I had to come home early from the post game festivities because my grandson was having a hissy over some bonehead comment made in his presence about Anthony. Then Anthony, having heard the same comment, tried to calm him down and Nate essentially told him to go f*** himself. Its one thing to get upset over someone else's ignorance and yet another altogether to exacerbate the problem by going ballistic.
That's about all I'm going to say on that subject except to say that he is presently up in his room with the door locked and won't speak with me. Guess what kiddo, I raised four teenagers and I've been faced with locked doors before. You have to come out eventually and when you do I'll nail your ass to the wall.
The game! Oh what a doozy! We were scoreless after two innings, then in the top of the third the Raven clan scored three runs off a three run homer with two outs and a full count.
Then in the bottom of the fourth my starting pitcher went out with a sprained ankle, don't ask! My relief closed out the inning allowing one run off a solo homer. So at the end of four it was Ravens 3/Alley Cats 1
The fifth inning was scoreless but in the bottom of the fifth I lost my relief pitcher when his three year old daughter fell off the bleachers requiring immediate and prolonged love and kisses from her dad, mom was not good enough it had to be dad. She wasn't hurt as she only fell a couple feet onto the grass, her dignity was severely damaged although.
I was then left with only my clean up pitcher, David who generally only pitches one or two innings at most. He's getting old!
The Ravens scored three in the sixth making the score 6/1 going into the bottom of the inning. The Ally Cats rallied with four runs of their own putting them back in the game with a score of 6/5 Ravens.
The seventh inning was a pitchers duel, neither hurler allowing a base hit, but in the top of the eighth the Ravens scored two off a two run homer off the first pitch to the second batter. Once again the Alley Cats rallied with a two run showing in the bottom of the inning making the score 8/7 Ravens going into the ninth.
The Ravens were held to one hit in the ninth leaving us with little wiggle room going into the bottom of the inning.
When I looked at David he had an ice pack on his throwing arm, his arm was shot. My bull pen was depleted. What the hell does a manager do when his pitching staff has all shit the bed. Well, he improvises. I looked at Anthony, he shrugged, "I pitched in Babe Ruth but that was two years ago. Been playing center field in high school." So I asked him if he could do it, and he said he'd give it a try.
That's all I needed to hear so I tossed him the ball, told him to warm up and marched across the field to explain the situation to John. He said to give him ten minutes to warm up and then get the show on the road, he had a BBQ to get to. I laughed and went back to my bench calling upon the baseball gods to give me a break.
The inning started out OK, Anthony struck out his first batter swinging, then he had to intentionally walk the next slugger (he had already hit two homers and drove in three runs, dangerous) The third hitter popped out to center field. The next batter walked on a wild pitch, two on two out and the next hitter was a real slugger. I signaled for Anthony to keep it fast, low and inside. The hitter swung and missed. Next pitch the same, another swing and a miss. Anthony was ahead on the count, two strikes no balls. The runner on second tried for third but was forced back by Anthony's quick toss to third. He made it back to second just ahead of the ball as the third baseman was slow on the relay.
Next pitch, dead center of the strike zone and the blind umpire called ball one. I argued to no avail. The next pitch was high and outside, ball two. Anthony was getting himself in trouble. He looked and I gave him the signal for a crawler, low and inside. The damn umpire must have cleaned his f***ing glasses because he called it right. Strike two, ball three. Anthony was getting nervous, I walked out to the mound to calm him down. I told him to give the next one all the juice he's got and put it up and out. If the hitter swings and misses its the game. If he stands and watches the ball go by he walks, not the end of the world. There would be another hitter coming up and he was 0 for 6 on the day. "Shoulda walked this bastard anyway." I said.
He winds up and throws, perfect pitch, right where I wanted it. The only problem was that the hitter saw it coming, high fly to deep left field. The ball is mishandled and dropped, quick recovery and a toss too third, to late. A relay to home, too late. Two runs in, game over. Alley Cats 9/ Ravens 8
Wait til next year!
Anthony almost cried, I told him that if he cries its all over. He'll not be welcome in my house. He sucked it up then started laughing. He didn't believe a word of it.
What a game!
Well, I'm going to try once more to talk with Nate. If he wants to talk great, if not I'm going back to John's to try to salvage the rest of the evening.
Happy 4th!
