Gold Country Buzzards

Gold Country Ol’ Buzzards Game Report #2

April 5, 2009 

Buzzards Feast On Yankees, 23 to 2 

The Gold Country Buzzards travelled to Antelope High School early Sunday morning to face the Yankees.  Another beautiful Spring day greeted the teams at 10 o’clock game time.  The high school is new so the field was in real good shape for our second game of the 2009 season.  The Buzzards knew that the Yankees have been the weakest team in the National Division, so we were expected to win.  And win we did.

The pitching match-up for today’s game was Gregg “Surf Dawg” Novotny #1 (6-0 last season) throwing against fast working, veteran John Lenzie #24 (5-1 last season).  Lenzie is a new addition to the Yankees.  He pitched previously for the Valley Dogs and has been tough on us in the past.  But today the Ol’ Buzzards brought their young hittin’ sticks and wacked on the Yanks early and often.

The visiting Buzzards started with seven runs before the Yankees even got to come to bat.  Taylor “Welzy” Welz opened the game with a walk.  Welzy stole second and then third before scoring on Bob “Woody” Wooden’s infield ground ball.  Dave “Keppy” Kephart singled to right.  Jim “Milli” Milligan knocked in Woody and moved Keppy to third with a hot grounder to short that got away putting Milli on base.  Two fielder’s choices scored two more runs before Barry “Brooklyn” Forman hit a liner to center to score run number five.  Ray “Bull Dog” Henry drove in the last two runs with a nice line drive single to center field. 

The Yankees scored one run in their half of the first with a single, walk and an infield hit.  The Yanks scored their last run in the second inning on a single and three straight walks by a suddenly wild Surf Dawg.  Woody was then brought in with the bases loaded and no outs.  Ol’ Scot Hensley #00 thinking he was younger and quicker, or not thinking at all, was wandering off first base too much while Woody was paused ready to pitch, so he alertly stepped off the mound with his right foot and quickly fired to Keppy at first to put Scottie in a run down with no where to go since second base was still occupied.  Keppy ran Scottie down near second base while the runner at third broke for home.  After tagging a pissed off – screaming balk, balk – Scottie, Kep wheeled around and threw a strike to Milli at home to tag the runner out for a very strange, but fun to watch double play. A 1-3-2 double play is not seen very often.  Woody then struck out the batter after several foul balls to squash the Yankee rally.  Bob came into a bases loaded jam and threw six pitches and gets three outs with no runs.  Two of the outs, without throwing a pitch.  Wow, what a relief job. 

In the top of the third, the Buzzards scored 10 runs and put the game out of reach early.  Fifteen Buzzards batted with 10 hits and a walk.  Getting base hits were Pete "The Baron" Von Zboray leading off the inning with a line drive to left, followed by Mark “Ronnie” Wronski getting the first of his four hits today.  Charles “CJ” Jackson hit a screaming liner to center field and Bull Dog hit a shot up the middle, each knocking in a run.  Welzy doubled deep to left and then advanced to third on a fielding error by the left fielder.  Taylor scored on Wuky’s hit up the middle for the fifth run.  Woody got on base via an E-5 and advanced to third base on Keppy’s liner to right scoring Wuky.  Milli hit a deep drive to left for a double driving in Woody and Kep.  The Baron walked and scored the 10^th run on a deep drive to left by Ronnie.  What an inning, besides the offensive fireworks, the three outs were made by two batters, Barry’s two fly outs to the right side and Bull Dogs’ ground out to short to end the long inning.  Oh my, 17 – 2 in the top of the third. 

The Yankees did not score the rest of the game.  Excellent pitching and good defense shut down those damn Yankees.  Woody pitched two quick innings giving up one hit while facing five batters.  He threw 22 pitches, 17 strikes and 5 balls.  Surf Dawg pitched well until he couldn’t find the umpire’s strike zone on the critical pitch.  Gregg walked two of the three Yanks on full counts.  Surf Dawg’s pitching line was 10 Yankees on 34 pitches (18 strikes and 16 balls) with two runs on three hits with four walks and one strikeout. Keppy threw the final four innings in dominating fashion.  Dave threw 48 pitches, 30 strikes and 18 balls.  Kep faced 13 Yankees and gave up no hits and struck out six.

The Buzzards were not finished scoring yet.  They scored two runs in the fourth with consecutive hits by Surf Dawg, Welzy (double) and Wuky followed by a sacrifice fly by Keppy to left field.  In the fifth, one run scored on a single by Ronnie and a double up against the wall in left field by CJ.  The Buzzards scored one in the sixth inning on Welzy’s third double of the game followed by a nice line drive single to left by Jim “Wags” Wagner, straight off the Disabled List with a test swing.  Good looking first hit of the season for Wags and the hit scored Welzy from second.  The last two runs came in the seventh inning.  Milli led it off with another double, and then Pete hit a liner to left field for a single.  Milli scored on Ronnie’s single to right.  The Baron scored the last run on a solid line drive to center by Ray for his third hit and fourth RBI of the game.

Good job, Buzzards.  The victories will not come this easy very often.  Enjoy the win and take the Easter weekend off.  They are good guys (only two of the four Hensley’s played today, Scott and the second pitcher Paul), but for most of us it’s always nice to beat up on a team called the Yankees.

The 25 hits and 23 runs are a season high and will be hard to top.  The game offered good offensive team statistics.  The multi-hit group included Kephart, Milligan and Von Zboray with two hits, Henry, Jackson and Welz with three, and Wronski with four hits.  Four Buzzards hit two RBIs in this game with Milligan knocking in three and Ray Henry having a good day with four ribbies – three with two outs - to go along with three hits.  The excellent pitching line is two runs on four hits with four walks and nine strikeouts.  The Buzzards were awesome today. 

The ‘Play of the Day’ was in the bottom of the second with Woody’s pick off of Scottie at first base that led to the tag by Keppy of a running Yank before he whirled around to make a strong throw to Milli to nail the runner at home plate for a wow double play.  The Buzzard defense was solid again.  Of the 21 Yankee outs, nine were strikeouts, eight infield ground outs, one hot line out to Surf Dawg at second to end the game, one infield pop-up caught by the pitcher, Woody, and the terrific double play pickoff play.

 Buzzard Note #1: The next games (double header) vs. the Patriots on April 19 will likely be in Woodland.  Car pooling via RV is the plan.  We may stop and eat somewhere in Woodland or on the way home.  Any good restaurants that you know that may work for hungry Buzzards descending upon it, let Pete or Gregg know.  More info to come. 

Buzzard Note #2: The web site is updated with stats and team info.  The web site is www.teamz.com/gcbuzzards/cfm? 

Buzzard Note #3: The hits and defense gave our fans a lot to cheer about.  Some of the Baron’s relatives were in town and came by to watch Pete and the Buzzards in action.  The cheering section consisted of Pete’s mom and her three sisters, Aunts Joyce, Heidi and Linda.  They were fun and did not embarrass young Petey too much, or did they?

Buzzard Note #4: No game this Sunday.  Happy Easter.