Gold Country Buzzards

Gold Country Ol' Buzzards Game Report #1

Game: March 22, 2015

Buzzards can't score early, almost claw back,

Fall short to Solons in exciting home opener, 16-12

After a winter of warm, sunny Sundays, it seemed ironic to open the baseball season on a cool day with heavy clouds and rain in the late day forecast. The 2015 NABA baseball season's opening game pitted the Buzzards and Solons in a rematch of last year's championship game, which was won by the Buzzards 13-1.

The starting pitcher for the Solons was their lefty ace, Tom 'Foz' Defazio #31. On the hill for the Ol' Buzzards was the tough righty, Gregg 'Surf Dawg' Novotny #1. No jinks intended, but Surf Dawg was 8-0 last season.

The Buzzards tacked the first run of the game on the board in the bottom of the first inning. Taylor 'Welzy' Welz led off with a bouncer through the infield for a base hit. Up next, Dan 'Wookie' Wukmir walked on five pitches while Welzy stole on the first pitch. With one out and after both moved up on a wild pitch, Mark 'Thunder' Weathers, the new clean-up hitter, came to the plate. Thunder then hit a grounder to the right side to score Welzy for a 1-0 lead and the first Buzzard ribbie of the season.

Surf Dawg cruised through the first two innings on 22 pitches with 16 strikes. However, in the third frame the Solons placed five short flares into the outfield for hits along with two walks to score six runs. Rick 'Salmo' Salmeri #6 took the mound in relief to end the Solon rally.

The Buzzards answered with just a run in the bottom half of the third inning. With two outs and Kevin 'Speedy' Krantz on second via an infield error and a stolen base, lefty Wookie hit a chopper over the third baseman's head for a single to score Speedy and make the score 6-2 Solons after three innings.

Salmo held the swinging Solons until the fifth frame. Then seven singles, one ground-out and an unfortunate missed double-play opportunity put Welzy #26 on the bump in relief. Then one double-play groundball later and the 10-batter inning was over with the Solons up 12-2.

The Buzzards had a hard time with a sharp Foz and his mix of pitches on opening day. It was not until their bullpen got involved and John 'Hag' Hagen # 24 entered the game in the sixth that the Buzzards' bats started working. The inning started with Speedy knocking a single to left-field, then swiping second before Welzy sends him home with a sharp single to left. Wookie then looped a two-strike single to short center with Welzy holding at second. Both runners advanced on stolen bases to put Buzzards at second and third with one out. Welzy scored on a catcher's error, while Wookie scored later on a single to right by Thunder.

Pete 'Baron' Von Zboray followed with a line drive to left-center to put two on. One out later, Jim 'Milli' Milligan singled to drive in Thunder. Up next, Salmo was hit by a fastball on the left upper arm, just north of the elbow, to load the bases. Mike 'Mickey' Wilson followed that move by using the baseball magnet to also get hit by a pitch (left side) to push in the Baron from third base. With Buzzards still on all bags, Krantz cranked a two-run single to left for his second hit of the inning. The score through six was 12-9 Solons.

Just when momentum seemed to shift, the frickin' Solons banged out three more hits, two with the infield playing in, after an infield error to score three more times in the seventh dig. The Buzzards added three more runs to keep pace, but time was running out.

Four straight Buzzard hits to start the inning looked promising. To lead it off, Wookie slapped a single to right field for his third hit of the day and proceeded to steal second. Batting next, Dave 'Evy' Everingham singled sharply to left-center with Wook scoring from third on an over-throw from the outfield. Welzy ran for Evy and swiped second before Thunder, up next, hit a laser beam to right field to score T-Welz. The Baron then blasted a shot down the left-field line for a stand-up double with Weathers racing 'round the bases to score from first. However, the inning ended quickly after that with two good defensive plays and one K to make the score 15-12 after seven innings.

The Solons scored once more in the eighth on a hit, sacrifice bunt, hit batter, single, strike-out, single and strike-out inning. The Buzzies put up a valiant fight in the ninth. Speedy led-off with a bunt single for his third hit of the game, but was left stranded as he watched the shortstop make three excellent plays to end the game with no more runs. The final score of the 3 hour and 10 minute, eight-inning game was Solons 16 - Buzzards 12.

The Buzzard's solid pitching was throwing strikes (only 3 walks), but the good hitting Solons were finding the holes with lots of flares fielded on one hop in the outfield. The Solons scored in four innings and sent 47 to the plate. They collected 20 hits to out-hit the Buzzards by four. Of the 24 defensive outs, the pitchers got nine by strike-outs leaving 15 for the rest of the guys. Sadly, 20 hits were easier for the Solons than getting 15 outs for the Buzzards.

The Buzzard offense showed up in the sixth and almost had enough in the seventh to make up for the slow start. The Buzzards scored in only four innings, and seven runs in the sixth helped. The hit club for the game included: the Baron (2), Evy, Milli (2), Speedy (3), Thunder (2), Tomahawk, Welzy (2), and Wookie (3). The always important RBIs were knocked in by: the Baron, Milli (2), Speedy (2), Thunder (3), Welzy and Wook. The runs were scored by: Baron, Evy, Milli, Salmo, Speedy (2), Thunder (2), Welzy (2), and Wook (2). Salmo and Mickey were the first to get hit by pitches this season and get to join the 2015 bruise club.

The defense for the first game of the season was solid with just two errors and two nice and timely double-plays. There were only three fly ball outs in the game. The first was a deep drive to Kelly 'Cagey' Garcia in left field to open the fourth. In the sixth, Speedy charged hard from center field and made a terrific shoe top catch to end the inning. Tomahawk got under and smoothly caught the last out of the seventh inning in right field.

The two infield double plays are worth noting. The first one in the second inning was with two runners on and one out. The good looking Welzy to Evy to Thunder (4-6-3) ended the inning with no runs scored. In the fifth the bases were loaded and six runs had already scored in the frame. On Welzy's fourth pitch, Big Frank Smith hit a grounder to Wookie at second to start the inning ending 4-6-3 double play to Evy then on to Thunder at first. The other Big D highlight was the gun down of Foz in the seventh inning when he attempted to steal second base. An excellent throw by Milli and a good tag on a hook-sliding Foz by Wookie covering second got the exciting out.

The Buzzards will do better in the next game and as the season progresses. We will not lose many games, but it is apparent that the opponents will be coming hard at us, so we best not get in the habit of getting down by 10 runs early.

Next week, the Buzzards will tear apart the Yankees on James Field starting at 2 pm. The Yankees are 1-0 by beating the Astros last week.  

Buzzard Note #1: The Buzzards heartily welcome two new studs to the roster. Kevin Krantz was a Buzzard before and is now old enough to be an Ol' Buzzard. Kevin now lives in Auburn and is the closest to our home field. Mark Weathers has been a long-time nemesis while playing with the Dragons for years and recently with the Reds. The Reds broke up and Mark has joined the Buzzards. Mark comes the second farthest, Clarksburg, to our home games. Both guys are great athletic and personality pick-ups and add to an already strong team. This is going to be a fun season and another good year to be a Buzzard.

Buzzard Note #2: The NABA schedule is still not settled, but getting closer. The next four weeks are home games at James Field. Those dates are: Mar 29 at 2 pm, April 12 at 10 am, Apr 19 at 10 am, Apr 26 at 2 pm. No games on Easter Sunday Apr 5.

Buzzard Note #3: Team score-keeping note. Runs in the book count toward the original hitter/runner, not the courtesy runner. Stolen bases or caught stealing count toward the runner.