Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Little League World Series -- a pretty good story

I had the chance to cover the Little league World Series for SumnerSports.com, a sports site in Sumner County, TN -- home of the Goodletsville Little League.

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This is the story of the final game -- the end of their season, but by no means, the end.

I suggest you read the August 25th  post so that this one makes more sense.





 Photos courtesy of my friend, Ron Trinca.
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Goodlettsville  Outdone by Japan in World Series Finale
 It’s All Over – But the Shouting Will Continue

By Herm Card
Williamsport, PA - There was certainly no lack of desire or effort from the  Goodlettsville Little Leaguers as they  took on the  International Champion,  Japan,  for the Little League World Championship, but three things worked against them. 

Probably the biggest was that in winning the United States Championship in a most improbable fashion – the stunning 24-16 marathon against Petaluma, CA – their pitching staff was depleted.  Japan, on the other hand, had their ace, 6’0”, 206 lb., Kotaro Kiyomiya  rested and ready.  The clincher – also improbable – was that Japan’s leadoff hitter, Noriatsu Osaka, unloaded three home runs and a triple to set a LLWS record with 15 total bases in the game.  Japan hit 5 homers on the day, and it was Osaka’s third, a two run shot in the bottom of the fifth that ended the game 12-2 as the 10-run advantage rule took effect.
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Kiyomiya struck out eight and, despite early wildness, only walked one in his four innings on the mound.  The only hit he gave up?  Not much of a surprise – Brock Myers drilled his fifth homerun of the series, having hit one in each game.  Osaka relieved Kiyomiya in the fifth, giving up G’ville’s only other hit.  Again, not a big surprise as Lorenzo Butler ripped his fourth homer in two days, tying Myers with 10 RBIs for the series, though he got his 10 in just two days.

In the post game press conference, Myers, Butler and manager Joey Hale defied the logic of ABC’s famous “The thrill of victory,  the agony of defeat,” tag line – anyone walking in in the middle would have been hard pressed to tell whether they had won or lost.

When asked a somewhat typical question – “are you more sad or disappointed” – apparently  looking for an “oh woe is me” type response, Myers, all of 12 years old and yet apparently media savvy, said “We’re the second best team in the world.  I’m OK with that.”
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And so, it seems, is Tennessee.  The team will be introduced at halftime of the Vanderbilt – South Carolina football game on Thursday in Nashville.  There are other events planned for them, celebrations, interviews, parades.  There will be other accolades heaped on them – and then these champions will be back in school – turning their attention to whatever other sports and activities junior high students are involved in. 

Next year, Little League will be a thing of the past.  They will move on to higher levels of baseball.  They may win, they may not.  Some may again play in front of 25,000 plus  fans and a few million more on TV, but most will not.  Regardless of what happens next year or any year, they will always carry the memory of a glorious season with them.  

Manager Hale, and his staff – Joey’s Dad Jerry, and Steve Snyder, would love to bring another team back to Williamsport next year, but they know from experience it’s hard work.   “You just go out and do the best you can,” said Hale. “They worked all winter to get to this point. All that hard work paid off.”

When told that the team’s parents looked a lot more tired than his team had, Hale praised them for their dedication and support.  “We wouldn’t have been here without those parents,” said Hale.  Those parents, as the chance for victory had become less with each Kitasuna home run, had continued to cheer their team, continued to root, continued with the type of support that bore out Joey Hale’s praise.
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Now, as it turns out, it would have been a pretty good story if the team from Goodlettsvile, population a bit over 16 thousand had knocked off the team from Tokyo, population a bit more than 8 million.  It would have been a pretty good story if they had been able to rally against Japan as Petaluma had rallied against them, coming from almost impossibly far behind to tie the game.  It would have been a pretty good story if the Little League World Championship banner was packed in Joey Hale’s suitcase.

But – that’s not the story.  The story is that after  Petaluma rallied for ten  runs, and these twelve-year-olds from Tennessee dug down and put 9 back on the board – and after the Kitasuna Little Leaguers out-pitched and out-hit them and no comeback was possible,  the kids from Goodlettsville walked to home plate and shook  hands with kids pretty much like themselves,  and the parents cheered and applauded and wiped away the occasional  tear that is a consequence of parenthood, and – win or lose, it all looked pretty much the same – game over, on to something else.

