At first, there looked to be no reason why, for the first time in recent memory, today's game wouldn't start at a reasonable time---the fences were up, both sides had 7 players, and there wasn't a single cricketeer forcing any delay. Yet there was still a major problem---with last week's game at Piedmont acting as a large memory-erasing joint, none of the 3 commissioners or any other BAD ASS recalled the fact that the flat-bottomed bases used at Goodson were swiped from DaRosa's garage 3 weeks ago!

Were this not the opening curtain of a historical series, BAB likely would have accepted rectangular-shaped surrogates. But not today: Davis hopped in his car and raced to Milpitas for the real thing, delaying the game start time by about 25 minutes---a worthwhile delay.

Yanez singled in Bush, who'd opened the game with his record-advancing 20th triple, putting B52's on the board first. Cavsuimiak answered back fast with 4 in the bottom of the 1st. Then the fireworks began...having already batted around and put up six runs in the inning, Andraesen creamed a moonshot to left that, off the bat, looked like a surefire 3-run homer---even when DaRosa secured the ball on the other side of the fence. But did Ed catch the ball before going through the gap between the Blue Monster and the orange fence, or did he snag it afterhand?

You can predict who argued what outcome---the "discussion", to euphamize, went on for quite a few minutes through demonstrations and re-enactments. Ultimately, and not coincidentally, the more vocal Cavsuimiak walked away with the ruling in their favor---nobody could conclusively prove DaRosa's catch wasn't legal. Instead of a 10-4 lead, the B52's had to settle for a 7-4 lead. Fired up by DaRosa's grab, Bernal smacked a solo homer which was followed by a Matsui 2-run homer and a 2-run bloop Manning double. After 3, Cavsuimiak led 10-7.

While the home team was ignited by DaRosa's catch, the road team was deflated...for a while. After 2 scoreless frames, in the top of the 5th B52's used separate throwing errors by Manning and Sacramento to set up Yanez, who lofted a long fly ball to left field that kept carrying...and carrying...and finally landed over the other side of the fence for a 3-run game-tying bomb! The badly-needed bomb knotted the game at 10! Back-to-back RBI doubles by the undeterred Flores and Matsui put Cavsuimiak on top 13-10.

Skip ahead to the 8th: by now Cavsuimiak's lead was reduced to 13-12. The first 3  B52 hitters all reached to produce 2 runs with none out...was a big inning imminent? Yes---but not for the B52's who quickly went down in order after the quick attack. Instead, Cavsuimiak's dormant offense broke through, but not with the power laden in its' lineup. Rather, they kept hitting balls to short. Two of them took crazy bounces off the poor infield and shot over Yanez' head, leaving him a tad skittish approaching the others. An ill-fated decision by 3B Bush factored in; he had a chance to turn a 5-2 DP on a Kuzmiak grounder to 3rd---C Davis was practically salivating at the chance for his first collision of 2008---but went for the 5-3 instead, which Kuzmiak beat out to plate a run and extend the inning.

Although Yanez redeemed himself to some degree making a blind stab of a low Matsui liner for the 3rd out, the play came 8 runs too late for his club, which did manage to score one just before Andraesen was thrown out by a mile trying to stretch his single into a double in the 9th to end the game.

"Look! Even the dog is saying "ROME RUN! ROME RUN!" -- Sacramento, interpreting the barking of a dog across the street following what was ultimately ruled a ground-rule double by Manning.

AWARDS AND HIGHLIGHTS

 

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