Gold Country Buzzards

Gold Country Ol’ Buzzards Game Report #1

March 29, 2009

 Buzzards Beat Up The Sultans, 14 to 4 

Opening Day is always special and our 2009 season opener was on a beautiful Sunday morning in Colfax.  A day just right for the Ol’ Buzzards to begin defense of their Sacramento NABA title.  It would have been nice to have more practices before the regular season began, but the weather did not cooperate.  The layoff since last Fall for most of the Buzzards was not too evident collectively, as we scored early and won the opener by 10, but the defense and hitting will need to improve.  We will not win lots of games with only 12 hits combined with too many lousy throws on defense.  Unless of course, our pitching dominates, like it did today.

The Buzzards sent southpaw ‘haven’t pitched since last October’ Dave “Keppy” Kephart #21 to the mound, while the Sultans countered with one of their junk ball pitchers, John Davis. Keppy looked real rusty during warm-ups, but at game time he was ready.  Ol’ Kep looked sharp in striking out three of the first four batters.  Keppy pitched three innings and faced the minimum nine batters even with giving up one hit.  With two outs in the second inning, the Sultans, Pat Kubitz, hit a flair to left center for the single.  Two pitches later, the speedy runner was thrown out trying to steal second base on a strike from the new catcher Jim “Milli” Milligan.  Keppy held the Sultans to zero runs on one hit.  He threw 32 pitches with 27 strikes and just 5 balls.  Nice job, Keppy.

The Buzzards offense started in the first inning with new Buzzard, Taylor “Welzy” Welz, leading off with getting hit by a pitch; Welzy stole second base and scored the first Buzzard run of 2009 on Bob “Woody” Wooden’s single to left.  Mike “Bake” Baker followed by walking on five pitches.  Keppy then hit a high pop-up to short that was fading out to left field.  The shortstop mis-played the ball allowing Woody to score and Dave to get on base.  Milli doubled deep to left for a nice first Buzzard hit scoring Bake from second.  A good start to a game and a season. 

The Buzzards scored six runs in the third inning.  Dan “Wuky” Wukmir started it off with a line drive single to right center on an 0-2 pitch.  Wuky stole second on a pitch-out and took third on the high throw.   Two outs later, he’s still at third until Keppy knocked in the run with a double past the right fielder.  Milli knocked in Kephart on an infield error for the second run of the two out rally.  Mark “Ronnie” Wronski’s first pitch single was followed by a run scoring double down the line by Pete “Baron” Von Zboray.  The final two runs scored on an infield error on a hit by the third new Buzzard, Charles Jackson.  The Buzzards were ahead 9 – 0 after 3 innings.

The second Buzzard pitcher was Gary “Stoney” Stonebrook #13 taking over in the fourth inning.  Stoney looked in mid-season form already, as he pitched the next two innings giving up one hit while striking out five Sultans.  The other out was a nice pick-off play at second base in the fourth inning with Stoney throwing, what else, a strike to Wuky from shortstop, who got a jump on the runner in the race to the bag.  The pick-off play was preceded by six pitches to their leadoff hitter, Mike Kostiv, who then led off the next inning by striking out on three pitches to complete his long 9 pitch at-bat.  Gary threw 30 pitches to the seven Sultans he faced, 25 strikes and 5 balls, for a nice opening game pitching performance.

The Ol’ Buzzards continued to score with one more run in the bottom of the fourth.  The Sultans changed pitchers and sent in former professional ball player, Jake Stohler #8, to shut down the high flying Buzzards.  Stohler had a hard time finding the plate with the first batters.  He walked Woody on 5 pitches and Bake on four.  Keppy struck out on a tough pitch by Jake with a full count.  During the at-bat, Woody and Bake executed a double steal, putting themselves in scoring position.  Milli followed with a sacrifice fly to left field scoring Woody from third base.

The third Buzzard pitcher for the day, Gregg “Surf Dawg” Novotny #1, entered the game in the top of the sixth with a comfortable lead.  The inning began with the first three Sultans getting on base with two hits and an infield throwing error.  The next three batters hit ground ball outs, but they still scored three runs to close the gap to 10 – 3. 

The Buzzards answered with three more runs in the bottom of the sixth.  Woody started it off by getting hit by a pitch and stealing second base on the next pitch.  Keppy knocked him in with a single to center field.  Milli hit a fly ball that the right fielder couldn’t handle and then stole second base, putting runners at second and third.  Ronnie followed with a two out base hit up the middle to score Kep and Milli.

The last Sultan run scored in the top of the seventh inning.  The leadoff batter walked and stole second before the next batter struck out.  An infield error to the next hitter scored their fourth run of the game.  Ol’ Surf Dawg pitched well to 10 Sultans giving up two hits with one walk and one strike out.  He threw 29 pitches, 19 for strikes and 10 for balls for a solid two innings on the mound.

The Sultans changed pitchers for the bottom of the seventh and brought in their hard throwing but wild southpaw, Mike Bishop #30.  By now the Buzzards were thirsty and hungry and wanted to end the game in seven innings.  They needed to score one run to lead by 10 runs and win the game with a mercy killing.  Steve “Cookie” Cook started the inning with a full count walk.  Cookie then stole second and moved to third on Welzy’s infield hit on a drawn in infield defense.  With one out and a drawn in outfield, Wuky hit the third pitch to the right fielder, but deep enough to score a speedy Ol’ Cookie with a slide at home to end the game, 14 to 4.

The Buzzards did a good job of staying focused and not getting sloppy with a big lead.  Eight of the 14 runs were scored with two outs, which is a terrific but scary percentage.  Except for the pitching, the stats were not that good for this game.  There were 40 batters with 36 official at-bats with only 12 hits.  There were 4 walks and seven Sultan errors along with 12 stolen bases.  The two hit group is small this week with Kephart, Welz and Wronski.  Woody scored three times, once after being hit by the pitch in the sixth.  Woody and Welzy were both plunked by a hard ball today and join the appreciated blue bruise brothers Buzzards club.  Barry “Brooklyn” Forman looks to be recovering from his heal injury last year and will be playing with stuff in his shoe this year.  Barry looked good on the first at-bat with a liner to center field and ended the game 1 for 2.

One of the keys to this season will be the pitching.  We are blessed to have a solid and deep pitching staff with other Buzzards besides the three pitchers today that will be throwing this year.  Today’s pitchers faced 26 Sultans giving up 4 runs (one earned run) on 4 hits with 1 walk and 3 errors.  Of the 21 outs, 9 Sultans struck out, there were 7 infield ground outs, a hot line drive out to Cookie at second, an attempted steal of second base plus the slick pick-off play at second, and the only fly ball out of the game was the last Sultan out of the game with a double play on the nice running catch of a sinking liner to center by Welzy and the accurate throw from across his body back to Keppy at first base to nail the returning runner.

A win is a good way to open the season.  Let’s keep it up. 

Buzzard Note #1: No game on April 12 - Easter Sunday.

Buzzard Note #2: Beer and sodas and munchies will be available after games.  After Colfax games we head up to the Ball Park on top of the hill to break out the beer.

Buzzard Note #3: The 48+ divisional team shifting moved the Buzzards into the National Division.  After winning the American Division last season, we now find ourselves in the National Division with the Yankees, Dragons, Patriots and Sultans.  The American Division is the Free Agents, Valley Cats, Reds, Astros and Timber Wolves.

Buzzard Note #4: The recently posted schedule shows a 10 am game at the new Antelope High School, JV Field.  See ya there at 9 am for warm-ups.