This game never happened, so don’t get too emotionally
involved. You were warned. It was bright, blue skies and sunny in the
morning. However, the forecast was for a
good chance of rain after noon. On
schedule, the temperature dropped at 12:00pm and clouds suddenly moved in. I was still hopeful we’d get the game in when
Ron picked me up for this 3:00pm game.
I’d already taken the day off and used AD Mario Moccia’s excuse note.
There was a smell of fresh cut grass in the air. Yesterday’s rain had made the grassy football
knoll green. Inside the stadium, there
was a Sul Ross State fan who had it
figured out. He had a collapsible
lounger set up at the foot of the grandstand.
That is the way to see a
ballgame. The SRS team looked pretty
sharp in their practice black tops with red trim. For the game, they wore a UNM Lobo-like cherry and white uniform. It was hard not to notice the
height-difference between a couple of their catchers. One looked about a foot taller than the
other.
I went to the bathroom.
When I came back, Ron told me I missed it. Women’s
Basketball team star, Brooke Salas
was back and taking pictures of the field.
Crap. I didn’t even really need
to go. This also totally preempted my
big news that they’d put new paper towel dispensers in the bathroom. I also noticed Jordan George from the Volleyball
team there briefly working at the stadium.
SRS is a DIII team and not a good one by their record,
but they’d played the Aggies tough last year.
Their team huddled up on the first baseline with their arms around each
others’ shoulders for a pregame pep talk.
(Nice picture moment, if only I had a camera.) For the Aggies, they had a couple of bench
players in. Tristan Stacy was in for still-injured Logan Bottrell. (Yet another
Tristan on the team.) Botts’ back is
sore, but thankfully he isn’t injured to the point of being shutdown. Last year’s game (4-17-18), featured
three sets of brothers. Catcher Braden Williams’ brother, Brenden, was starting today at second
with Nick Gonzales moved to DH.
With no official stats, there’s no correcting anything
wrong on these scorecards. It’s too
bad. Even with two batting around
innings, I wasn’t doing too bad filling these out. The Lobos had another error listed on the park
scoreboard, but I don’t know when it happened even listening to the radio call
for the game. Yes, Adam Young was broadcasting here today. I was surprised that a good crowd showed up
for this weekday afternoon game against a non-name opponent with impending
weather on the way.
First up, I liked the look of Wesley Moss for SRS leading off.
He looked like a ball player, but he was in DIII because he was my size
(and MVP Jose Altuve’s). Moss shook hands with catcher Jason Bush and the ump before starting
his at bat. Chris Barraza started for the Aggies and was very hittable. He yielded hits to the first three batters,
had a wild pitch, and two were driven in.
SRS may have shorted out their own inning with a bad caught stealing on
a low pitch. 2-0 SRS.
The wind kicked up.
It was obviously raining to the north beyond the outfield. Soft-throwing Kole Vedder hit Joey Ortiz
with a slow curve to start the bottom of the first. With a hit-and-run on, Joey scored on a
single by Nick. That was a good start as
the Aggies batted around and scored five runs.
Brendan had a great two-out single to drive in two. It was a grounder that rolled past the
pitcher and the shortstop. Stacy also
singled in the inning. 5-2 Aggies.
I noticed a cool Brewers
hoodie in the crowd, along with a Brooklyn
Dodgers hat. Oops, that’s not a
Dodgers hat with that yellow “B.” I’d
find out later what it was. My chest was
getting a little tight. The humidity
must have been going up. Barraza was on
track for the second and had a 1-2-3 inning.
Adam began an extended discussion on the Aggies’
national RPI rating as the team batted around again in the second. The Aggies are leading the nation in several
offensive categories and have a good record, but their rating is bad. It’s well below other good teams in the
WAC. Missing that Nebraska series because of weather and losses to Northern Colorado and Utah Valley have hurt.
On field, the Aggies scored seven runs on three
hits. The inning included two hit batters,
two walks, and an error. Brendan sac’d
in a run and Stacy doubled. (Ryan Acebedo in center did make a great
diving play on the sac fly.) They were
making the most of this opportunity. The
big blow was Jason’s bases loaded clearing double. It was a high fly ball that kept carrying in
the wind to the wall. The fielder
couldn’t come up with it as it dropped beside him. Two of the runners crossed the plate
back-to-back as the ball came in to the infield. Watch out, guys, that could have been a
double tag out. 12-2 Aggies.
