Sandlot Baseball Game Logs – 10.2023
Sandlot Baseball – an inclusive recreational adult baseball league that has been described as “Little League for Adults” and “baseball mediocrity on the highest level.”
This unofficial association of social baseball is growing rapidly across the country.
I’ve been playing Sandlot since 2018 and writing game logs since August 2023.
10.7.2023 – South Austin Lovejoys vs. Austin Drag
@Govalle – 11am
Link to instagram post.
The Day/Weekend’s Austin City Limits + Red River Rivalry/Shootout (OU vs. UT) made it difficult for many sandlot teams to fill out their rosters. It’s as though some teams’ organizers/planners don’t look at event calendars when they’re booking sandlot events. I say this because for the 11am game, the Lovejoys were only able to field five LJ players (+ some pickup sandlotters). However, thank goodness we (the Drag and LJs) made it work, because this evening’s 7pm game featured six Roadrunners showing up to the Govalle to do some BP because the ‘Keets had to unfortunately cancel due to lack of available players.
Obviously, that sucks because people arrange their weekends weeks, months ahead of time and canceling baseball for reasons other than weather is bunk (imo). Players could plan time with their families or book a gig or… whatever. I’m bummed for the Roadrunners, but they clearly made the best of it.
Anyhow, even if the five LJs had to recruit one Tallboy (Sully), a Dragster volunteer (newcomer Mike) and his buddy who had only planned to spectate (Connor, I believe his name was), as well as require one Dragster to fill their 9th spot defensively (usually RF), I’m grateful that we got a game in. Even if it sort of goes down in the non-existent record book as a “forfeit/loss” for the LJs, I’m happy baseball happened.
So, that said, keep in mind that the LJs eight-player batting lineup included five-ish “dangerous” hitters and three-ish maybe not-so-dangerous hitters. Their defense included an accurate, rubber-armed pitcher (Collin) who went the whole game and rarely issued walks, their captain (Trey) was playing out of position behind the plate (clearly not an experienced catcher), and Dragster newcomer Mike held down shortstop for the LJs while making some pretty impressive plays.
Okay, enough about them.
We had 12-13 or 13-14 (Harrison left early) total players and our batting lineup ran 12-13 or 13-14 deep (we didn’t sub in and out of 10-person batting order).
Everyone got PT and everyone got ABs.
With the weather as incredible as it was, the fact that we were playing a ragtag group in a game that was technically a predetermined “win” for us, and included a fairly goofy umpire that I’d never seen before, we all seemed a bit lethargic.
I’d say there wasn’t a collective focus about performing particularly well. Everyone simply seemed content to not be sweating through their uniform two minutes after putting their spikes on. That seemed to make everyone happy enough.
For instance, we defensively had runners on first and second– a groundball was hit to Braden at second. He fielded it cleanly but then threw wide to Nick at SS. The runner broke for 3rd as Nick collected the ball and fired a low strike to Rickner at third. This should’ve had the runner dead to rights, but Rickner didn’t catch it cleanly. On a play where the Drag had an opportunity to get the same runner out twice, we failed. The very fortunate runner remained at third base.
When we say things like, “we get to feel like kids again,” I guess that also means trying to see how many errors we can pack into what should’ve been a routine doubleplay ball.
RJ (catcher), as he’s wont to do, throws out a snarky comment, “Good job defense!”
Thanks RJ.
Funny thing is, baseball is a karmic game, and the next hitter hits an easy chopper to Rickner (third baseman). The fortunate runner foolishly broke for home. Rickner throws a ball that hits RJ’s catcher’s mitt, but RJ somehow found a way to apply the tag to the fortunate runner without securing the ball first.
Runner is safe. RJ is the chucklehead.
Keith’s anger becomes apparent as he dials it up and strikes out the next one or two batters and the Drag defense gets to vacate the field.
With the Drag having a rough defensive sequence or two and with the LJs playing an assorted collection of players, most of whom were playing out of their normal positions, many runs were “gifted” or unearned. Safe to say, it wasn’t a clean game.
But it was a great damn time. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect. The entire field’s collective attitude couldn’t have been better and it seemed as though everyone was truly happy to be at Govalle and playing ball in most favorable weather instead of the hellacious temps we’ve been battling for five plus months now.
