One of my stock phrases when I broadcast a diamond sport – baseball or softball – is, no matter how many games you’ve seen in your life, if you watch any game closely enough, you’ll see something you’ve never seen before.
This seemed to apply especially so for me this season. Earlier, I wrote about the regular season softball and baseball I covered. As you’ll soon see, I was just getting started.
Most of the games I covered in May and June involved Reagan. Their run to the 6A State Championship Game rates its own blog entry and will be Part V.
DATE AND TEAMS - WITHHELD
For my first item, I’ll have to change the names to protect the people I can’t criticize without risking reprisal from the UIL. Some of you have guessed that must mean it involves the umpires.
This is not written without sympathy. Through 10 weeks of the regular season, high school baseball uses a two man crew to officiate games – a home plate umpire and a base umpire. Once the playoffs begin, there are fewer games to cover and the same number of umpires to cover them, so teams have the luxury of using three or four man crews. The game I refer to had a four man crew, and demonstrated how umpires aren’t used to working in teams of four.
A left handed batter was at the plate. He checked his swing, and the home plate umpire ruled he held up (and the pitch was outside the strike zone), so he called a ball. The catcher appealed, requiring the home plate umpire to go to a base umpire for their call.
The home plate umpire then appealed to the FIRST base umpire, who ruled the batter swung.
Now, absent context, this looks foolish. You appeal to the FIRST base umpire when a RIGHT handed batter checks his swing; you appeal to the THIRD base umpire when a LEFT handed batter checks his swing.
However, to be fair, we should remember that at this point of the season, the umpires have been working in two man crews for over two months, and this is only the first or second week that a third base umpire has been available. With a two man crew, all appeals on swings go to the lone base umpire, who may be in any of several different locations depending whether there are runners on base. Sometimes his angle will be comically terrible, but appeals on check swings are understood go to him, and everyone does the best they can.
After a few seconds, things got straightened out, and the home plate umpire looked to the THIRD base umpire.
The third base umpire didn’t respond right away…. because he wasn’t watching the area around the plate. He appeared to be facing the lights beyond the right field foul line. After several seconds, once he realized he’d been called upon to judge whether the batter swung or not, he ruled "no swing" – apparently because the umpire wasn’t watching the play at all, and therefore couldn’t rule that he DID swing.
I could be wrong, but that’s how it looked.
FINAL: I’m not telling
MAY 19 – Blanco vs Marion (Game 3) at North East Sports Park
With one-out in the bottom of the fifth; Blanco pulled off a delayed steal of home. Dylan LaRue broke for second and distracted the Marion Bulldogs long enough to allow Cameron Anderson to steal home plate. The throw home was too late to catch Anderson and allowed LaRue to go safely to second.
This play also ended the game, giving Blanco a run-rule win, concluding with a walk-off delayed steal of home.
FINAL: Blanco 10, Marion 0 (five innings)
MAY 21 – Blanco vs Marion (Game 3) at North East Sports Park
Yes, despite Blanco’s dominance in Game 1, Marion came back to win Game Two 2-0, thanks Konner Harborth’s three-hit shutout and Cameron Baumann driving in Kallen Bek twice.
With one out in the top of the fourth, and Blanco leading 5-0, Blanco centerfielder Cameron Anderson - the guy who stole home to clinch Game 1 - hit a 1-0 pitch down the right field line. Marion right fielder Lane Pawelek ran toward the foul line and dove to try to make the catch. The ball bounced past him and rolled toward the wall. Pawelek recovered quickly, but by the time he ran down the ball and his throw arrived at the plate, Anderson had an inside-the-park home run. (I’ve now called five inside-the-park home runs in my career.)
The Panthers went on to win the series and advance to the fourth round.
FINAL: Blanco 9, Marion 2
MAY 26 – Boerne vs Calallen (Game 1) at Coastal Bend College in Beeville
The game actually was more interesting than peculiar. Boerne’s Kalob Sanchez went 3-4 with a triple and 2 runs scored. Calallen’s Terik Hickman went 2-4 with a homer, a double, and 4 runs batted in. Calallen’s Matt Lopez went 3-4 with 2 doubles, 2 runs scored, and an RBI. Calallen’s Roberto Perez threw a complete game despite giving up 6 runs (4 earned.)
Boerne scored 3 runs in the top of the 1st, then Calallen mounted a comeback, steadily building a 6-3 lead, then adding 6 runs in the 6th after Boerne had pulled within 6-4. The Wildcats’ win was special because for their head coach, Steve Chapman, it was career win #1,115 – tying him with Lubbock Monterrey’s Bobby Moegel for the most in the history of Texas High School Baseball.
FINAL: Calallen 12, Boerne 6. Chapman would set the record for career wins when the Wildcats won Game 3 that Saturday.
JUNE 12 – Austin Area Baseball Coaches Association All-Star Game
Bobby Stautzenberger and I have worked about 15 AABCA All-Star Games together; I’ve worked about 20 total. High School All-Star Games are, by definition, madness. Our usual division of duties is I call play-by-play and keep score (HA!) while Stautz does color commentary, handles the commercials, and keeps the binoculars handy to make sure all the players are who we think they are.
Much of the madness has to do with the coaches making sure everyone on each team gets into the game. Therefore, instead of keeping track of 25 or even 30 players in a game, you have to keep track of 55 or more.
For us at TSP, it’s even more challenging because those 55 players are from greater Austin instead of San Antonio. I was familiar with the Lake Travis players and the Round Rock Cedar Ridge players because I’d covered each in a playoff series against Reagan, but I had to do crash courses on the rest of the players during the week leading up to the game. (Oh yes, and also cover Reagan in the state tournament. More on Reagan in a future blog.)
