Gold Country Buzzards

Gold Country Ol’ Buzzards Game Report #10

Game: July 10, 2011

Buzzards shoot down Dragons, 7-5

On another gorgeous Sunday morning in the Gold Country, the Ol’ Buzzards circled-in onto James Field in Auburn to take on the tough Dragons (6-3) in a two-game affair. With vacation season conflicting with baseball season, the Buzzards only had 11 players for the game. It appears that Dragons don’t take vacations ‘cause they came in full force with 16 players dressed out in their dark green jerseys, white pants and green and black caps with their Dragon logo ready to clip the Buzzards’ wings.

These games were originally scheduled as a home double-header for the Dragons at Lembi Field in Folsom. Lembi was being used this weekend for a regional youth tournament so the Buzzards offered James Field for the games. The Dragons were the home team for the first game. The starting pitcher for the Dragons was righty, big Jeff “Nasty’ Hansen #11. Throwing for the Buzzards was the bulging biceps right-hander, Bob ‘Woody’ Wooden #22.

The Dragons started the scoring for the day with one run in the bottom of the first inning. Woody sent the early message though by breaking a bat on the first pitch. Freddie Fenton broke his lucky bat on the outside fastball when he pulled a liner foul. Later with one out, an E-6 on a nice dig but a short throw to first base was followed by a deep double to the right-center field gap putting the Dragons on top early 1-0.

The Buzzards tied the game in the top of the third inning. With two outs and runners on second and third, Taylor ‘Welzy’ Welz hit a 0-1 pitch sharply to left field for a single and knocking in the tying run. A base running blunder added some run-down excitement to the end of the inning, but the score was now 1-1.

The scored remained tied until the sixth, when the Buzzards broke thru for five runs. The inning started with a Wezly walk after fouling off five pitches for a great at-bat. Woody, batting next, stroked the second pitch deep into the left-center field gap for a double scoring Welzy from first base. Up next, Tony ‘Mongoose’ Brashear smacked the first pitch for a base hit to left field putting runners at first and third with no outs. But, two outs later with runners at second and third in this close battle, the oldest Ol’ Buzzard, Dan ‘Wookie’ Wukmir stepped to the plate. On a 2-2 low fastball, Wookie hit a hard one hopper skipping thru the right side of the infield to drive in two runs with the clutch hit.

Batting next, Scott ‘Donut’ Reeves hit a tough grounder to short that was misplayed on the throw to second base with the ball sailing into right field. Wook, after a hard slide into the two bag, jumped up and ran to third base with a trailing throw coming in. Another hard feet-first slide and another wild throw into the out-of-play area allowed Wook to slowly get up and jog across home plate for the score. Donut advanced to second base on the play. Dennis ‘Cover Boy’ Viegas then singled up the middle on the first pitch to drive in Scottie to make the score 6-1.

Meanwhile, Woody was doing a terrific job of holding down a potent Dragons team to one run. There were several Dragon threats throughout the game, but Woody and the defense would come thru in every tough situation. The Buzzards added one more in the top half of the eighth inning. The youngest Buzzard, Mongoose, led off the inning with his third hit of the game, a liner to left field. Welzy then ran for Tony and stole second base a couple of pitches later while Mike ‘Bake’ Baker was flailing away at pitches. Batting next, Pete ‘Baron’ Von Zboray grounded to third but beat the throw to first on the misplay by the infielder. In the following excitement Welzy scored and the Baron was standing on second base. Wookie then walked on four pitches putting two runners on before the inning ended with the score 7-1 Buzzards after eight innings.

In the last inning, the Buzzards relaxed a little and the Dragons made the score closer by scoring four runs in the bottom of the ninth. Two doubles, an infield error, a hit batter and a single amounted to the four late runs to make the final score 7-5 Buzzards.

Terrific pitching, solid defense, and timely hitting were the recipe for this victory. Woody pitched a heck of a game. Ol’ Bobio threw 110 pitches (78 strikes & 32 balls) to 38 Dragons in the three hour game. Woody gave up no earned runs with nine hits and no walks but two hit batters. Woody’s only strikeout, to the last batter of the game, put a nice exclamation point on the big win. Nice job Woody, a complete nine-inning victory against the motivated Dragons is just what the Ol’ Buzzard team needed.

The Buzzard gloves were tight. It was those damn easy throws that didn’t work out a few times. New rule: Never yell out “plenty of time” to any infielder from now on, OK? Making the plays and including two double-plays helped Woody shoot down the Dragons. The first DP was in the fourth on a come-backer to Woody on the mound and a quick throw back to Everingham covering second base and the solid throw to Baker at first to end a Dragon rally. In the sixth with runners on, Woody snagged a liner up the middle and then threw to first base to end the inning.

The Buzzard offense was out-hit by the Dragons 9-8, but the timeliness of hits is always critical. The Buzzards’ hit club for the first game included the Baron, Cover Boy, Welzy, Woody and Wookie with one hit each, while Mongoose had three hits. The ribbies were courtesy of Cover Boy, Donut, Welzy, and Woody with one, and Wook with two.

What an excellent game with clutch plays all game long. Now the Buzzards could rest on their laurels for 45 minutes until game two against the now ticked-off Dragons.