Ron called early and said he couldn’t go today. He had a caretaking emergency. At the ballpark by myself, I encountered
something new: a line at the ticket office.
I ended up standing in line for five minutes. It was another clear, warm beautiful day, but
that five minutes of hot sun exposure convinced me I should seek shade
inside. I sat up high under the canopy
when I got a seat. It was a great crowd
today at over 700.
Yesterday, I think I’d talked Ron into finally trying
corn-in-a-cup today. Well, that’ll have wait
till next year. Though I’d had great
pizza yesterday, I thought I’d try the newly offered pizza at the ballpark that
was on the menu yesterday. Of course,
they weren’t offering it today. And here
I’d skipped breakfast. Sigh. “One soda, one corn-in-a-cup, and one dollar
hot dog, please. Oh, and please make
sure the bun is stale. Thank you.” Well, at least they got my order right.
Out on the field, a couple of the players were warming
up the kids who’d be throwing out the first pitches. On the radio, Adam Young and Nolan Fox
were doing the pregame. Coach Green said he was going to try
and get all the seniors that were available today into the game. Some attractive young women were seated
behind me. I later figured out that they
were the Aggie Women’s Golf team, I
think. I’m sure the baseball guys
appreciate the support and wouldn’t mind some lessons. (Every baseball players’ favorite sport to
play is actually golf. Baseball is just
what they do for a living.)
For the first out of the game versus the Utah Valley Wolverines, Aggie starter Alex Pinedo got style points for a
barehanded catch and spin throw to first.
Down where I usually sit, I saw the Old Man cheering away. This time he had a backup section of three
little boys behind him, cheering with him.
Later, they’d be dancing to the between innings music.
In the bottom, some Aggie Softball girls came in, namely
Caity Szczesny, Jeanelle Medina, Nikki
Butler, Victoria Castro, and Kelsey Horton. That’s nearly the all the usual
starters. They were seated a few rows
below me and were looking glamorous.
Actually, between seeing them constantly in front of me and the long
legs of the golf girls stretched out over the seats beside me, it was sort of
torture.
Marcus
Still got the second inning started with a highlight reel
catch, diving for a ball. Even the
softball girls applauded and they were not easily impressed. The girls were pretty impassive during the
game to the point of a couple of them taking out laptops to do term papers (or
something like it, there was a bunch of tying).
Elsewhere in the crowd, I saw a dad with a kid and they both had mitts
on. The kid I understand, not the
dad.
On the radio, they were discussing the Aggie Lujan
fundraising dinner, which takes place in Albuquerque of all places. It generates a lot of money for sports here
apparently. Nolan quipped, “There are a
lot more Aggie fans in Albuquerque than there are Lobo fans in Las
Cruces.” He’s from the northern end of
the state, so I’ll take his word for it.
On field, the bottom of the second was pretty
active. Nick Gonzales walked with one out.
Marcus got an infield hit and a throwing error advanced Nick to
third. (It took a minute for the
official scorer to get it correct.) Mason Fishback was hit to load the
bases. David Bellamy was starting today as one of the seniors in his last
home game. He grounded out, but drove in
a run, 1-0 Aggies.
Everyone was a little shocked by what happened
next. The Wolverines’ coach pulled the
pitcher and brought in a new one. That
was a short leash. The PA took him out,
playing Let It Go. Suddenly, I was hearing a bunch of kids and
adults singing along with it. There were
a couple of kids, dad, and their grandparents in front of me. At one point the grandma explained what she
knew about baseball to the kids. A guy a
row down inserted, “Now explain the infield fly rule.”
The Wolverine reliever gave up a pair of walks, which
scored a run. Trey Stine then drove in two runs with a single. The guy a row down shouted out, “Put the
other guy back in!” The inning finally ended
on a foul out with the Aggies up 4-0.
Before the third was a really nice moment. DJ
Downs suddenly came on as the PA. I
noticed a girl leading another girl by the hand out of the pressbox. She was taken down in front of the
stands. DJ introduced her as Alexia.
She’s been the baseball PA voice for the last two seasons and was going
to be a graduating senior. Alexia was
given flowers and a hand from the crowd and the players. I finally got to see her.
Pinedo got into trouble in the top of the third. Two singles and a double were cashed in for
two runs. 4-2 Aggies. Wolverine pitching was having its own
problems. The bottom started off with a
pair of singles and a walk which loaded the bases. It was another quick hook and another new
pitcher came in. Fishback was his first
batter. He fouled one pitch straight
back. The ball hit the top of the
netting right next to where a pidgin was sitting. The pidgin said, “I’m an Aggie baseball
bird. ‘We don’t move.’” And indeed, he did hold his position after
the near miss to the amazement and amusement of the crowd.
Mason drew a walk, which forced in a run. (The bird then flew off after making his
point.) A double play erased one of the
base runners. Then Joey Ortiz came up and completely cleared the bases with a
three-run homer. 8-2 Aggies.
This game wasn’t over yet. The Wolverines started off the inning with a
solo home run. Pinedo then yielded a
single and hit a batter. Callahan Moltzan came up drilled a
three-run homer. The Utah Valley fans
and their dugout erupted. After finally
getting the first out, Pinedo gave up another single and was lifted.
