The Sunday after the Saturday before when all the GBC senior grades stuck it to the rest of the league with a clean sweet of WINS, the pressure was on for the two first time GBC senior coaches in Div1 and Div2 to follow suite. Nath Brougham lead the Saturday formation against Woodville with a convincing and well fought Win to start the day. Only one WIN to go!
With the newly appointed and all round good guy GBC presidents (Craig Handy) eyes piercing the back of my head to make this the best opening day in GBC history and the first Div1 WIN for a New Div1 coach, NO PRESSURE!
I turned to the Group of hard working senior players that have shown a willingness to learn and try new things ( Pump class and Yoga) during our pre - season and handed the ball to one of our youngest, but experienced Flynn Luders to take the hill and lead us into battle against what can be described as a hungry Woodville side.
The boys started well with runners on and a run scored, the feeling of WINNING is back and from there the boys would not let go. There ability to grind out tough situations with runners loading up bags and strike outs to finish innings the willingness to get over the line, grew.
Pickles comes up with a Comfortable double stretched to a triple on a very close play for an out to score Mason from first and the aggressive style of baseball we the coaching staff, P.Green, Gamer and P, Arnold have instilled in the group over the pre-season has started to show. Pushing 1st to 3rd stretching out doubles to centerfield with multiple stolen bases and hits to right field we could not be happier.
Jayden Eldridge took the hill with 1 out and runner at first in the 5th and cruised through to the end of the eighth, where we handed to Matt Williams to close it out.
Going into the 9th inning we need to settle the ship and retain our 1 run lead with some lengthy AB’s and pitch swallowing to tell Woodville we are not going anywhere, Tom Huttunen takes a 9 pitch AB for his first AB of the Div 1 year and leaves Woodville thinking this will be a not push over.
M.Williams comes out in the 9th and demands respect and puts Woodville out to pasture until next time.
Goodwood this week where we take on the veterans of the SABL, J.Challinor and Fidge nothing our boys can’t handle!
See you all at the ball park.
With our fresh black tops and the sun shining we rolled up to Don Klaebe Reserve to take on Woodville in round one. Up against Taison Handcock we set the tone early in the first. The good guys opened the account for the year when Connor Hill rifled a ball to left for a triple, scoring Tom from first base who had walked. The approach in the box all preseason has been right side execution, so great to then see Frazer send a ball into right field to score Hill from third.
With the Bays up 2-0 Troy Harrison took the pill for us and went to work against an experienced Woodville hitting line up. After a blip with two outs that lead to Woodies sneaking a run, Troy settled to breeze through the next 3 innings facing just 11 batters.
Woodville fought back to tie it 3-3 all in the 5th setting up an exciting finish. Not to be out down on opening day Harro lead off with a single. Will Burke came on to pinch run. Darcy Gluyas dispatched a pitch from Nath Nicholson to right which scored Burke from first, proving you don’t need a good 60 time to hustle. Good heads up running by Will to ensure we went ahead 4-3. Great to see. Tom then drove in another run with 2 outs before the man of the day stepped in. Having already hit a triple and a double earlier, Connor put his hand up for the A grade DH spot by roping a round tripper over the left field fence.
Riding the hot hand Hill was sent in to shut the door and put the cherry on top of his stella day at the office. The Senators threw everything they had at us in the last but we stood strong and showed determination and grit to come away with our first victory for the season 7-6.
Well done to all for executing the game plan from start to finish. If this is a sign of what’s to come, we should be in for an exciting year at the GBC!
We’re onto Goodwood.
For the second year in a row we started with a road trip to Golden Grove. With a little more time up our sleeve we tried to work some of the rust off in the pre-game, but the sounds of the guys increasing effort with each throw, I think the rust might be around for a couple of weeks.
We got off to a great start scoring 2 in the top of the first on timely hits from Kloeds and Paddy Gluyas. Lachy Eldridge took the pill to the face the home team, and after a settling in he found his groove and induced a lot of ground balls in his 5 innings of work. We chipped away each inning, a big 2 out hit from Sadler to score a couple saw us hold a 6-1 lead at about the half way mark. Rookie Lachy Magoo was rock solid at 3B and round off a great first game with a couple of hits as well. Paddy Gluyas made the play of the day at shortstop, taking a diving catch going back towards the Deeble zone to rob a grover and close out an innings. Tristan Stevens channelled some inner anger and crushed a double to the fence, and was pretty sharp on the bump for his couple of innings of work.
Nice to start the season off with a W, and more importantly everyone got through the game in 1 piece.
Finally, the SA baseball community lost a great character over the weekend with the passing of Peter “Dodo” Ditrich. Dodo has umpired many of our games and certainly will be missed by players and officials far and wide. Always happy to listen to me complain, but also happy to tell it like it is. My teams, and the clubs sincerest condolences go out to Alex and his family – we are thinking of you in this tough time. Dodo was that guy who would always say “hey, listen, have a great game” at the plate meeting, and “great game today” after we did well - just a positive guy out there enjoying himself. Rest in peace mate, your colourful approach will be missed.
