While we were at the Aggie Women’s Basketball game and watching the girls win their regular season
championship, Ron kept updating me on Game 1 of this double header with Harvard. It was a back and forth affair. The Aggies made a comeback in the ninth to
force a tenth inning, which Mason
Fishback ended on a two-run walk-off homer, 11-9 Aggies.
The game was tied in the ninth when the basketball game
ended. Ron may have wanted to leave at
that point to try and see the end, but I wanted to stick around and see the
girls cut down the net and didn’t think we’d make it over in time. My bad, but no regrets. Actually, it would have sort of been a great
game to watch all of. Sort of. It ran for four hours. Good thing for the fans there that the Aggies
won. Boy would that have hurt otherwise.
Just to backtrack a little to Friday night’s first game of
this series, I was able to watch the end of the game at work, since it was on
TV. Kyle
Bradish had another great start. He
let in one run on a wild pitch, while the Aggies built up a five run lead. Unfortunately in the eighth, Harvard got to
the Aggie relievers and scored four to tie it.
But the Aggies came back in a big way in the bottom. Fishback drove in two and then Trey Stine clobbered a grand slam to
put the game out of reach. Brock Whittlesey shut the door in the
ninth for an 11-5 Aggie win.
After the basketball game, Ron wanted a quick lunch. I had to talk him out of McDonalds by
mentioning that nearby Schlotzsky’s also had a drive through. Since we were eating in Ron’s car in the
baseball parking lot waiting for the game, we ended up skipping getting chips
and, more importantly, their ice cream.
Still, our sandwiches were great.
Amazingly, Game 2 had not started by the time we went inside the
stadium. There were some complaints from
the fans that had been there for Game 1 about the lengthy delay.
It was a pretty good crowd.
The Diamond Club area was full. I’m
not sure how many came over from the basketball game, since the tickets for
that were being honored here today. I
was the only one wearing an Aggie Women’s Basketball shirt. Harvard did bring some fans with them, though
nothing like Yale’s section-filling
contingent from last year (3-5-17).
There was no program up front, but there was a new Kyle Bradish
poster. (Where am I going to find room
for all of these posters?)
In the late afternoon, it still very pleasant out in the
high 70’s. There was only a light
breeze. However, the sun was starting to
set. Thankfully, I’d brought my jacket,
just in case we came to this game, but I didn’t bring a hat. As the game went into the night, I was
worried I’d start freezing again, like last weekend, but it never got
cold.
When I mentioned complaining fans earlier, I actually mainly
meant one guy. He was in a Dale
Earnhardt Sr jacket, so he’ll be referred to as Senior here as we go
along. I’ve never seen this guy out at
the park before, but he certainly knew his baseball and about the Aggie team. He also knew how to hold his alcohol, which
may have been a contributor to his outspokenness. AD
Mario Moccia came in before the game started. Senior called him over and asked about
getting good seats like at the ballpark into the football stadium, as well as
some handrails for climbing the stairs. He
may have had some good points. Mario
said he’d bring it up at his next meeting.
Ron made the impromptu observation that in Game 2, on the
second pitch of the game, the batter hit a double. No, he wasn’t drinking. That runner did score on a base hit to give
Harvard a 1-0 lead. Bruno Teramoto had another error at second, but there was a great
double play turned to end the inning. Kevin Stone for Harvard worked around
two lead-off walks with a double play for a scoreless first.
Harvard tacked on another run in the second with two singles
and a walk, 2-0. David Bellamy did make a great throw to the plate to try and get
the runner. Pitcher Alex Pinedo also made an excellent fake that he was going to cut
off the throw. In this inning, I noticed
another voice just underneath Senior’s constant loud chatter. It was a deep, smooth professional call of
the game by an announcer from the Harvard point of view. He was sitting in the stands only a few rows
back, but with Senior in between, I could barely hear him. I think he was calling the game for them, but
I’m not quite sure. Everyone who talks
to me at after seeing me writing stuff down, asks me if I’m with the newspaper,
so there’s no telling. This uncertainty
would be more clearly manifest later.
Unfortunately, I never got the chance to talk to him to clarify things
and compliment him on his game call.
The third inning passed without scoring. There was a mini-football toss into the crowd
from the pressbox, and I saw a woman wearing a new throwback Diablos jersey. In the bottom, Marcus Still did hit Stone on a comebacker, but he recovered well
and threw Still out. They brought a kid
out on field in the fourth for the throwing contest at a window pane. With Senior yelling out advice, he hit
it.
Senior also had some interesting gossip during the
inning. He was telling a Harvard fan
that this facility used to be totally primitive, until a donation a couple of
years ago by a donor. Said donor didn’t
like the previous coach of the team and pledged the donation if the university
fired him. This is somewhat
believable. The previous coach was very
tightly wound. I could where he might
rubbed people the wrong way. The moment
he stopped getting good results on the field, he got canned. Coach
Brian Green had a horrific first season, but he is an NMSU grad and has a
much more pleasant personality.
Thankfully, he started getting results the next season and was able to
sell the program to recruits with the stadium upgrades.
