Punisher vs the Pastor.

First of all a warm welcome back to the old DiamondPlex Ballpark for Fred Dampier and Bob Hite.  Good to see you guys back in the game.  

Today's game is billed as the Punisher vs the Pastor.  

The visitors, managed by Jeff Simon (aka the Punisher) included Rivera, Dampier, Toro, C. Duff, Butler, Lopez, Matta, Thompson, Simon, Marino, Hite & L. Baker.  

The home team, managed by Freddie Gonzalez (aka the Preacher), included Constantine,Gonzalez, King, Zelazny, Jacobs, Giordano, Coffman, Regan, M. Gonzalez, Wells, Barnes, Merritt & Ayala.  

The first four innings had identical runs scored and after four innings the score was tied at seven apiece.  The first inning for the home team featured a lead off HR by Constantine.  The home team went scoreless in the fifth, sixth and seventh frames.  

The visitors opened a four run lead in the fifth inning which featured a Ron Butler double.  The visitors increased their lead in the seventh with four more runs showcased by a Toro double and a Butler triple.  In the eighth the onslaught continued with the visitors scoring five times highlighted by a Dampier double.  

The home team responded with two runs to make the score 19 to 9 after eight innings favor of the visiting squad.  The visitors scored twice in the top of the ninth to open up a twelve run lead.  To their credit, Freddie rallied his team to a seven run ninth inning highlighted by a Chris Constantine grand slam.  The final tally was 21-16. 

The winning pitcher honor will be shared by Nick Matta who pitched the first four innings and Ron Thompson who lobbed the final five frames. 

The leading batters for the Visitors were: 

• Rivera 4-5, 4-5 2B, 
• Toro 3-5 2-2B, 
• Duff 4-4 2B,SF, 
• Butler 5-5 2B,3B, 
• Lopez 4-5 2B,  

Thee home team leading hitters were 

• Constantine 3-5 2HR,  
• F. Gonzalez 3-5 2B, 
• King 4-5,  
• M. Gonzalez 4-4, 
• Barnes 3-3 BB

Submitted by Jeff Simon, The Punisher.

Rules Changes

The  Board of Directors met last month to review all suggested rule changes for the upcoming year that were submitted by members of the league. The following actions were taken:

1. Elimination of the 180 foot line:  

BOD voted to retain as written.

 

2. Expand the flip/flop rule: 

BOD voted to eliminate the flip flop rule in total.   The reasoning is that our game isn't only about winning or losing and the Flip-Flop rule eliminated batting opportunities for the home team.  The rule only applied off-season anyway and that's the time of year we're playing for fun and not the won/lost record.  (Besides playing in flip-flops is considered to be unsafe).

 

3. Clarify pitching screen rule: 

BOD voted to eliminate the ambiguity associated with "making a move to get behind the screen" by restating rule as follows: "The pitcher shall be behind the screen when the ball is batted."   The rule also now reads that "An umpire may call a pitch illegal if the pitcher is not behind the screen when the pitched ball reaches the plate"  also "Base runners will be called safe if a pitcher fields a ball without being behind the screen when the ball is batted."   These clarifications were made with the intention of improving the safety of the pitcher. 

 

4. Review of runner rules: 

BOD voted to retain as written.

 

5. Change five run rule to correspond with tournament rules: 

BOD voted to continue the five run and catch up rules as written.

As always we welcome your comments and suggestions to improve our game. You can submit your thoughts to the blog or communicated personally to the commissioner or any board member.

From the Lakeland Club

Russ King, Commissioner for the Lakeland Senior Softball Club shared the following comments with the players on Monday.  

Several updates on league members and their families were provided by Russ King at the park on Monday, July 21:

Bob Chouinard has been diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer and will be moved into hospice care later this week. Once he is settled in hospice, visitors will be welcomed and encouraged. Russ King should have an update on him later in the week.

Doug Chamblee, who has been battling a heart ailment, is doing better. He is currently working to get his Coumadin level balanced.

George Radlein continues to improve and told Russ King that he has gained 14 pounds. He continues to be hopeful that he can return to the ballfield.

Wayne Mundy’s wife Eleanor suffered two compressed vertebrae during a fall at home recently.

At the board meeting later on Monday, Ron Lloyd reported that Chris Scheer will have knee surgery in November and may not be ready for the winter season.

Chris also told Ron that his son, who was in a serious auto accident this past spring, is starting to show some improvement.

J.D. Davis made his first visit to the park on Monday after having knee replacement surgery in June. Although he’s still a ways from being ready to play again, it was good to see J.D. back at the ballpark.

Please keep all of those mentioned, plus others who are suffering through rough times, in your thoughts and prayers.

Eddie Kazak's Birthday

In case you missed this little tidbit in the news. Detroit Tigers to stay in Lakeland!, Oh Yeah, and today is that famous Tiger, Eddie Kazak's Birthday.

Twenty five players showed up including Sergio Ayala who played his first game with us this morning. Additionally we had two distinguished guests as JD Davis and Dick Sessink dropped by to lend their support.

