Bruisers vs. Gravity Frawgs, April 28, 2008

Bruisers: KarenC, ScottM, EricB, Ron, Nancy, Jose, Gerardo, Jes, Earl, and ScottE. Thanks again to Jose and Gerardo for helping us out! Literally, we couldn't have done it without you.

Bruiser fans: none :(

Bruiser diners at the soon-to-be-something-else Crown City Brewery: ScottM, Jes, Ron, ScottE, Eric, Nancy, Earl, and KarenC.

Quotes from around the field:
"I couldn't have given another half-inch!" EarlC after his full-out stretch to catch a ball while keeping his toe on first base.
"You're right, they do have good grip" (re. ScottE's new cleats)

Bruises: none to Bruisers, but Gravity Frawg Mary took a liner to the belly while pitching in the second inning. To her credit, she stayed with the ball, and actually got it to the first baseman... who dropped it, leaving our runner safe at first. She was definitely a gamer, staying in the game to bat for herself and play short field (she even caught one of Karen's line drives!). [Morning report: Mary has a nasty bruise, but should be fine and back on the mound next week.]

Box Score:

Inning	1	2	3	4	5	Total
Bruisers	0	2	9	7	3	21
Gravity Frawgs	0	8	0	4	0	12

The game looked bad for the Bruisers until aliens came and took over the Bruiser bodies in the third inning and we burst forth with nine runs to take the lead, maintaining it for our first win of the season! EricB and Ron's "Statue of Liberty" imitations earned scores of 4 and 5, respectively. Their scores would have been better if they'd had the correct arm raised. They say it was to decoy the gazillions of gnats away from their faces, but I dunno 'bout that... it looked more like synchronized waving.

Defensively, we tended toward the dramatic. Gerardo(LF) made nice running catches for the first and third outs in the first inning (his second catch while backpedalling as fast as he could), and KarenC(2B) was happy that we had put the tall guy, EarlC, at first when her throw to him went a teensy little wee bit high. The second inning outs came with feeds from Ron(SS) to EarlC(1B) and then Nancy(P) to Earl(1B), and another nice running catch by Gerardo(LF). In the third inning, Gerardo(LF) caught another big fly ball, EricB(3B) made a very nice running catch in foul territory, and Nancy(P) fielded a dribbler and got it to EarlC(1B) in time to beat the runner. EricB(3B) earned style points for his rolling grab and try to get it to first base. In the fourth inning, Nancy(P) got another low roller to EarlC(1B), then Ron(SS) made an nice catch for an out, and then EarlC(1B) made the longest stretched-out catch of his life (thus the above quote) after catching a slightly offline throw from Nancy(P). For the fifth inning, we had no notes written down (one of the drawbacks of having only enough people to play the game and nobody sitting in the dugout), but here's what we think happened: Ron(SS) fielded a grounder and threw to EarlC(1B), then EricB(3B) made a nice running catch while effectively yelling "I got it!" and calling Nancy off, and then ScottM(RF) fielded a ball and threw it to EarlC(1B) to beat the runner.

Offensively, we did really well, especially in the third and fourth innings where we batted around (13 batters in the third, 10 batters in the fourth!). ScottM hit our first home run of the season where he pretty much Sneaky-Feeted his way home from third, and EarlC had a triple. We had a bunch of doubles, including one by KarenC. RBIs were earned by KarenC, ScottM (2), EricB (2), Jose (2), Gerardo (4), Jes (3), EarlC (5) and ScottE (2). ScottE gets the "Master of the Full Swing Bunt" award, and Nancy gets the "Iron Woman" award for pitching the whole game.

Our next game is Tuesday May 6, and we will be the home team against the Wild Turkeys. I already know that we'll be missing ScottM, EarlC and Amy. Everyone should please be sure that I know if you're coming or not.

Have a great week!

Karen :)