On the field, the Aggies finally got a run on a strange
error. Joey Ortiz got on from being hit by a pitch and was advanced to
third on a hit by Fishback. I wasn’t
even watching what happened next. The
routine thrown in to the infield was muffed and Ortiz took home and Fishback
took second. 2-1 Harvard. During this inning I was also really
distracted. I was still trying to listen
to the Harvard announcer. (“And he lays
off the high cheese. It’s two balls, one
strike.” Ah, it was just musical
commentary.) The Aggie Men’s Basketball game also just started on the radio. I kept listening in and out on that.
Senior sang along with NSync over the PA in between
innings. Him and the Harvard announcer
had a proxy disagreement. Somehow a
football rule came up. Senior said he
was wrong. The announcer said that
someone in the Aggie crowd did not agree with him. Needless to say, I got a chuckle out of that
exchange. In the bottom of the fifth,
the Aggie offense finally got going. The
Aggies tried to use some small ball to score.
Teramoto singled and was bunted over.
Still hit a shallow single. He
ran for second to try and draw a throw to allow Bruno to score, but the throw
went home. Bruno was thrown out at home
on a fielder’s choice on the next batter.
Enough of that crap. Joey Ortiz
came up and hit a three-run homer. It
didn’t seem to be hit that hard, but it just kept carrying to right
center. The wind probably kept it
up. 4-2 Aggies.
Senior came back from the concessions with a foul ball he’d
acquired while over there. He sang along
with Corey Hart’s Sunglasses at Night. Ron was seething that other people were
getting all of these fouls. Logan Bottrell pinch hit in the sixth
and made it to third base on a two-base error from a bad throw by the
shortstop. Stone walked the next batter,
precipitating a mound visit by the coach.
The gobbledygook sound bite played over their conversation. “Another classy sound effect by the Aggies,”
said the Harvard announcer.
Unfortunately, Bottrell would be thrown out at the plate on a good play
by Stone. It was a fielder’s choice bunt
which was incorrectly, in my opinion, officially scored as a hit.
“Why do I keep rooting for Harvard?” asked Senior in the
seventh. It was true. He kept accidently cheering for the wrong
team. I thought it was alcohol-related,
but from tomorrow’s experience, everyone including myself was vulnerable to some
confusion. Both teams were essentially
wearing the same colors. Harvard might
have been wearing very light grays tonight, as they were on TV the night
before. (Or they were wearing whites
tonight, in which case they were wearing exactly the same uniform as NMSU. I can’t remember exactly.) Anyway, Senior chatted with a Harvard fan and
we both learned that Harvard offers no athletic scholarships. Their players were all volunteers. The main highlight of the inning was Still
making a great catch in deep centerfield to end the top half. Meanwhile, it was 48-33 Aggies at the half in
basketball. UTRGV ended the half with a
6-0 run.
For the eighth, Senior corrected the Harvard announcer on
the inning. He wasn’t that drunk. Me and Ron may have been the only ones not
drinking at the stadium judging from the general level of banter from the
crowd. Oooh, that lady with the cute
cocker spaniel just came in. It’s so
adorable. Also, there were a bunch of
good-looking women at the stadium tonight.
Some may have been Harvard fans.
In any case, they were all seated behind me. I’d only notice them as they walked in
aisles. In the top, Ortiz made a great
play at short on a slow roller to end the frame. This was Kevin Stone’s last inning
pitching. Ron noted later that his
fastball kept getting faster as the game went on.
For the Aggies in the ninth, Matt Perea came in to close.
It did not go well. The first two
batters reached on singles and were sacrificed into scoring position. Perea got a strikeout for the second out, but
Chad Minato singled both of them in
to tie the score. Ben Skinner then doubled in Minato to give Harvard a 5-4 lead. In the bottom, David Bellamy hit a blooper
that he hustled into a double. Ortiz
walked behind him, but two strikeouts ended the game, 5-4 Harvard.
Well, that was disappointing in a crushing sort of way. In a slightly broader perspective, the Aggies
did win the last two games against Harvard with last inning comebacks. I suppose expecting three-in-a-row was too
much. Not being able to close out with a
two-run lead was a bit more troubling.
At least Aggie Men’s Basketball
won their game, 86-71, to finish
their regular season. Shockingly for
Aggie Baseball, this game did take under three hours.
Senior suddenly disappeared well before the end of the
game. The Harvard announcer stopped
broadcasting in the eighth. I’d noticed
he’d also gotten up and gone to the bathroom and/or concessions during the game
a couple of times and missed some of the action. So, I don’t know if he was really
broadcasting or not. He certainly should
have been with his voice and delivery.
He mentioned to another fan that he was Harvard third baseman Hunter Bigge’s father. I had Hunter in as the ninth inning pitcher,
though I wasn’t able to hear his introduction.
At the time, I must have thought I misheard the name, but did write down
his number. When a got a program the
next day, he was listed as a pitcher.
Harvard used a couple other players the next day in dual roles.
Harvard pitcher Kevin
Stone gets a gameball for an eight-inning, 5 hit, 2 earned run effort. Also, credit to the team for some clutch
hitting in the ninth. Aggie pitching
with Alex Pinedo and Wyatt Kelly combined for eight innings
and only one earned run. Joey Ortiz had what would have been the
play of the game with his big fifth inning three-run homer.
Ron and I had some ice cream at PQ Treats afterward. That’s always a good way to sweeten a loss
(or celebrate a victory). At least we
saw the Women’s Basketball team win a championship today. Well, let’s regroup for tomorrow’s noon game.
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