All-Star Friday 25 March 2005

What a great day. Brilliant weather tempered by outstanding play, attended by the few, the proud and the brave.

SAS (Saturday Afternoon Softball) :
Pitch: 3 of Coach's, catch: Coach's allstar, 1st: Beyonce, 2nd: Coach's allstar, 3rd: DT, SS: Coach's allstar, OF: Rube, Sandman, Prof Zen, Jason, Seven, Gunz, Bullpen: Horfun and Diana

SAS (Singapore American School) allstars

First all, much thanks to Coach for organizing this brilliant holiday afternoon baseball session. As usual the hosts were great, providing us with a core of their players to even out the shortage of numbers we had. Pity we could not get batting practice against the pitching machines, as the baseball store was locked for this week's tournament.

Thanks also go out to the few dedicated souls who made the effort to come on and have an all round good time on the ballfield. Especially to those who showed up but didn't get a chance to play the actual game.
Attendance was (according to appearance) : DT, Beyonce, Seven, Prof Zen, Horfun, Jason&Diana, Sandman, Rube, Gunz, TeckPiaw

As we really short of numbers, coach provided us with his starting catcher, pitcher, shortstop and 2nd base. Along the way, coach substituted in 2 other pitchers, traded from the other team.

We took the field first, suprisingly as we were the guest team, with a mighty lefthander leading off the inning for us. Taking barely 12 pitches, it was a 1-2-3 out to end the inning. Coach's imports took up the top 3 bat positions scoring 1, Prof Zen batted 4th (he was smashing the ball during batting practice, hence coach's decision), and got on base. With runners at the corners, DT stepped up to the plate and actually made contact with the ball, hitting a blooper into right field that should've been a single if not for the glovework and legs of the rightfielder, who made a THesque catch. No matter, the runner on third tagged up and scored, giving DT his first career RBI. Score 2-0

Top of second saw us starting a new righthanded pitcher. The first batter got on base, due to an error by Beyonce on first (she dropped the ball from the SS), but she more than made amends for it by making a unassisted double play on a opposite field line drive from the second batter. She leapt high into the air, caught the ball and tagged first to get the runner out. Outstanding play. Sadly, we were unable to get on base this inning to work on a wider lead. Score 2-0

The allstars got back on the scoreboard in the third, with classic offensive baseball, first batter walked, and the next batter bunted him to advance. The next batter hit a terrific linedrive up the middle which led to the Rube's 15secs of shame. Rube was in centerfield, and he ran down the ball but when he was within inches of it, instead of putting his body to the ground and diving for the ball, he stopped short and the ball bounced through his legs and went to the wall. The allstars scored 2. Score 2-2

The allstars came back in the 4th to take a 4-2 lead, but we pulled it back to 4-3 with snappy singles hitting and walks from our batters. Rube narrowly avoided hitting into a double play at the bottom of the fifth, advancing the runner on first and getting himself on base at the same time due to an error by the SS.

The score remained at 3-4 for the next 3 innings, and our imports performed brilliantly to control the middle infield. There was even a 6-4-2 double play to end the fourth till the top of the seventh, when the allstars scored 1 to take a 3-5 lead. As we had never won a baseball game in history, losing by 2 runs was an extremely decent scoreline for us. But we still had a chance at bat. Rallying hard at the bottom of the 7th. Rube and Gunz again hit singles to advance runners and bringing the score to 4-5. Gunz scored the tying run from a hard single from Doug, our imported SS. Victory was not to be however, and we finished the 7th inning at 5 a piece. More importantly, we played hard, hit well (practically everyone made contact with the ball) and enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

Final Score SAS 5 : SAS allstars 5

As it was still light, we took the field for some batting practice with Teck generously pitching for us. (note : Gunz smashed the ball during this session, with 2 hits reaching the wall)