A good ballgame will have a flow to it. It can start lightning quick or slow and laborious, but a good game will find its own rhythm, its own pace. The players will get into it, making pitches, catches or hits at just the right time. When a ballgame has that flow, the whole team moves as one.
There was no such flow. To today's. Game.
Pitching, fielding, hitting - they all seemed a bit off this afternoon. Not massively, but just enough to let the Brantford Red Sox - that would be the five-time defending IBL Champion Red Sox - take an early lead, then blow the game open after all manner of hell had rained down from the skies.
The game started in cold, windy conditions. It was about 8 degrees at Christie Pits and it would not get any warmer. Occasional bursts of sunlight were smothered by clouds that hung over the park for most of the game. The weather played stop-start all afternoon, as did the Maple Leafs on the diamond.
At the start of the 4th inning, ice pellets sprinkled from the sky for a few minutes, long enough to astound and amuse the fans clustered around the infield. The sun reappeared, to be vanquished by a great grey cloud that rolled in.
The 7th inning opened with a burst of freezing rain (seen above) that forced play to be suspended. Like many at the park, I had had enough. I packed up and fled for warmth and wine. I'd rely on Twitter and Pointstreak for the final two innings - which did eventually get played.
Before the game recap, I'm pleased that I can start putting names to numbers, having tracked down a complete team roster.
The Toronto Sun published a 16-page season preview last week, which provided further reading on the local nine. Flipping through it, one of the new members of this year's Maple Leafs team caught my attention: Kevin Hinton. At age 46 (older than me!), the Leafs' new DH has played 25 years in the IBL, was literally the face of the Guelph Royals for two decades, is the league's all time career hits leader, is also among the leaders in most career hitting categories, and I think it said he's just 3 home runs away from breaking the all time baseball home run record held by Sadaharu Oh. That's truly amazing - a player who is older than me!
So I kept an eye on Hinton each time he came up to bat. One glance and you know this guy is a slugger. He looks like Jim Thome's brother. However, there would be no assault on Oh-san's home run record today - not with the unrelenting wind that was blowing in. Hinton went 0-for-3 on the day.
The game recap follows.
The Brantford Red Sox, as mentioned, have won the league title five years in a row. A team like that will have a swagger. The players will feel themselves part of something grand, and it can lift a player's game just being around that kind of winning atmosphere. A team on a roll like this will start to believe they can score at will, win at will.
And they kind of did that today. The Red Sox got it going in the top of the 1st. After Leafs' starter Marek Deska struck out the first two he faced, a throwing error allowed the Sox' first baseman Scott Thorman to go to second base instead of back to the bench. Thorman was promptly driven in on a single by shortstop Lee Delfino and it was 1-0 visitors just like that.
The Leafs came back in the bottom of the second with two hits and a walk to load the bases, but all three baserunners would end up stranded. The theme of the day was established.
Brandon Huffman was the starter for the Red Sox today, and he found himself in a jam not entirely of his own making in the 3rd. Three - three! - Brantford errors enabled leftfielder Raul Borjas to make his way around the bases to score and make it 1-1 after three. You'd think that kind of sloppy display would be the mark of a bottom-feeding team. But these are the champions, and you can't let them hang around.
Things were going well for Deska despite the lousy pitching conditions, until he was tagged for a 3-run homer by Sox' second baseman Tyler Burnell in the 4th.
Adam Garner came on for Deska in the 5th and pitched three shutout innings. Garner has a fantastic, lanky delivery that evokes a crane taking flight. He did well, despite the increasingly bizarre weather conditions that culminated in the suspension of play in the 7th.
When the game resumed, Brantford put it away for good. They scored seven more runs off of Leafs relievers in the 8th and 9th, for a lopsided 11-1 final.
The Leafs are now 2-1 and in 3rd place behind undefeated Brantford and Burlington. Their next game is Wednesday May 15, at home against the Guelph Royals.
So you were one of the few brave souls that braved the weather. I've never seen weather like Sunday at an IBL game. It changed so often.
ReplyDeleteIt was brutal. Hands started going numb. Didn't mind missing the final two innings where Brantford scored a thousand runs.
ReplyDelete