Gessler Field

Today's game on Gessler Field certainly had its ups and downs...Mostly ups for the visiting team and down for the home boys. The true challenge beside the cold and wind was the number of players. Since we had 10 on one team and nine on the other, we decided to play ten leaving the middle open.

 

The visitors lineup was put together by Ron Butler. His lineup included Coffman, Toro, Smith, Hartley, Butler, Kallister, Levesque, Borrelli, Hawbaker, and McPartin. They started strong and had as good af first six innings as I can remember. The foirst five batters in the first two innings got on base and scored. In the third they tallied three times with home runs by Coffman and Levesque. They continued adding up the runs with two in the fourth. Things were out of hand by the time they tallied five more runs in the fifth. In the sixth, Ron Butlers home run propelled them to four more in the sixth. At the end of six innings they had totaled 24 runs.

 

The home team had Dampier, Hill, Wiltshire, Jacobson, Zelazny, Vendenberg, Wells, Podbilski, and Lopicollo. Despite a strong motivational speech by the manager Zelazny, the home boys started slow.

and stranded too many runners to make a game of it. They managed five in the second but made no headway in reducing the lead enjoyed by the visitors. With only one run in the next two innings they were looking at having to overcome a deficit of nine. The fifth saw doubles by Hill and Wiltshire and a triple by Vandenberg provided the power to push across six runs. The home boys continued to speak with their bats and scored five in the sixth. So despite being behind there was a glimmer of hope with three to go.

 

The seventh inning started with the visitors up by six. That preety much the game, as Wiltsee's triple scored the lone run in the last three innings. Final score Visitors 24 and Home 19. Winning pitch BJ Kallister.

 

Key Performances

 

Kirk Coffman    4 for 6

Juan Toro    4 for 6

Terry Smith     4 for 6 with two doubles

Dave Hartley     4 for 5

Ron Butler    4 for 6 with a homer

Ray Lesvesque    4 for 5 with a homer

Dave Hawbaker    4 for 5

 

Fred Dampier    5 for 7

Steve Hill    5 for 7

Bob Zelazny    6 for 7

Bob Vandenberg    5 for 7