The first game of the tourney was at 10:00 on Tuesday. By 1:00, with the first game still not over, we had our first casualty - the umpire on the plate had to leave the game because of the heat. That crew finished out the day with the remaining 3 men in blue.
The first game for me and my partner Kevin (CA D54), was at 12:30. I had the plate, Kevin was at 1st, Glenn from WA D3 was at 2nd and Paul from CA55 was at 3rd. The game was Hawaii vs Southern Cal. We expected a good, well played game, but instead got a 6 inning Hawaii win. We were done in 1 hour, 40 minutes - a good way to beat the heat. The game was so smooth and clean that we had exactly 0 times when a coach or manager came close to questioning one of the crew!
The critique after the game centered on a couple missed rotations and a lot of good comments on timing, positioning and keeping the game moving.
Our next game was 3:30 between Nevada and Oregon. For this we had Kevin on the dish, Glenn at 1st, Paul at 2nd and me at 3rd. This game was a lot longer - 1 hour, 50 minutes. But it went the distance. Nevada pulled it out with 3 runs in the bottom of the 7th to win 6-5. Again, no strange goings on - we were once again critiqued on a couple missed rotations and a lot of good comments about how well we functioned as a crew given that we had done all of 2 games together.
Our last game of the day was 6:30 - Northern Cal vs Idaho. We had Paul on the dish, Glenn at 1st, me at 2nd, Kevin at 3rd.
This was preceded by opening day ceremonies, including the ceremonial first pitch by none other than Western Regional Director, Jim Gerstenslager.
We expected N.Cal to jump out to a big lead, but after 4 innings it was 4-3 Idaho. Idaho kept that lead until there were 2 outs in the top of the 7th, when N Cal took one deep to tie it up. They scored 1 in the top of the 8th, and held on for the win. The play of this game (well, maybe the bonehead play of the game) occurred in the bottom of the 8th, when the leadoff batter for Idaho walked, then proceeded to start to steal 2nd, and stop half way. As the ball was thrown into center field, he reversed directions, and stopped again - waiting long enough for the shortstop to track down the ball and throw him out going back to 1st. A bang bang play by Glenn at 1st.
Our evaluator during the day was Duane Cave (D55 UIC). He was very positive about our work during the day. We each picked up some pointers, but basically we got the job done, kept the games moving, and stayed out the way. As one of my mentors has said many times, we didn't affect the outcome of any of the games.
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