April 22 2007

The morning began with drizzle mixed with light rain, and the game's 10am start time looked precarious. Regardless, the team showed up on time and warmed up while watching the Playaz-turned-Padres slowly drift in. Come 10am, the skies had cleared, a glorious day was shaping up, and the Padres had enough players to field a team.

LMBA president Dan Taylor had both teams line up along their respective baselines and then delivered a superb speech honoring Bob Ashmore. Bob had sadly passed away this past week. A moment of silence was given.

Once the game got underway, it paralleled last week's game. This time it was Aaron starting on the mound and pitching a solid four innings; the few runners that reached were stranded. It appeared as though we had a great early start in the bottom of the first when Jeff P. hit a shot over the leftfield fence. The joy was brief as the homeplate ump called it foul, but the immediate reaction of thirdbase coach Jeff H. told the true story. Even more credible was the testimony of both the thirdbaseman and shortstop of the Padres saying it was fair. However, none of them make the official calls. The umps do, and foul it was.

Our silent bats were awakened in the fourth inning when we put a five-spot on the board thanks to a combination of walks, beanballs, hits and errors. A smorgasbord of activity in one half-inning.

Jeff P. came in to pitch in the fifth, and the non-dinger call proved to be the first of many questionable calls that came Jeff's way. Pitches that looked like strikes from everywhere in the park - from the dugout to centrefield to Clay's irises - apparently looked like balls in the one place that matters, the ump's POV. Nevertheless, he managed to make several Padres players look silly on his mixture of heat and curves and also gave the ump some thumps by way of some foul tips while in the batter's box. We feel that while he's still tied with the rest of us in what's shaping up as the epic Indians homerun chase of 2007, Jeff P. ended up ahead in this battle.

One inning the Padres doubled us up on a liner to first with a runner on first, but our very next time in the field we doubled them up on a liner to third with a runner on first. "Anything you can do we can do better." Nothing much else happened in this fastest-game-in-Indians-history (confirmed by our overpaid fact-checkers). Game time was approximately 2:06. Final score was 6-2.

The video camera was rolling during last week's opening game and we now have links to two new videos on the left sidebar. Links are now there for josh - 04/15/2007 and scott - 04/15/2007. Please note: only some of the videos from this season and last have direct links on this blog. To access all the videos from this season and last just click on "From user" while at google video.

Today's iPod.
With a Padres runner on second, nobody out, a lead to protect, and a general team fondness for capris, Andrew vacated his shortstop position, snuck behind the runner, and created daylight. Pitcher Jeff P. saw this, spun to his left and delivered a perfect throw which led to a perfect tag and the bases were now empty with one out. Kudos.
Honorable mention goes to Clay for his in-the-dugout impersonation of himself on the field five minutes earlier. Common decency keeps us from writing details but he had several Indians very entertained. Thanks for that Clay.