Just Missing History

I've had a hard time finding time to write over my three off days,but the good news is that I'll have some ideas that hopefully will make some interesting reading and I'll have a podcast that I hope to do from the road office this evening.

The most fun came Monday night at the Muni for what seemed to be another mundane night at the world's weariest baseball stadium with the Greensboro Grasshoppers in town.

One (or I) figured that this would be a very light crowd from a few reasons-the first is that the Sunday game featured free tickets if you brought your Antietam Cable bill,so the "We'll do anything cheap" crowd had just been to a Suns game and were unlikely to pay to return the next night.

The other is that one of the two best visiting team draws in the Pirate affiliated West Virginia Power had just left town and in return was the Greensboro Grasshoppers with a sparsely popular major league team in the Miami Marlins,not a recipe for large crowd especially on a Monday with school still in session.

Considering that,it was not surprise that the peak number for this gathering was a head count of around 150 according to my friend Denise and by the end of the game,I'd wager that the number had decreased to maybe 65.

I thought that I would have lots of fans to watch the game with-Fred and Michael Landucci were coming down for Tyler Kolek,the second overall pick in last years draft and a Greensboro righthander,but the ease of them getting Kolek to sign their items allowed to beat the rush (?) and head north and my usual teammate in Bill Cover said that he planned on just watching a few innings and motoring,so with the lovely Cherie and Rachel skipping this one,I looked to surprisingly be alone for most of this game.

On the mound for Hagerstown was a usually unremarkable righthander in Phillips Valdez,who had pitched well in his starts this season,but at 23,seemed to be a little old for the SAL level and not really looked at as a major prospect.

The game didn't seem unusual at first other than the Suns scored five runs off Michael Mader in the first inning and Mader is looked at as a prospect,so a mild surprise,but nothing eye-popping.

It wasn't until we were through four innings that I looked at the scorebook and realized that Valdez had retired all twelve batters that he had faced and Bill commented after three more Grasshopper outs in the fifth that he was going to leave,but didn't want to leave in the middle of a perfect game.

I groaned because usually that's the kiss of death as I teased Bill and sure enough Valdez walked Brian Schales and then plunked John Norwood to start the sixth.

As Bill winced with my reminder,Valdez struck out Ryan Aper and then retired the next two batters on flyballs,so the perfect game was gone,but the no-hitter was alive!

Valdez would then walk Arturo Rodriguez (remember that name) to start the seventh,but with a strikeout of K.J.Woods and two follow up grounders,the no-hitter was intact through seven innings of play.

Entering the eighth,Valdez was pulled for reaching the Washington organizational pitch limit,which I talked about at length recently on one of my podcasts,so I won't get into my opinion on that other than special circumstances should be a consideration on nights like this.

Really,how many times are the Phillips Valdezes of the world going to have opportunities to toss no-hitters after all?

Justin Amlung ambled into the game for the 8th.

Amlung,a recent Washington signee after being released from the Cubs.retired all three batters in the eighth,two of them via the K in continuing the no-no.

By now,the anticipation among the double digit crowd was high and Bill and I moved down to the right field line as we always do in order to get players coming off the field (I would get Amlung on his 2014 Kane County card after the game).

Amlung would retire the first batter,Mason Davis on a grounder to second and popped up the second batter in 19 year old Rony Cabrera to first base before facing Arturo Rodriguez.

Rodriguez was hitting well over .300,but as a 23 year old seemed a little old for the league.

I looked him up before the game (he has no cards) and he spent last year in the Mexican League,which is of AAA caliber and hit .373 and 15 homers in only 87 games!

What in the name of Andres Mora is this guy doing in the Sally league?

Amlung got off to a 1-2 count on Rodriguez and then made the fatal error.

Instead using the count to get Rodriguez to swing on a waste pitch,he threw a strike that Rodriguez smacked out of the reach of a running Jeff Gardner in right field for a double and the only Greensboro hit of the game.

Amlung then struck out K.J. Woods to end the game as a one hitter.

What might have been for those of us there,but still plenty of memories and stories to tell for those of us in attendance!

I plan on being from the road office tonight with another post and perhaps this weeks podcast,so stay tuned!