Mario arrived in the third. He was met by Brooke by the entrance as she
was taking more pictures of the field.
They got their picture taken together.
A player’s girlfriend also showed up, pointing at her watch to her friends. She didn’t mean to be late. I noticed that the umps weren’t granting time
to batters. It seemed like they wanted
to move the game along because of the impending weather. There was a run rule in place for this game
with an eye towards cutting it short. I
think they may have been just hoping to make the game official after
four-and-a-half. The lights were on and
light raindrops were falling off and on.
The SRS Lobos still wanted to win though. This was probably the biggest game on their
schedule for the season. Barraza didn’t
make it out of the third. Two walks, a
single, a double, along with a sacrifice when Mitchell Allen came in, brought in four runs. 12-6 Aggies.
That run rule win just got harder.
I think there were two kids in the crowd. Intern Emerson
found both of them for the “I scream” contest.
The little girl let off an impressive squeal and won ice cream
coupons. Both her and her brother both
managed to recover fouls during the game too, so it was a successful outing for
them. The sun came out briefly and the
wind died down, but I don’t think we were fooled. The Aggies went down in order in the bottom
of the third after a really questionable caught stealing call. I got the impression the Aggies and the umps
were really rushing here.
Sure enough, the wind and the overcast came back. Allen gave up a homer in the fourth to make
it 12-7. He gave up a single next, but
caught the runner trying to steal second.
On the last batter, the ump took hard foul off his leg. Coach
Green and the trainer ran out to him as he hopped around. After the shock wore off, the ump laughed it off
and resumed his station to a round of applause.
Raindrops were again falling in the bottom. Stacy singled, but the other Aggie batters
went down quick.
Chris
Jefferson came in for the fifth.
He got a ground out. The next
batter got on from an error by Eric
Mingus at third. Jefferson then got
a strikeout, when Coach Green came out on to the field. This seemed ominous. The field was cleared and PA Alexia
told the crowd that the game was under a lightning delay and told the fans to
leave the stands. Sigh. The game was one out
away from being official. I never heard
the thunder, so it couldn’t have been that close. The score, for what it’s worth for a canceled
game, was 12-7 Aggies.
As fans left, they were greeted at the entrance with the
curious sight of Emerson in the Dino
Dash inflatable T-Rex costume waving goodbye to the crowd. I’m guessing there was going to be race
between innings. Oh, I was cheated. How cruel.
I found Ron outside.
The wind was blowing away from his usual spot for getting fouls, so I
was surprised he didn’t come back to his seat.
Actually, he’d been in the Diamond
Club area, where the wind was blowing to.
Nobody was restricting that area today.
Adam had mentioned there were people there, and I’d seen someone there
duck as a foul whizzed through. That was
Ron. He’d collected several balls.
With 20 minutes for the delay, we went down the street
to get pizza. I didn’t get enough and
cheated myself. As we came back to the
parking lot, there was more lightning, which extended the delay. SRS players were hanging out in the parking
lot. They had a five-hour bus trip
waiting for them, so this delay really sucked for them. Adam came back on the radio with occasional
updates.
Eventually, we went back into the stadium. We met the fan with what I thought was a
Brooklyn hat. His name is Michael. The hat was actually a team hat from Tristen Carranza’s high school. He was a nice fellow. Ron took me back around to show me the
Diamond Club. He took a peek into the
Aggie clubhouse on the way. The team was
there watching baseball on a big screen TV.
There’s also pool table inside with crimson felt. The club area was . . . ahem . . . not a showplace.
Let’s just move along.
Finally, after more frequent lightning and closer
thunder, the stadium lights turned off. After
what was about a two-hour delay, they finally cancelled the game. This meant that it never happened. That might be good for the Aggies’ RPI,
because unless they run ruled this game in the seventh, it was going to
probably hurt their rating after giving up seven runs. We were already driving down the street for
ice cream when the announcement came and the rain finally arrived. I was a bit sorry I’d taken the day off, but
Ron was actually depressed. He’d been
looking forward to this specific game for some weekday afternoon baseball. Oh, well.
It was better than no baseball.
No comments:
Post a Comment