So, in the end, it’s the United States Little League Championship banner packed in Joey Hale’s suitcase, and that’s more than just a pretty good story. That’s a great story.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

So You've Seen It All, Eh?

I've been covering the Little League World Series for SumnerSports.com, a sports website in Sumner County, TN.  Goodlettsville is located in Sumner County, and their team played for the US Championship tonight, and will play for the overall Little League World Championship tomorrow.  Before you ask -- here's the story I posted tonight.  For those of you who think you have seen it all, I will continue to disavow you of that type of thinking.  Here's the current installment of that "disavowing."

Butler’s 3 home runs, 9 RBIS lead Goodlettsville to United States Championship
By Herm Card

 Williamsport, PA - In what will be remembered as the most incredible US Championship game ever played – probably the most incredible LLWS game ever played, Goodlettsville outlasted Petaluma, CA 24-16 in 7 innings that took 3 hours thirteen mnutes. 
Herm Card Photo

Brock Myers

                                                                                                                                                                                  It looked as though Brock Myers’ first inning  home run, his fourth of the Series, put Goodlettsville ahead to stay, but it took far more than that to secure the win  in a game that featured 40 runs,  seven home runs, 35 hits,  a nine run and a ten run inning, and another hero, Lorenzo Butler,  who hit three HRs and drove in nine, for the offensive performance of the series.  As it turned out,  Myers did put them ahead to stay, but not until the top of the seventh.

  Second baseman Butler blasted a three run homer in the top of the third to help push G’ville’s lead to 8-2, but the team from Petaluma, CA,  closed the gap to 8-5 in the bottom of the inning.  Butler’s second three run shot in the top of the fourth put the Tennessean’s on top 12-5.  Butler had secured their 4-3 win over Texas with his glove, but did his best work with his bat today. His third appearance with two on resulted in his third home run of the game and gave him the Little League World Series record with nine RBIs in the game.  It was also the record breaking 65th team total home run of the series and pushed the score to 15-5. 
Herm Card photo

Lorenzo Butler


  Starting pitcher Myers left the mound in the sixth after reaching his 85 pitch limit and Petaluma charged back, cutting the gap to 15-9 with the bases loaded and  none out.   Luke Brown  relieved Ryan Lyle, and got the first out on a fielders choice grounder to Butler to make it 15-10.  An infield hit made the score 15-11.  A running catch by Jayson Brown in center made it two out.  California’s leading hitter Bradley Smith then doubled in the seventh run of the inning to make it 15-12.  Kempton Brandis’ two run homer plated the ninth  run  and Hance Smith tied the game at 15 with a homer to dead center.

A fly out to center stranded the winning run at first and sent the game into extra innings.

Most teams would have nothing left at this point, but Goodlettsville clearly had something big left.  In the top of the seventh, Jake Rucker and  Jayson Brown singled to left   to put two men on in front of  Brock Myers.  Myers then hit a screaming liner over the leftfielder’s head for a two run double  to put G’ville back on top 17-15.  Luke Brown’s single to center chased home Myers and it was 18-15.   Cole Carter singled in Brown to make it 19-15.  Lorenzo Butler (batting with only one on) walked, and both runners moved up on a passed ball.  Ryan Lyle plated run number 20 on a ground out to second.  Andrew Snyder then grounded out to drive in Butler.  Jonathan Seals was hit by a pitch and Rucker doubled him in before Jayson Brown crushed a two run homer to make it 24-15.  Brock Myers then popped out to end the nine run inning.

The bottom of the seventh was relatively anticlimactic, but an incredible relief to the Goodlettsville fans.  Two infield ground outs and a walk, followed by a double made it 24-16, but a called strikeout made Luke Brown the winning pitcher and Goodletttsville  the US Champions.

Goodlettsville meets Japan at 3:00 Sunday for the Little League World Championship.
 
