Moisture coming
The forecast didn’t look good. There was plenty of moisture making it’s way over most of the metro area. Not just a little drizzle, but a full on downpour was making its way over Burnsville. Yes, you read that correctly. A full on legitimate downpour was heading towards SFRCMP. Unthinkable I know. Unimaginable for most. The SFRC have been rained out roughly five nights in the past 380 nights of softball. 12 weeks of summer league and 7 weeks of fall league equals 19 weeks per calendar year. Multiply that times the last 20 years and we get to 380 weeks of softball. We have had five rainouts. Five. That means there is a 1.3% chance of a rainout.
On the drive to Neill A, it didn’t look good. And, as the puddles started to form, there were questions in the air. The games scheduled to be played at Lac Lavon were cancelled on this wet evening. But there is one thing that holds true….Numbers don’t lie. Games at Neill A (Skyline Fighting Red C Memorial Park) and Neill B were on. We played through the rain for the first 30-40 minutes of Game 1 and the weather normalized. Kurty played through the rain after the first inning completed as he was not confident that the show must go on.
Game 1 vs. Cruizers
The rain was doing some strange things. Puddles had formed on the back of the infield and that stopped multiple balls. There was one certainty of this game. The Cruizers were more wet than the SFRC. How and why? Well, they spent significantly more time in the field than we did. Every leader had at least one hit in this game and many had three or four hits, including Sans, Potter, Chris 20, Kenny (a solid 5-5), 35 and Kurty. Homeruns were hit by Chris 20 and Pub Krull.
The fielding was solid as the infield was soft. We held the young Cruizers to two runs spread across seven wet innings.
Final: SFRC 19 – Cruizers 2
Game 2: SFRC vs. Big Sticks — The “It’s Always Fun to Come From Behind” game
What is that we see looking west from Neill B? Is it? Why of course. It’s a clearing sky and a beautiful sunset. There is a very good chance that the first schedule out had the SFRC playing at 7pm and 8pm or 8pm and 9pm. Only the league director could have scheduled rain during our games. Mother Nature knows better.
This was a back and forth game that saw the SFRC fall behind early. We laid an egg in the first inning, Big Sticks pushed two. We found one run in the second and Big Sticks pushed an impressive snowman (8). The SFRC settled down a bit and started playing defense and hitting the ball. In the third inning we pushed three, they answered with two. We pushed three more in the fourth and they responded with one. From there it was the SFRC show. We scored five in the firth inning and two more in the sixth to take a one run lead. With time running out in the sixth and the SFRC leading by one, there was a deep shot to right field. Potter tracked it and made a great game-winning catch. Or so we thought. The red let us play one more. We proceeded to push two more runs and locked it down in the field. Kenny ended the game with a diving catch in centerfield.
“It’s always good to come from behind.” Truer words have not been spoken. Yes, truer words have not been spoken.
Final: SFRC 16 – Big Sticks 13
Master Chef
The evening was gorgeous. Master Chef Sans brought the grill and we cooked a few dogs returning home close to Thursday.
Worth mentioning, and it cannot be overstated. 2015 has been a banner year for the quote page. We are at the halfway point of the summer season and have far exceeded the quote total for 2014. Grab a drink, sit down and digest some of the greatest quotes ever heard at the softball fields.
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