Gold Country Buzzards

Gold Country Ol' Buzzards Game Report #13

Game: August 3, 2014

Buzzards claw Solons, 9-2

With summer temps in the 100s for quite a while and a Saturday at 107° in the valley, it cooled off surprisingly well by Sunday to a mild 86° in Auburn for a hot match-up of the top two teams in the 52+ division of Sacramento NABA. The second place Sacramento Solons were up from the valley floor to take on the first place Gold Country Buzzards in the 2 o'clock game at James Field. The Buzzards are comfortably in first place, but the intent was to still kick some Solon tail and send a message for the upcoming playoffs. Beware the Buzzards.

The starting pitcher for the Solons was their ace lefty, Tom 'The Fazz' DeFazio #31. Taking the mound for the home team and starting for the first time as a Buzzard was veteran right-hander, Fred 'Freddie' O'Donoghue #32.

The Ol' Buzzards hit the scoreboard first with a hard-earned run in the bottom of the first inning. Tom 'Tomahawk' Keatley led-off with a walk. Next, Dan 'Wookie' Wukmir swung late on a 1-1 fastball, but looped a single into left-field to put two runners on. Both runners moved up on a wild pitch before Dave 'Evy' Everingham on a 3-2 pitch hit a frozen-rope to center-field. The liner was run down for a sacrifice fly with a diving-rolling catch by Bruce 'Bronx Loudmouth' Maiman. Tomahawk tagged up and scored on the roll, but Wookie had to stay at second.

Batting next, Pete 'Baron' Von Zboray walked on five pitches to put two Buzzards on with one out. A strike-out and a ground-out ended the dig without further scoring, but The Fazz threw 27 pitches and the Buzzards were up, one to nothing. The Solons struck back with a run in the second inning. Two singles and a strike-out, followed by two more hits to score the run. Next was another strike-out and then a close fielder's choice play at second base (6-4) left the bases full of frustrated Solons to end the inning with the score tied at 1-1.

The Buzzards threatened in the second and third innings and left five men stranded on base. The Buzzards also made two outs at home plate in the third inning, one thrown out and one forced out. In the fourth frame, the Buzzards took some risks to put some runs on the board in this close ballgame.

Rick 'Salmo' Salmeri opened the inning by getting hit on the top of the right (back) foot and taking first base. It was an impressive and growing welt after the game when his shoe came off. Salmo moved to second on a wild pitch and to third on a ground-out. Batting next, Wookie hit into a fielder's choice with Salmo trying to score from third, but was thrown-out at the plate on a close sliding play. Wook then stole second before Evy walked. With runners at second and first with a tie score, the Solons were pre-occupied with Wook at second and either faked a throw or attempted a pick-off before each pitch to the Baron. On the fourth pitch and with the third baseman playing deep, Wook stole third. On the play, the throw from the catcher bounced and hit Wookie on the left wrist and the ball bounced away deep into foul territory. Wookie got up and scored easily as the Buzzies took a 2-1 lead. Evy was put back at second by the umps after the play. The umps were wrong.

The Baron, still at-bat, then took another base-on-balls. The Buzzards' scary (looking?) clean-up hitter had his third walk by the fourth inning. Up next, Freddie hit the first pitch into right-center field for a single that scored Evy from second to make the score 3-1 after four. The Solons changed pitchers in the fifth and brought in righty, Ken 'Pudgy' Wright #1.

The Gold Country gang of 10 players, then nine after Paul 'General' Lee injured his calf muscle early in the game, added a nice crooked number (4) to the scoreboard in the fifth frame. Dave 'mMumbles' Kelley started it off with an infield hustle hit. Tomahawk ran for mMumbles and immediately stole second base. Norm 'Burner' Tucker followed with a flare into left-field for a hit to put runners at the corners. Burner stole second before Salmo walked to load the bases. With the bases full of Ol' Buzzards, Tomahawk chopped a fielder's choice to the third baseman for a force-out at home.

With the bases still full, Wookie smacked a long drive to center-field that for a moment looked catchable. The ball hooked away from the outfielder as he ran with his back to the infield as the ball landed for a hit. Wookie was robbed by the same fielder, Bronx Bruce, on a similar line-drive in the second inning. Meanwhile, Burner scored easily from third, but Salmo was still scurrying for home after heading back to second a moment earlier to tag up. The ball caught up with a sliding Salmo at the plate for the fifth Buzzard out at home in the game.

Next, Evy crushed a 2-0 pitch down the left-field line for a nice double to score Tomahawk and Wook. With Evy at second, the Solons tried a pick-off move that back-fired on the over-throw and Evy hustled home to score on the play. The Baron then sent a blast to the left-field fence for a double before the fifth inning ended with the score: Buzzards 7 and the Solons 1.

The Solons added a run in the seventh inning on a lead-off single and stolen base followed by a run-scoring hit to left by The Fazz.

The Buzzards tacked on two more runs in the eighth inning before the game was called due to the three-hour time limit. After fouling off two two-strike pitches, Freddie led-off with a sharp single to right. Pete ran for Fred. With one out, mMumbles lined a single to right to put runners at first and second. Tom ran for Dave. Burner then hit a shot down the third base line for a single to load the bases.  Salmo, batting next, knocked the 3-1 pitch into left-field for a base hit and scored the Baron and Tomahawk. The umps then stopped the game with the final score 9-2.

