when everyone was kept quite busy.

 

Bob Zelazny managed the visiting team of Rivera, Witmer, Giordano, Duff, Zelazny, Marino (just back from the Bahamas), Mohan, Lopez, Thompson, Barnes, Moots, and Gibson. They started strong with two runs in the first inning. What followed was quite the opposite as they managed just one more run for the entire game. I do not know if the bats went AWOL but when you see the stat sheet that shows no errors by the home team, three double plays and at least ten fly outs to the outfield, my guess would be solid pitching and stellar defense.

 

The home team Angels were led by Freddy Gonzalez. The line up consisted of Constantine, Gonzalez, Laffoon, Butler, Jacobs, Coffman, Reagan, Simon, Wells, Leggett, Gene Baker, Merritt, and Lee Baker. They managed to tie the game in the second inning and then continued to build on the lead they enjoyed. They never really had a break out inning until the seventh and eighth when they scored four runs in each frame.The final score was Home Team Angels 15 and the Visitors 3.

 

I believe there were two statistics from today's game that merit mentioning. First was the length of the game. We played nine innings and were done by 1030. With only eleven hits by the visiting team and a total of eight scoreless innings between the teams, the game moved right along setting a record for shortest game. The second statistic that is noteworthy is the category of extra base hits. There were only two....a home run by Chris Constantine and a double by Bob Reagan.

 

Key Performances

 

Chris Constantine                4 for 4 with a home run

Freddy Gonzalez                 3 for 4

Ron Butler                           3 for 4

Walt Leggett/Josh Wells    winning pitchers

Submitted by Bob Zelany