A new season, new uniforms and a couple of new faces were on deck as the Snakes Alives travelled to Skid Kid Park to take on the Senators of Woodville.
A beautiful sunny day greeted the boys and as special guest scorer Alice in Tigerland sharpened the Colombia’s in preparation for some serious circle colouring, the boys wiped the cobwebs off the sticks and prepared for battle.
The season was just four pitches old when we had our first bizarre incident of 20/21 – a high-viz clad Bea Smith from Wentworth sound-alike decided to try and put Major Connor off in the batting box by screaming “DO YOU HAVE A SCORER?!!!!” so loud that the kids attempting the flaming ring of fire trick at Skid Kid park had to abort their attempt mid run-up. Alice from Tigerland, catching some Rays in close vicinity of the diamond and our bench, politely acknowledged herself as the chosen one before Lady Limeshirt continued to scream “YOU CAN’T SCORE FROM THEEEERE – IT’S THE LAAAAW!!!” as the next pitch came down. Feeling under threat, Major Connor banged a base knock so he could flee the scene, lest he be next on the receiving end of a bake from the aforementioned hi-viz warrior.
Fendog Millionaire was unfazed, forcing an error after a Major Connor steal. Carter the Unstoppable Pecs Machine then popped safely into centre to get the good guys on the board. A couple more blemishes in the field combined with some knocks to Not Jonah Hill and The Slice set up AY-AY-RON for a sweet double to complete the maximum seven without losing a wicket.
The Slice rolled through the first with some help in the field from Ghost Faced Killah, AY-AY-RON and Beef Borrito, before our boys went quietly in the second.
From there, the game meandered along at the pace of a senior citizen’s book club meeting with Alice from Tigerland being relocated to the official scorer’s compound under heavy guard while the boys went about their business. The pitching staff of The Slice, Major Connor, Carter UPS and AY-AY-RON all did their thing while in the batting box, rookie Not Jonah Hill picked up three (definitely not four) hits in an outstanding debut. Fendog Millionaire, Carter UPM, The Slice and AY-AY-RON all picked up multiple knocks while Van Helsing grabbed himself some green pencil after entering the game off the pine.
Overall a solid day in the sun followed by tasty bevvies. Next week will be a stern test against perennial contenders the Eagles of Lockleys. Congrats to all of the senior teams for grabbing W’s and to all the juniors for getting back amongst it in the black and gold. Best of luck to the ladies next week after missing out on playing in round one.
#23
"A lotta people say that you can tell how the season's gonna go by the first hitter of the year". If this is the case, we should be in for a decent enough year with our leadoff slamming a nasty pitch way into shallow right field (or left field) for a single.
In a high scoring game with 30 plus hits being recorded, your GBC Tigers proved too strong in the first game of the year on a pleasant Saturday at Glenelg. Putting 7 runs on the board in the first inning the Tigers weren't really threatened throughout the remaining innings despite the Eagles continued ambitions.
Lenny Eldridge and Sam Dixon shared pitching responsibilities and will be better for the outing. In the batter's box is where we shone as a team with Ben Alexander, Lenny E, Dan Melia, Wayne Hughes and Emma Young all getting multiple hits.
My favourite play of the game was from one of our rookie batters. Forgetting to pull his bat down on a pitch over his head, the ball struck his bat resulting in a foul ball (to our base runner's disgust). Which is ironic in a sense as one of his best-loved movies is the Kelsey Grammar/Lauren Holly classic "Down Periscope".
Div 7 (red) travelled to the end of the world to play the mighty Gawler Rangers. We tossed the ball to our eldest statesman and old man Stix didn’t let us down. With a range of slow and slower pitches, he managed to bamboozle the country boys. Our hitting and fielding was pretty solid for the first game of the year. Congratulations to our rookies popping and re-popping their cherries. Looking forward to seeing how everyone evolves over the course of the season.
The Tigers played our first game of the year against East Torrens at home. Marty got us started on the mound and went through the first few innings well with the field backing him up.
We didn’t have too many problems in the batting box continually tacking on runs throughout the game.
The only real excitement came when a fly ball collected the best looking member of our team at centre field. This brought Tony Mezzini off the bench to take up the role while Dave Munday headed off to the emergency room.
As Peter Fenwick took up pitching duties East Torrens had managed to get back into the game. The final stretch saw scores get a bit too close but Fenny had no problems ending the Red Sox offence with a clinical performance.
The Red Sox had their pitching change and things looked like they may go down to the wire before Greg worked a great walk followed by two huge shots from Olly and Tony that pushed the lead back out to seven. Peter closed the game without incident leaving the Tigers up 14-8 at the end of the game.
