"The Reachers lit up the great ball orchard in Greenburgh this dusky and humid summer evening," observed Art Rust, Jr., who was covering the matchup tonight for Modern Maturity magazine. (Somebody tell Art it's now called AARP The Magazine, please). In fact, we defeated Moretrench — one of the two teams that beat us before we got our sea legs — by 7 - 4. 'Twas truly a team effort.
Mike "The Spook" Flaherty returned from his secret mission to rig something or other — the elections, oil, tackle? — to repeatedly lace the ball into the left center gap and would up on base four times, sending Jim Pezzuto, who was also on base four times immediately preceding him, scurrying around the diamond like a jitterbugging centipede. Jim scored thrice, in fact. The Reacher's left fielder caught no flies for the first time since 1982, but went 3 for 3 with some punch-and-Judy hitting to the right side (away from Mike Contrastano's trapdoor glove).
Alas, Moretrench's third baseman had a Clincher magnet of his own attached to his mitt, and it snared a series of scorchers hit by both Steve Tilly and Mark Smith, as well as one by DH Robert "Solid" Gold. He also robbed Bob Bearnot of a hit down the line, but the Doc struck back with a clutch RBI single in the sixth. Steve Tilly knock down several grounders headed toward the outfield and generally found Rick Bohm steadfastly on second for the force. Rick was also responsible for getting the go-ahead fifth inning rally going with a Bohm-classic liner up the middle.
Fred Wertz gobbled up all of the flies that tilted to the left tonight and Kevin Dawkins made the catch of the evening on a blistering liner to first back when the outcome of the game was still somewhat in doubt. Jason, as he does so routinely, quite simply baffled the opposing batters (except Charlie) with his patent-pending arc de triumph.
"Lose again we may never," opined Mark "Yogi Yoda" Smith, despite a chorus of shushes from the more superstitious among us (namely, me). In fact, we entered the night in second place, with a 5-2 record. Francesco's sat atop the standings at 5 -1. Their only loss was to us. We play them again next Monday at 7:45. Please tell me by Thursday, if possible, if you can make it.
BP is probable, but not definite, for Friday. More on that as a the week progresses.