                  
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  R     H    E
Goodlettsville, TN   2  0  6     4  0   3       9         24   21    3
Petaluma, CA           1  0  4     0  0 (10)    1         16    14   2
                                                                                                                                                              

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

My favorite baseball books and films


Not that you care, but I’m just throwing this out since I was thinking about it.
If you want analysis or literary critique you aren’t getting any.  If you want to argue literary merit, you’re in the wrong place.  They are here because I put them on my list because I like them.  I consider them essentials.  There are more I could put on the list, but I haven’t run across them recently.  When I do, I may make a second list.

There are well known baseball books that are not on this list – probably not because I haven’t read them but more likely because I didn’t like them as much as these.

Baseball books by people I know are in alphabetical order by author.  The books and films by people I don’t know (but probably would like to know) are in the order I thought of them or found them on my shelves or wherever I had put them down.

By people I know:

Nonfiction:
Bums, Pete Golenbock
Baseball’s Starry Night, Paul Kocak
The Umpire Strikes Back, et. al.  Ron Luciano, David Fisher
The Juju Rules: Or, How to Win Ballgames from Your Couch: A Memoir of a Fan Obsessed, Hart Seely

Poetry:
O Holy Cow!: The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto, Phil Rizzuto, Hart Seely and Tom Peyer
The Cutoff,  Jay Rogoff
Where Memory Gathers, Ed Ward 
Line Drives. 100 Contemporary Baseball Poems, Brooke Horvath, Tim Wiles, ed.


By people I don’t know, but would probably like to know:

Fiction:
Great American Novel, Philip Roth

Poetry:
On Days Like This, Dan Quisenberry
Becoming Joe Dimaggio, Maria Testa
Baseball, I Gave You All the Best years of My Life, Richard Grossinger, Lisa Conrad, ed.

Non Fiction:
The Official Rules of Baseball
Beadle's Dime Base-Ball Player; a Compendium of the Game, comprising Elementary Instructions of this American Game of Ball: together with the Revised Rules and Regulations for 1860; Rules for the Formation of Clubs; Names of the Officers and Delegates to the General Convention, &c. , Henry Chadwick
Men In Blue, Larry Gerlach
A Great and Glorious Game: Baseball Writings of A. Bartlett Giamatti, A. Bartlett Giamatti
Boys of Summer, (and The Summer Game and The Era),  Roger Kahn
Money Ball, Michael Lewis
A Game of Inches:  The Stories Behind the Innovations that Shaped Baseball:  The Game 
       on the Field (Volume 1), Peter Morris
Men at Work, George Will
Prophet of the Sandlots, Mark Winegardner
The Long Season, Jim Brosnan
Baseball's Great Experiment: Jackie Robinson and His Legacy, Jules Tygiel
The Glory of Their Times, Lawrence S. Ritter
Triumph & Tragedy in Mudville, Steven Jay Gould
October 1964, David Halberstam
The Catcher Was A Spy: The Mysterious Life Of Moe Berg, Nicholas Dawidoff
The Best Game Ever: Pirates vs. Yankees: October 13, 1960, Jim Reisler


Baseball films I’ve been in: 
Signs of the Time
 (http://www.signsofthetimemovie.com)


Baseball films I haven't been in, but like them anyway:
Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns
The Lost Son of Havana  (the story of Luis Tiant’s return to Cuba to visit his family)
Money Ball
When It Was a Game (Vol 1-3)
 Bang the Drum Slowly
Field of Dreams
The Kid from Left Field  (because the title of my blog came from a line in the film)

 

Friday, August 3, 2012

WARNING -- STAY AWAY

Every now and then I discover something new and dangerous.  This is today's new and dangerous.  For those of you who already knew about it, why did you not tell me about it?  Why was I not warned?

For those of you who don't know about it, stay away.  Do not, under any circumstances go to this website.  I take no responsibility for whatever might happen.

www.backtobaseball.com

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

THIS IS NOT A TEST

Please excuse this interruption.  

Today's blog is being postponed to bring you the following important announcement:

Please proceed to the following  link in an orderly fashion, then return here for further instructions.

MAYDAY, MAYDAY: WE ARE CALLING FOR AN INTERNATIONAL JUJU INTERVENTION.... TODAY, TODAY, TODAY

 

Thank you for reading el duque's instructions.  Now,  proceed quickly, but calmly to your chosen media device to contribute your JuJu.

We will all be better for the effort.