Lineup cards are extra complicated because I have to add in each players' team as well as his name, because I can’t trust myself to remember off the top of my head that Tynan Gunn went to Cedar Park Vista Ridge. It does help when coaches send us their substitution plan beforehand, but even then, injuries and last-minute dropouts will change things. Plus, the coaches will play fast and loose with the substitution rules to maximize participation. (Improper batter? Shucks, why worry?)
Coach Kenny Matthews of Austin Anderson, one of the South coaches, warned me that the substitutions would get pretty wild.
The South had two players each playing first base, second base, and third base. They each took turns playing two innings at a time. The South also had two catchers, but Anderson’s Cogan McBride played the first four innings, then Pflugerville High’s Adrian Ramirez played the last five. The South also had two shortstops, but the plan was to have Lake Travis’s Kaeden Kent (son of former National League MVP Jeff Kent) play the first four innings, then have Akins’ Josh Wilks play two innings, then have Kent play the final three. I say WAS because when a couple of the South’s pitchers became unavailable, they needed Kent to PITCH the seventh inning while Wilks played shortstop.
THEN, there were the South’s five outfielders. The outfield positioning ended up working like pickup volleyball. Once the game got going, a player would enter the game in left field, move to center field the next inning, move to right field the inning after that, then leave the game for a couple of innings.
So Round Rock Cedar Ridge’s Matthew Brooks caught a fly ball to center field for the last out of the 1st inning… then caught a fly ball to right field for the first out in the 2nd inning.
This was extra fun for Lake Travis’s Ethan Calder, because he also pitches. (This WAS planned.) So… here’s how Calder’s evening went defensively.
1st inning – play left field (then get hit by a pitch batting in the bottom of the 1st)
2nd inning – play center field
3rd inning – play right field (then hit a fly ball to center in the bottom of the 3rd)
4th inning – chill in the dugout (100 degree heat notwithstanding)
5th inning – keep chilling (then bat – no wait, Wilks is batting instead)
6th inning – play left field (then bat – nope, Wilks again)
7th inning – play center field
8th inning – chill in the dugout (the only break in the LF-CF-RF pattern) (then hit another fly ball to center in the bottom of the 8th)
9th inning – pitch
On offense, the South had one lineup of nine players get two at bats apiece, then a second lineup of nine players apiece. Before they started the order a fifth time, however, they adlibbed and let two pitchers who weren’t scheduled to hit (Dripping Springs’ Brandon Arvidson and Austin Bowie’s Anthony Simmons) get plate appearances. We were not warned this could happen, so I originally wrote Arvidson and Simmons as batting in the first and second slot, but then the original leadoff hitter, Round Rock Cedar Ridge’s Matthew Brooks, came to bat, meaning Arvidson and Simmons were actually batting, well, 10th and 11th. Because, hey, it’s an All-Star Game. Anything goes! Especially my scorecard!
The North responded with the following hitters, proving that the batting orders were now officially eenie-meanie-miney-moe.
2nd slot – starting 2nd hitter E.J. Davis of Georgetown reenters.
3rd slot – starting #9 hitter Andon Petty of Georgetown comes to bat.
4th slot – starting 4th hitter Reece Bell of Georgetown reenters.
5th slot – Brett Hall of Leander Glenn, who had replaced Davis as the #2 hitting in the 6th, and had been replaced as the #2 hitter three batters ago, comes to the plate.
One highlight of the broadcast came in the bottom of the 6th. Apparently, I was managing the play-by-play well enough that Stautz forgot that trying to keep all the players straight had me on the edge of blithering insanity, because he asked me, “did you notice at little nuance with the two kids from Thorndale and their uniforms?”
Hunh?
I’ve been trying to keep the 50 or so players straight, not to mention work in pertinent information about each young man into the broadcast, and Stautz is giving putting me on the spot about UNIFORM NUANCES?
“I have a lot on my mind right now, <Stautz laughs> so I’d rather not be subject to pop quizzes at the point.”
Stautz had noticed that Logan Davis, who pitched the 4th inning for the North, wore a maroon Thorndale jersey. Brodie Salas, who had just taken over at catcher for the North, wore GREY Thorndale jersey. A cool observation, to be sure, but Stautz COULD have just worked the information in. I’m sure he enjoyed flustering me more, though.
As for the game action…
The North pulled off TWO double steals in top of the 6th. (They tried a third, but the runner at third got picked off by catcher Adrian Ramirez of Pflugerville.)
In the bottom of the sixth, a stolen base and a passed ball occurred on the same pitch. Austin Anderson’s Evan David, the runner on first, broke for second base as the pitch was delivered. The pitch got away from the catcher, allowing Austin McCallum’s Wyatt Cunningham to score.
Because (I believe) David ran as the pitch was delivered, he is credited with a stolen base. Cunningham, however, because he waited until the pitch crossed the plate to run, is ruled to have scored on a passed ball.
The Starting pitcher for the North? 6 foot 8 inch tall Anthony Simmons of Austin Bowie. He retired all 3 batters he faced, striking out one.
The 8th inning pitcher for the North? 5 foot 2 inch tall Ivan Gonzales of Lockhart. He gave up three runs, but struck out two batters; he was the only pitcher for the North to pull that off.
Oh, one more thing about All-Star Games? Because you can’t be unsafe about using pitchers, the game is planned out to stop after 9 innings, even if the score is tied.
FINAL: North 7, South 7
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