Matt
Perea came in and got the second out, but then loaded the
bases with a pair of singles. There was
some miscommunication on a grounder by first between Perea and Caleb Henderson that allowed the runner
on. The scorer changed his mind later to
rule it a hit instead of an error. (This
caused me no end of problems trying to add up my scorecard later.) Matt got the final out with a strikeout
looking. The golf girls behind me got
into it at that point cheering. After the
Wolverines batted around this inning, it was now 8-7 Aggies.
I was sitting in the sun at this point. The softball girls and other people around me
had moved into a shaded area. I didn’t
want to move, but for about a half hour, I felt like I was sitting in a frying
pan. Adam and Nolan were complaining
about the length of this game. It was
already two hours old and not halfway over.
Caleb got on in the bottom via another hit-by-pitch. This one hit the catcher too, who seemed to
get the worst of it. Henderson was left
stranded.
At the start of the fifth, there was an announcement
about the softball team and their tournament this week. The softball girls gave a half-hearted cheer
and a slightly sarcastic “guns up” Aggie salute. I found out later that the whole team was
actually there Friday night and was honored.
I’d wondered why Alexia wasn’t pointing the girls out during this game
or the last. (Also, I didn’t hear it at
the time because of the radio delay and cheering for a home run being hit, but
I found a clip on the team twitter for yesterday’s game. Adam had noticed the girls ducking over that
foul ball that dropped on them. He
lightly called them out for not paying attention.)
Volleyball
girls Megan Hart and Megan McGuire came in. Beautiful 6’5” Hart makes a conspicuous
entrance wherever she goes. In the
bottom of the fifth after a couple of singles, Joey came up again. He made an awkward swing and shook his hands
out afterward. Adam reminded us that
Joey’s playing through a wrist injury. Joey
figured out a way to make it feel better.
He blasted another three-run homer.
This one was a no-doubter as the ball took a very high arcing trajectory
over the left field fence. 11-7
Aggies.
By the sixth, I was finally back in the shade. The Wolverines burned another pitcher, but
neither team scored for the inning. In
the seventh, big AJ Castillo came
in. He gave up a couple of singles, but
got three outs without giving up a run. I
like him. He’s built big and he’s got
some mental toughness.
Adam had started talking last inning about the Aggies
winning by run rule. I think it was
wishful thinking on his part, wanting to end this long game, but they’d have to
score six more runs. Bellamy started off
the seventh by getting hit. Joey doubled
him in. The Wolverines brought in their
fifth pitcher of the game. Stine would
drive in Joey for another run. Two more
singles loaded the bases.
On the first pitch, Nick blasted a grand slam home run
to right center. The Wolverine right
fielder futilely jumped for the ball, but it was well over. Their catcher went out to talk to the
pitcher. The rest of infield stood in
the field confused as the Aggie dugout rushed out and met Nick at home
plate. It took them a minute to realize
that that was the ball game. The Aggies had scored six runs and won 17-7 on a run rule. What can I say, another day, another game, another walkoff grandslam run rule win (4-28-18).
It was a three hour, 17 minute game that only went seven
innings. I felt a bit bad for the Utah
Valley Wolverines. They played hard in
this series, but the Aggies just had more weapons on offense and defense. For gameballs, Matt Perea and AJ Castillo
did a good job out of the bullpen. Trey Stine or Nick Gonzales would have been the hitting stars on any other day,
but the guy hitting ninth stole the show today.
Joey Ortiz scored in all four
plate appearances. He went 3 for 3 and
drove in 7 RBI’s, 6 on a pair of three-run homers.
On the radio, Nolan
Fox thanked Adam for his mentoring. He
was graduating, and this was his last broadcast for the university. I noticed a couple of Aggies and a couple of
Wolverines got together on field and had their pictures taken. They must have been friends. A short time later, the seven Aggie seniors were
honored. Coach Green got choked up
talking about them. Just to mention a
couple. Marcus Still was credited with a 100% fielding percentage. Wow!
And we’ll miss his dad cheering. The
coach had some fun with Jonathan Groff,
saying they recruited his “long, lean form” off a high school track team with
lots of natural speed. (He’s built like
a fireplug.)
There was the somewhat tragic story of reliever Brett Worthen. He was the Aggie closer, before he was
injured two years ago. Brett finally
made it back on field and into a game a couple of weeks ago and did pretty
well. The coach was set to throw him in
the eighth. I kept noticing an
attractive young woman in a black dress in the crowd. (Trust me, anybody wearing a dress in a
ballpark is going to get noticed.) She
was his girlfriend and came out on field with him.
Three of the softball girls were still around after the
ceremony. I went over wished them good
luck this week at the WAC tournament. I
told Caity Szczesny she had my
favorite player name and Jeanelle Medina
that she had great hands fielding. (Both
are really cute too. Wearing visors,
headbands, sunglasses, and braids out on the field, I’d never gotten a good
look at them in person.) I only got to
say, “Hi,” to Kelsey Horton. Honestly, they were sort of polite, but none
of them wanted to talk. I wasn’t sure
about going over, but I felt like I kinda had to since I’d been watching them
all season and am planning on going to their tournament.
After that encounter, I might have been a bit
woozy. I think I finally noticed I was
maybe dehydrated (and a bit disappointed).
I did have that soda during the game, but that apparently wasn’t
enough. I’d had plans for diner, but
instead went straight home and started gulping water. This does not bode well for the softball
tournament, especially since there’s no shade at all there. After finishing off yesterday’s pizza, I felt
better and, upon reflection, was really pleased with the weekend. It was great weather and two good games to
end Aggie Baseball’s home season.
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