Winter Haven Senior Softball

 Tuesday, May 25th

We had 42 ball players show up today. Not enough American league players to have a game so we combined with the National League for a three team game. One American League player went home so we had two 14 player teams and one 13 player team. There were not a lot of bats during this game because all of the great defensive plays. Some players only got two turns at bat while most of the players got three turns at bat. The top two teams tied at 15 all in seven innings. 

Friday, May 28th

The American League hosted a team from Sebring today. Lou Guzman put together the team from Winter Haven and Charlie Giordano, who plays in Winter Haven and Sebring, brought a great group of guys from Sebring. They played a double header beginning at 9:00 AM. The score in the first game was 18-14 Sebring and was decided in the last inning. In the second game, Winter Haven jumped out ahead early and managed to hold on to the lead for the entire game. Sebring had the tying runs on base in the bottom of the seventh inning when a double play from Rad to Tony Q to Manny ended the game. The final score was 14-12 Winter Haven. A big thanks to Charlie Giordano for making this happen and to Wally Wallace for umpiring both games. The guys in the National League really enjoyed their game without the guns from the American League. An now comes the National League.  Write up by Don Witmer  

Managers were Zelazny and Witmer in a very close game indicated with the final being 20-18 in favor of the Witmer team. Didn't start out that way though as after the top of 4th Witmer was holding a strong 9-0 lead. Then Capozzi and Gibson started the bottom with singles and 10 more hitters followed to score 9 to tie it all up. Then the lead changed hands 3 times before the final outcome. In the top of the ninth, Witmer was trailing by one run with the bottom four batters coming up. They all got hits and 3 runs were scored to take a two run lead. There was a total of 52 hits in this dramatic "pitchers duel."  Zelazny led the hitting barrage going 5-5. Here are some others. 

   4 hits.   Spitaleri w/hr, Jacobs, Constantine

                 Kniery

   3 hits.  Morton, Hawbaker, Thompson

                Coffman, O'Callaghan

   2 hits.   Reagan (welcome back Bobby)

                 Skidmore, Capozzi, Dowdy, Gibson

                 Witmer, Hite, Poke

The best play of the game came early in the 2nd inning. A base hit went to left field and turned into an overrun at 2nd base with a tag out there, then the fielder turned and fired a low strike to catcher Gibson to get a runner trying to score from 3rd for a double play. Sorry, I can't recall the defensive players making the first part of that play. (I do have a very good memory, just not very long)  😆

Write up by Loren Fabian

See y'all Tuesday.