A CIVIC BALL-IDAY BAT AROUND
In the midst of the long-weekend, Trinity Bellwoods was packed with lazy weekend warriors, park pups, and a people’s flea market. The day eased into evening and the Field of Dreamers descended on the Sky Dome all hopeful to inject some glory into their civic holiday. Would the Rouge River Raccoons scurry all over the flickers of hope gleaming off the Garrison Creek Glimmer? Would Don of the Dead prove that the Zombies fear no fog, as they persevere through the Humber River Haze?
If you wanna know the results…
READ MORE TO FIND OUT!
Gif Credit: Robin Smillie 🙂
ROUGE RIVER RACCOONS @ GARRISON CREEK GLIMMER
By Annelies Cooper, Garrison Creek Glimmer
The word for raccoon in Mexican Spanish, mapache, was adopted by colonists from the Nahuatl mapachtli of the Aztecs, meaning “[the] one who takes everything in its hands” (Wikipedia). Like their namesake, the Rouge River Raccoons were ready to take all the bases, take all the fly balls from the air, and take the victory into their hands. They rummaged to find treasures of subs new and old: Hannah Davison, Andrew Bucciarelli were new recruits and Peter Demakos of Don, songwriter of the trash panda chant, got to join and see his cheer in action. They also had ever-faithful Joey Bats and hard-hitting Niloofar Golkar in their ranks. Armed with all these subs and a sloshy crew of spectators who quickly became devoted cheerleaders for these hungry little trash bears, the Rouge was ready to rumble in the dirt and extinguish the shimmer coming from the Garrison Creek Glimmer’s dugout.
But the sparkling Creek brought their signature glisten to the Sky Dome, with their rookie players twinkling especially bright, Krysta Williams covering first base for the first time like an old sparkling pro, Kaleigh MacGregor-Bales covering left field with incandescence, Danielle Benson and Paulina Rousseau covering 2nd and 3rd bases like a pair of twinkling stars, and Kari Pederson covering catcher and making an out at home with the help of a throw from Ryan Hayes.
The mammals of garbage glory kept the onslaught coming, with snap catches from Susannah Mulvale at first base, and a warm welcome back to Ness, who played a tight infield game, and an astounding catch in the outfield by Phill Morgan, and big beautiful hits from LJ Robinson and David Ravensbergen, the raccoons collected runs like they were a smorgasbord from a compost bin, inning after inning.
The Glimmer fought hard, and kept their sparkling spirits up with the help of great hits from Devin Clancy and Luke Fox, and Annelies Cooper kept some runs at bay playing shortstop by tagging Phill Morgan out on a line drive before he could scurry to third. Despite this effort, the Rouge were able to take the glory home on this civic ball-iday game
Final score Rouge River 20 – Garrison Creek 7.
HUMBER RIVER HAZE @ DON RIVER DON OF THE DEAD
By Peter Demakos, Don River Don of the Dead
It was a beautiful night for baseball as the Humber Haze and Don of the Dead faced off for the title of Long Weekend Warriors. The Haze came out of the gate more like a fast moving liquid than a gas, scoring 9 runs in their first 2 at bats. Special shout out to the baserunning of Merle Davis Matthews and Sarah Peek for getting the ball rolling (literally!) with RBIs.
The Dead were slow to start, possibly shaking off untold years of being trapped underground, however, by the 2nd inning it looked like the Zombies might have their day. With lively fielding by Kayleigh MacGregor-Bales, Jordan Pachiarz, Rachel Small and Tyler Chartrand, the Dead seemed to be on the rise. Add to that an amazing out by Joseph where he caught a hard hit ball by the Haze’s Jill Aoki-Barett to get her out just in time and the zombie apocalypse seemed all but inevitable.
But the Haze clouded the already foggy vision of the zombies. With excellent catches by Phil off of two of Jordan’s hits and an excellent out by Devin throwing a runner out all the way from third to first and an epic double play from Terrance and Jill, the Dead were sent back to the underworld to plot their return for next August long weekend.
