Bruisers vs. Gravity Fielders, May 31, 2005

Bruisers: KarenC, EricB, Randy, Jes, Juan, Ron (the soon-to-be retiree), Nancy, DaveS, EricG, Ann, Mandell, Kelly, and ScottE. Many thanks to TOAD Kelly who came to play when approached by the pitiful begging of the Bruisers Manager at 4:15 p.m.*

Bruiser Fans: none

Crown City Girls: KarenC, Ann, Nancy, Jes, and Kelly. Crown City Boys: Ron, ScottE, Juan, and EricB. (Next time maybe we'll sit boy-girl-boy-girl)

Box Score:

Inning	1	2	3	Total	(yeah, that was it)
Gravity Fielders	2	3	2	7
Bruisers	5	8	x	13

It was the shortest and least satisfying game in Bruiser history when the Gravity Fielders turned out to be a bunch of quitters. First, they showed up short-handed (6 guys, 2 women; which they knew early enough in the day to place a courtesy phone call to their opponent's manager, but didn't) and late (game didn't start until about 5:50), and then less than an hour into the game they just up and quit when one of their players left at 6:40. At their request, we let them rotate their women through their batting order, and provided a non-fielding catcher. Sigh. But hey -- a win is a win, whether it's by runs, by forfeit, or by both (like tonight!)

Defensive highlights include good catches by Randy(OF) and Karen(3B) in the first inning, plus a great play by EricG(SS) to Ron(1B) to get that third out. In the second inning Mandell(3B) dropped a grounder but recovered and fired to Ron(1B) in time to get the runner out. Juan(OF) made a couple of nice OF catches, and EricG(SS) did as well. With such a short game, there aren't that many highlights on the sheet! And yes, Juan, Kelly could have made that throw.

From the batting side, it's good that we batted around+1 in the second inning, but it would have been nice to have more at-bats in general. Randy gets the night's Sneaky Feet award for making it to third while the fielders were thinking elsewhere, and ScottE was able to beat the throw to first on his hit. RBIs were earned by KarenC, Randy, Jes (2), Juan (2), Ron (2), DaveS (2), and Kelly (3). Almost all of us got at least one hit, and the only home run was hit by Kelly. Ron's triple would have been a home run if we had remembered that the guy (DaveS) catching was one of our own, and hadn't yelled at Ron to stop at third base. The GFs forgot they were supposed to do the actual catcher stuff and never covered home; we were supposed to just keep the ball out of the gutter. We did, however, remember the non-fielding catcher situation later when Nancy popped up and we all yelled at Juan to not catch the ball (which greatly perturbed the GF pitcher).

Our next game is Thursday June 9 against the Goat Scouts on field H9 (fountain). We will be the visiting team.

See you next week!

Karen :)

*Seriously everyone, it's really important that EACH of you to tell me if you're coming or not so I know if I need to go through the begging process.