The season had seemed so far away a month ago, but suddenly was upon us and we had a home opener against last year’s grand finalists.
Hayds took the pill for the opening day start, worked his way around a 1st inning single and the home side got a chance to bat. GrAbroe was back in the lead-off spot and kicked of the new season in style with a single to center. Zeddy got a big hit with the bases loaded and drove in a pair, Hayds dumped one to the fence and we had a 3-0 lead in the early going. Hayds was ok through his 4 innings of work and passed the ball over to Stevens for the rest of the way. Stevo blew out the cobwebs and his good stuff was good. The coach hit a lead-off double, called for oxygen, but we failed to do any damage that dig. Hayds took an early season lead in the homer column with a towering shot to right. We closed out the game with some good AB’s and had a W on the board in what very much resembled a first game of the year, most guys swung it ok, but no sense peaking in October. We continue our early season series on the return leg back at ET for game 2 this weekend.
First game back at it and admittedly we were a little underdone, but confident we could put on a good showing at the home of baseball. Speaking of the home of baseball, it’s been a long time since there has been nowhere for your vehicle to hide as the vegetation along the GBC car park extremities have lost more leafs than the San Diego Chargers in 2001.
The game was pretty much a disaster from the get go as we booted a couple, lost Dan 55 Melias to a calf injury and gave up a grand slam among the seven run max – without registering an out – to trail 0-7 after a half. Yes, it’s fair to say our first inning of the season was as big a disaster as “The Adventures of Pluto Nash”.
Shellshocked but not dead yet, the Snakes Alives put up a two-spot in the first with The Fenomenon, Delicious Krajina and Ghost Faced Killer all getting knocks around an Unstoppable Pecs Machine walk. Things improved for us in the second as we managed to register all three outs, however the visitors did manage to add another handful to lead 12-2 after one and a half.
Van Wilder Party Liaison was having none of this, showing how his off-season regimen of smashing a million balls in his cage had paid off as he mashed a Van Johnson (1916-2018) to reduce the deficit to nine. Better Holmes and Gardens, more than two years out of the game, calmly roped a single to keep the dream alive. The Bombay Basher, Fendog, USM (another walk) and Krajagoogo (HPB) had the good guy’s scoreboard ticking over and after two, we trailed 12-6.
Alas, there was more pain to come as we gave up another seven and could not get back into this one, eventually losing by an NFL score of 19-7 despite a late tasty long ball from the Jolly Jouster.
Some would say that a crushing loss on day one of the season is bad, and they would be right. However, this day was a good day, as the club welcomed Matty Holmes back after a long absence from a nasty ACL injury. To have him back with us, surrounded by his beautiful family, fills this coaches heart with joy – and that my friends is what the GBC – and our beautiful game - is all about. Pretty damn good to have BA Baracus back in the Snakes Alives line-up too just quietly. I pity the fool that tries to share a tent with that guy this season.
We win together, we lose together, there will be better days ahead.
Finally, a little shout out to rookie umpire Patty Gluyas who must have been having some intensive training at the father-in-law’s house as the young fella did a sterling job in the guts. Well done Patty-G.
Our Division 6 team returned to for the 2021/22 season, still with a bitter taste from last years heartbreaking 2-1 loss in last years grand final, arriving at the GBC to take on Golden Grove Central Districts.
With a couple of big names not returning we welcomed back to the club Corey Williams from a couple of years attending to the many animals he now has on his hobby farm. His son Jordan also decided to try baseball again and that's a package deal I am very happy to accept.
On a beautiful Saturday morning at our new start time of 11:50am I decided it is time to hand the ball to one of our younger players giving Connor Major the start and a chance to show what he has got in his back pocket. Unfortunately for Connor it did not start as well as he had hoped walking the first two hitters in only ten pitches. A come backer, strike out and Ben Dixon throwing out a runner trying to steal second got us out of the inning with only one run given up. We came straight out and put 2 runs on the board to take the lead and it was from here both starting pitchers took control not allowing many more to reach base and only a series of pass balls and an error tied the game at 2 going into the last.
Connor did well getting the two of the first three hitters out but some rusty fielding meant we just could not close the game out properly allowing GGCD to score 4 runs.
We did our best to get back into it scoring two runs ourselves but not enough to give us the win.
Going down 6-4 in the end
Statistically,
Connor threw 4.2 innings striking out 7, walking 5 and giving up 4 ER We had only 5 hits Corey picked up 2 in his return and one hit each went to Wayne Hughes, Alan Laukirbe and Sam Dixon.
A big thanks to Anita Godfrey for reluctantly taking the scorebook to which for a first time effort was a really well done scorebook.
After “months and months” of preseason, we finally hit the field at home to take on the cross bred GGCD. We managed to scrape enough gear together the night before to avoid sharing catching gear and bats with the opposition.
With a welcome back of a few past players and a welcome to the club to a couple of newbies, we managed to field a team with 4 on the bench (two of them aged 5ish and 2ish with poor old Dad Dave trying to keep them under control)
We hit the field with Pete Fenwick taking the pill in the top of the first. After a few hits and a few runs, we were looking down the barrel, but we managed to put a couple on the board ourselves to keep it interesting.
The game seesawed back and forth a bit until we found ourselves down by 4 heading into the last. With some good batting and a lot of luck, we pulled level and decided to keep it friendly and produce a 10-10 draw.
Division 8 opened their campaign in a quality encounter against Woodville. Both teams starting pitching was excellent, Darren Bails for your tigers filling up the zone and restricting the free base to the Senators. The overall quality of this match was high, both teams swung the bat well, made plenty of plays with only a couple of defensive miscues in the middle innings contributing to the ultimate difference in scores. Ultimately 15-9 in the end but some real positives to build on from this match up.