The Buzzards used their ol' tried and true recipe for the victory - terrific pitching, solid defense and good sticks. The game was close in the beginning, but the Buzzards pulled away in a strong, dominant fashion. Another good Buzzard win.

The pitching was awesome as usual. Freddie started the game and went four innings for the win before pulling a butt cheek muscle while warming up on the mound before the start of the fifth frame. Before O'Donoghue was relieved, he faced 21 Solons in throwing 68 pitches (43 strikes & 25 balls). Fred gave up one run on eight hits with two walks and four strike-outs. Gregg 'Surf Dawg' Novotny threw the last four of the eight-inning game. Surf Dawg threw 52 pitches (31 strikes & 21 balls) in facing 14 batters. Gregg gave up one run on three hits with one walk and one strike-out.

The Buzzard offense knocked in 9 runs and left 13 stranded on 16 hits with the help of seven walks and two Solon errors. The hit club for the game included: the Baron, Burner (3), Evy (3), Freddie (3), mMumbles (3), Salmo, and Wookie (2). The seven ribbies were courtesy of: Evy (3), Freddie, Salmo (2), and Wook. The always important runs were scored by: Burner, Evy (2), Freddie, mMumbles, Tomahawk (2), and Wookie (2). Seven free passes to first base were issued to four watchful Buzzards: the Baron (3), Evy, Salmo, and Tomahawk (2). The Buzzard defense was excellent.

There were 24 Solon outs in the game, so with five strike-outs, that leaves 19 fielding outs. For the second week in a row, there was only one fly-ball out during the game and each went to Tomahawk playing center field. There were two key pop-ups for outs to Pete at first base as each ended an inning with runners on base. Grounders to Fred at first base in the sixth and to mMumbles at third in the eighth were the other unassisted outs.

There were 14 infield assisted put-outs where direct team work resulted in valuable outs. Evy at shortstop had five assists and two put-outs. Wookie hung in there for five assists and two put-outs at second base until a collision in the eighth caused muscle cramps in his calves and the game came to a stop for a while.

The play started with two on and no outs with a sharply hit grounder by Pudgy right to mMumbles playing close to third for a potential triple play. mMumbles stepped on third for the out and fired at second base, when he should have thrown to the second baseman's glove. Wookie went to his knees to block or maybe catch the two-hopper just as the runner, Al 'Mad Max' Luger slid hard and crashed into Wook. Max went tumbling over the bag with the ball and Wookie ended up on the first base side of the bag on the ground grabbing at his feet for muscle cramp relief. Max and Evy rushed over and applied the pushing pressure on the feet until the cramps subsided. Wook then hobbled over to the dugout for hydration on orders from the ump and returned fairly quickly to second base due to the lack of any other healthy Buzzard player, and that there were just 15 more minutes to play.

When the game resumed in the eighth, it was two on and one out. With a 1-1 count, Wook called time-out and switched positions with Freddie at first, as his legs were getting that crampy feeling. As luck would have it, the next pitch was hit to Freddie's right where he cleanly fielded the ball and tossed it to Evy covering second to start a double play to end the Solons' last inning.

Freddie had three assists and five put-outs playing first base and pitching. The best assist was a great pick-off move to nail the Bronx Loudmouth at first base in the opening inning. The pick-off for the second out was followed by two base hits, but no runs. The first out of the game was an excellent play by a hard-charging Wookie on a short chopper to just get the lefty, Phil 'Speedy' Gunther.

The Buzzards kept Speedy off of the base paths. Phil went 0 for 3 with a strike out and broke his bat in frustration in the sixth during his at-bat. After swinging at two low curves and hitting his bat on the plate during his second swing, Speedy slammed his bat on the plate and it clearly cracked. Phil then had to speedily change bats and ground-out on the next pitch to first base.

Burner caught the entire game and was credited with five put-outs for the strike-outs and one assist. The assist in the fifth inning was a fun one as Tucker nailed the runner, Mad Max, on a throw to the bag. Wookie was on his knees to catch the ball and make a tag on a slide play, but Max did not slide, so Wook applied a hard tag in the middle of his thigh. Max went tumbling over the bag and to the ground for the out.

There were two Buzzard double plays in the game. In the seventh it was a 6-4-3 with Evy to Wookie to Freddie and in the eighth it was 4-6-3 with Freddie to Evy to Wook. On the offensive, offensive side, the Buzzards made five outs at home during three innings (actually five of eight outs). Two in the third inning, one in the fourth, and two in the fifth, which must be some kind of record.

A little short-handed, but another nice Buzzard victory for a season record of 12-2. Good job,

Buzzards. Buzzard Note #1: The next game is at Playfields Park in Davis at 10 am on August 10th against the Astros.

Buzzard Note #2: Al 'Mad Max' Luger, who collided hard with Wookie a couple of times in the game is a recently retired shark attorney who works professionally as Max. Interestingly, Wook and Al are buddies and have been roommates at Phoenix the last two years playing on the over-60 Solons.