Final score Humber River 16 – Don River 10
See the game box scores here
See player stats here
See league standings here
See all-time career statistics file (updated for July 8 2019) here
MILESTONES
Credit River
Sarah Weinberger– becomes 67th player in league history to reach 50 career at-bats (51)!
Merle Davis Matthews– currently ranks 11th on the all time list with 103 career singles!
Terrance Luscombe– becomes 11th player in league history to reach 150 career hits (151)!
Don River
Joseph Bautista- becomes 30th player in league history to reach 80 career hits!
Jordan Pachiarz- currently tied for 89th on the all-time list with 6 career runs batted in!
Ryan Roantree – becomes the 87th player in league history to reach 15 career hits (16)!
Rachel Small – becomes the 6th player in league history to reach 140 career singles!
T Vega – continues to lead the league with a .882 batting average!
Peter Demakos – becomes the 20th player in league history to reach 150 career at-bats (151)!
Jo Jefferson – currently ranks 10th on the all-time list with 226 career at-bats!
Tyler Chartrand – currently tied for 99th on the all-time list with 11 career hits!
Ro Velasquez Guzman – tied for 28th on the all-time list with 62 career singles!
Humber River
Umar Saeed- see oddities below!
Jill Aoki-Barrett – becomes 63rd player in league history to reach 50 career at-bats (53)!
Niloofar Golkar – becomes 32nd player in league history to reach 125 career at-bats!
Oskar Eliashevsky – becomes 42nd player in league history to reach 5 career doubles!
Rouge River
Phill Morgan – currently tied for 12th on the all-time list with 6 career home runs!
LJ Robinson -becomes the 4th player in league history to reach 150 career singles!
David Ravensbergen- becomes 38th player in league history to reach 6 career doubles!
Susannah Mulvale- see oddities below!
Ness Dixon- becomes 67th player in league history to reach 50 career at-bats!
Garrison Creek
Devin Clancy – currently ranks 9th on the all time list with 88 career runs scored!
Annelies Cooper – see oddities below!
Ryan Hayes – currently ranks 6th on the all-time list with 19 career home runs!
Paulina Rousseau – currently tied for 108th on the all-time list with 14 career at-bats!
Kari Pederson – currently tied for 94th on the all-time list with 13 career hits!
Krysta Williams – currently tied for 72nd on the all-time list with 38 career at-bats!
Kaleigh MacGregor-Bales – becomes 70th player in league history to record 25 career hits (26)!
Luke Fox – becomes 79th player in league history to record 20 career hits!
Danielle Benton – currently tied for 93rd on the all-time list with 7 career runs scored!
SUBS
Hayley Peek – becomes the 160th player to take an at-bat in league history!
Andrew Bucciarelli – becomes the 123rd player in league history to reach 5 career hits!
Hannah Davison – becomes the 134th player in league history to reach 5 career at-bats!
ODDITIES
LUCKY 8s
Umar Saeed (Humber River) currently ranks 46th on the all time list with 88 career at-bats, 36th on the all-time list with 68 career hits, and 46th on the all-time list with 38 career singles.
Meanwhile Nav Sidhu (Humber River) became the 11th player in league history to reach 100 career singles (102)! Nav did it with a famously smooth stroke that assuredly deposits the ball in the pot of gold green grass beyond SS! Great work Navjeet!
SIXTY SIXTY
Susannah Mulvale (Rouge River) becomes the 60th player in league history to reach 60 career at-bats!
200 FLASH
Annelies Cooper (Garrison Creek) becomes the 14th player in league history to record at least 200 career at-bats (202) sprinting to 145 career hits in that span (12th on the all-time list)!
20-20 VISION
Teammates Sena Hussain (Rouge) and David Ravensbergen (Rouge) become the 74th and 75th players respectively to reach 20 career singles – in the same 7 run inning that brought Rouge to victory this week!
200 STARS
Garrison Creek Glimmer captain Annelies Cooper becomes the 13th player in league history to reach 200 career at-bats (202) and also the 5th player in league history to reach 140 career singles (141) all while subbing for the Humber River Haze! Open publish panel