verdugo288

This was yet another BIG game. With Gabe getting the ball, having thrown only a total of eight pitches in a Verdugo uniform prior to this game in that playoff-clinching win against Sun Valley.

Gabe was CLUTCH in that game ….and GABE was CLUTCH today!!!!

Gabe threw six innings…..picking up the win. He gave up four hits….walked five and struck out two. Hack pitched the 7th to get the save.

We made only one error on the day.

I mentioned in the previous post that the Newhall hitters were hitting shots all over the yard against Gabe. This was a good team. And they did hit the ball hard. But at the end of the day, Gabe only gave up four hits. And you can’t throw six innings and win against a team like this without having some good stuff and making some big pitches and getting some big outs.

And that’s exactly what Gabe did. He also pulled it off without really having pitched for us the whole season.

I gotta say this here. Gabe threw a great game. He was a great player for us all year. We started him. He came off the bench. Sometimes we’d sit him. He pinch hit, he pinch ran, he played all the outfield positions and had a lot of games at first base. He was the quintessential role-player. He produced offensively and hit over .400 on the year.

He was a role player for us who just always came to the ballpark and always had a great attitude. He even tried to kick Spiro out of our dugout!!!!

How can you not love that?

Their lead-off hitter led off in the 1st with what probably should have been a double. He challenged our center-fielder Hack Workman. He got blown down at second base.

You remember at yesterday’s game against Panorama City when Canale hitting a home run when we (jokingly) asked him to.

Today was more of that….kinda.

Newhall had runners at second and third with one out in the 2nd. Everybody in the dugout was “nervous” you could tell.

These were my exact words I said in the dugout before the next pitch:

“I don’t know about you General but I got a feeling something good is about to happen” as I smiled.

Ground ball to Hagge. The runner on third challenged….trying to score….Haggs fired to Fielder behind the plate. The throw got to Fielder so quickly the runner retreated back to third. Fielder calmly runs the baserunner back towards third. He dumps it off to Turner who lays a tag on him.

The runner on second is still halfway between second and third….

The batter is now trying to stretch his fielders choice into a double.

Turner FIRES to Yves. Gunning his ass down by ten feet at second base.

Inning over.

And you can bet our entire coaching staff erupted with the words “now that’s what I’m tawkin’ bout” after that play

Right? Like we’d been working on that at practice or something.

Yeah….”something good” had just happened. It was just that kind of season.

They scored three in the third ….all unearned. They indeed hit three balls HARD…..but we got out of trouble.

After that….Gabe coasted. After the first few innings were under his belt he was on a roll. They really didn’t hit anything hard from that point forward.

Let’s talk offense. We had 10 hits.

THREE by Hack Workman. Workman was 11-15 in the final three games.

Staggering. Just staggering.

Hack came up in the top of the 4th and hit a big towering drive into left-center. They had a solid wood fence painted blue there….it was one of the few fences around the League that had that cool yellow-line (the home-run line) painted at the top of the fence.

Both the left fielder and center fielder were in a full sprint to flag it down. The center fielder just forgot to warn the left fielder when he got to the warning track.

He failed to warn him about that big…..blue….solid plywood FENCE.

The left-fielder in a FULL SPRINT ran straight into it. The ball (I think anyways) hit the yellow line and should have been ruled a Home Run.

But I think with the collision with the fence the umpire was distracted. The outfielder who smashed into the fence went straight down in a heap.

It seemed like the entire field went dead silent when this happened for at least a few seconds (which is a LONG TIME during a baseball game) as the ball rebounded BACK towards the infield and the outfielder layed there flattened by the impact.

That silence was broken by Robb Turner when he barked out at the top of his lungs “FENCE!!!!”

I was waving Gabe home and I was about halfway down the line when Robb said it and I started laughing so hard I went down.

I’ve written a story about this already here on the blog and the link to that story will be at the bottom of this post.

The kid survived and even stayed in the game…..

One of the most brutal rags in Verdugo History!!!!

Here are the other guys that helped out on offense!!!!

Gabe, Haggs, and Yves each had two hits.

Yves doubling and Haggs driving in a run and Gabe scoring twice.

Bull Oxen had our only other hit. A single in the 3rd.

Robb Turner’s seven-game hitting streak finally came to an end today. He really picked it up a notch down the stretch…

Phil Halford….THE GENERAL also handled the post-game interview with the members of the press that were at this game. I was egging him on before the interview to make sure to keep telling the reporters during the interview that we were “quick….pantherlike” because we needed to get that in the papers!!!!

Phil was having a blast…he kept telling them how “quick and pantherlike” we were while they asked him questions. He must have said it 20 times. He was inventing ways to interject “quick….panther-like” into every question they asked him!!!!

I was laughing my ass off!!!!

It was one of those laughing sessions where if I would have been taking a drink of something while General was answering questions I’d have spit it all out.

He was acting the part like he’d done a million interviews. Even starting off every answer he gave to them with the words “well ya know…..”

Myself, Henry and The Weapon were about ten feet away giggling like little kids while he was doing this shit. He was masterful!!!!

It was that funny.

They all looked at him strange each time he said “quick….pantherlike”

General could hear us laughing …but he never wavered…he kept a straight face and sounded like a political press secretary throughout the whole thing!!!!

I couldn’t wait to read the papers tomorrow to see “quick pantherike” IN THE PAPERS!!!!

I still can’t believe it. They edited out all the “quick….pantherlikes” from General’s brilliant interview session.

We tried like hell. And I gotta admit….just seeing the words “quick…..pantherlike” in the papers would have been our crowning glory no doubt about it at all.

These reporters man….they just don’t get it.

Right?

Anyways…..Another BIG win for Verdugo.

It’s playoff time!!!

I can’t remember if they gave us one or two days off before the playoffs but I do think it was two days off.

We’re going to the dance!!!! And we just won our 20th game of the season.

I’ll say it again….20!!!!

https://verdugo288.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/fence/