Donnie Witmer managed the visitors today and they started strong. The team of Constantine, Witmer, Duff, Giordano, DeRidder, Coffman, Chrest, Marino, Mohan, Wells, Moots, Ayala, and Gibson batted nine batters in the first and scored their five runs rather quickly. Chris Constantine led off with a double to start the rally. Unfortunately that about covers the offensive highlights for the visitors as they only managed to get nine hits the remainder of the game. They scored a single run in the third and fourth innings while registering goose eggs the other six innings. Defensively, Donnie's vertical lay out grab of Bob Reagan's liner was the play of the day and robbed Bob of a sure triple as the ball was hit sharply in the gap.

Jeff Simon led the home team of Laffoon, Jacobs, Butler, Reagan, Zelazny, Lopez, Simon, Thompson, Merritt, Farisas(sic), and Baker to another victory. They started slow and were shut out in the first and thoughts of Tuesdays poor performance started creeping into everyone's mind. Fortunately the bats game alive after that and they managed to tally three or four runs in every inning except the fifth. Bob Reagan's homer and triples by Zelazny and Farissas (sic) were the big blows for the home team. Great defense up the middle by Reagan and Farissas (sic)resulted in three double plays that held the visitors in check throughout the game.

With Ron Thompson pitching, solid defense and good hitting top to bottom the Home team prevailed with a final score of Visitors 7 and Home team 21. There was another power outage today as there were only five extra base hits between both teams.

Key Performances

Chuck Duff     3 for 3

Larry Chrest    3 for 3

Jose Rivera         4 for 5

Frank Jacobs      3 for 4 with a double

Ron Butler           4 for 5

Bob Zelazny        5 for 5 with a triple

Ron Thompson    3 for 4

Angel Farissas     3 for 4 with a triple

Battered Bastards

For those of you having trouble finding something worth watching on NetFlix, may I recommend "The Battered Bastards of Baseball".

It's a documentary about the Portland Mavericks baseball team in the mid 1970s that was started by Kurt Russell's father, Bing Russell, (who you will remember as the sheriff on Bonanza) and survived for 5 years or so bringing Portland baseball fans a show that embarrassed MLB and set attendance records for Class A baseball that likely still stand.   I highly recommend it for baseball fans or us old codgers that just would like to find something worth watching on TV.  It rates 4 stars of 5 and just behind "Field of Dreams" on the list of great baseball movies.

submitted by Ron Butler

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

Who made their major league debut 100 years ago on this date?

That's right, like so many baseball trivia questions, the answer is Babe Ruth. 

One could not ask for better playing conditions than we had today, so it was surprising that so few players showed up to play. We had a total of nineteen players which was our lowest level since the morning it was 33  degrees earlier this year. This caused us to play ten, share a couple players, and suspend the running rules. For those at bat there was not much time to rest as at least one player was in the field, two coaches/umpires, a home plate umpire, and a score keeper had everyone busy.

 

The visitors were managed by Jeff Simon, Team Simon consisted of Witmer, Herbie, Coffman, Matta, Butler, Simon, Thompson, Chrest, and Baker. They built a five run lead through their half of the second with Herbie O's triple bringing everyone to their feet. Their bats went to sleep during the next three innings as they failed to score. Meanwhile, Team Moots went down on three pitches in the first and relied on the bottom of the lineup to score twice in the second. The team of Edwards, Hill, Zelazny, Laffoon, DeRidder, Lopez, Wells, and Moots managed to score seven runs in the next three innings to take the lead

 

The sixth inning saw Team Simon start to take command of the game as their first five batters reached base and scored. This was followed up with four in the seventh off Larry Chrest's home run and  two in the eighth. Meanwhile, Team Moots managed only one hit over the same period as Donnie Witmer's glove was like a magnet for that little yellow ball. At the end of six innings the score stood Team Simon 16 and Team Moots 9. 

 

The ninth was an open inning, and Team Simon took advantage by batting through the line up and scoring another seven runs. It could have been worse as they stranded two runners when the  eleventh batter made the last out. Team Moots was not about to quit and mounted a strong comeback, albeit not sufficient enough to overcome the huge deficit. The hits that had folks talking were Gerry DeRitter's  two balls hit to the warning track. Ron Butler ran one down at the fence and the other was as close to clearing the fence as I have seen. Team Moots scored four to make it seem closer than the game played out. Final score Team Simon  23 and Team Moots  13.

 

Key Performances

 

Donnie Witmer       6 for 7

Herbie O                 5 for 7 with a triple

Kirk Coffman         5 for 7

Nick Matta             5 for 7

Ron Butler              5 for 7

Larry Chrest           5 for 6 with a home run

Josh Wells              5 for 6 with a double

Rich Moots             5 for 6

 

Submitted by Bob Zelazny

And our teammate Jim Lafoon submits the following bit of good news.

Deanne is recovering nicely after 3 rounds of chemo, major surgery, loss of 50 pounds and minus her spleen.  Thanks to all of my softball pals in WH and Lakeland for the prayers and kind words during her ordeal.  

Thanks again,  Jim L.