About the ump– he was a goofy, stubborn, inconsistent old man. Some innings looked like he was giving Keith a very friendly/large strike zone. Then, sort of randomly, his zone would shrink and the calls that were strikes in innings 1-3, all of a sudden became balls in innings 4-9.
Ump was a nice guy, but I got the feeling that this was his first day doing sandlot and he wasn’t quite sure what he was getting himself into. ***There’s a story or two about the ump during the 3pm Ramblers-Nightcrawlers game.
If memory serves correct, Keith had just about enough of the ump and asked Marc to come in at some point in the 7th. Marc got us out of the 7th. Threw a clean 8th. And then ran into trouble in the 9th.
I believe Stillman hit his 2-run BOMB in the 6th. It was a great shot; squared up perfectly. The type of contact every hitter hopes to make.
Rickner hit his 2-run double down the leftfield line in the 8th.
We took the field in the top of the 9th with a small lead and Marc on the hill. He got two outs, but lost some of his control/command and we found ourselves with a 2-run advantage as the LJs loaded up the bases.
We made the pitching change and we were very lucky that it only took two pitches to get the final out.
I say lucky, because Rickner’s second pitch was belt high on the outer part of the plate and their cleanup hitter fortunately got a little too under it and hit a pop fly to rightfield that Ash, who had been playing great defense all game, was able to get under it and secure the game’s final out.
Final Score
South Austin Lovejoys – 10
Drag – 12
Post-game chatter:
Most Dragsters went to Central Machine Works to watch UT snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
I stayed behind for the 3pm Ramblers-Nightcrawlers game.
***The story about the ump and game was the continued strikezone inconsistency as well as ANOTHER controversial infield fly rule. I swear, during all sandlot captains’ meetings- it should be determined and agreed upon what that rule is, and then effectively communicated to the ump how and when to enforce it.
For these contentious disagreements to happen as often as they’re happening is pretty darn goofy to me.
10.21.2023 – Austin Drag vs. Los Yonke Gallos de Marfa
@Parque Vizaino (Marfa) – 5pm
Different towns, teams, and organizations do things differently. This is a “no duh” observation.
At the risk of throwing around Goldilocks-ish criticisms, we’re all learning a bit more about what to expect when traveling for Sandlot.
Regardless, you’re reading for a recap– so here goes.
We hit the ball. An inning didn’t occur where we didn’t plate at least one run. We scored 23 runs in only 6 innings of play (18 outs). I’ll answer why we only played 6 innings later.
Granted, this wasn’t a never-ending succession of frozen ropes, but everyone was making good-to-great contact and the not-particularly-sharp-fielding continued to help our rallies keep moving.
Many of the notable hits came from the ladies– Ash, Mel, Katy, and Bethany all struck the ball very well. There were definitely some authoritative drives out there.
For the fellas, Keith hit well from both sides of the plate. Newcomer Colin had some great line drives. Hobson, Waterman, and Rickner all contributed to the hit parade as well. When the offense doesn’t seem to stop, everyone seems to contribute.
Defensively, Jeff looked great on the mound. He had great command for the most part as he overcame a hometown ump who was doing his part (by helping his buddies) to keep the game relatively close as well as overcoming a shortstop (ahem, your humble recapper) who only seemed able to cleanly make half the plays that came his way.
As far as individual defensive plays go, Keith, who caught the whole game, made the most remarkable play by hustling a surprising distance (Vizcaino Park is well known for an enormous amount of foul territory, especially behind home plate) to make an incredible underhand snag on a fouled pop up along the very deep backstop’s fence. It was easily the most impressive play of the day.
I’m sure I missed many things, but I was trying to aid my personal disappointment in my singular poor play as well as the fact that I broke my favorite bat on a crummy swing on an even lousier pitch, as well as my slight disappointment in how the game was going overall (here comes the Goldilocks part).
I get that Marfa is a small community and that many Marfans recently went through a similarly taxing weekend gauntlet like ACL with TransPecos. It was revealed to us Draggos/Dragsters that the Yonke Gallos were a little light on numbers due to injuries, roster turnover, and a few other factors.
With that in mind, it became clear relatively early that with every walk, error, extended rally… this game was not going to be finished before sunset.
We were informed that many of the Gallos had work and other responsibilities earlier that day so– them’s the breaks.
However, an odd turn of events happened in the bottom of the 6th. Jeff’s curveball ran out of bite and his fastball ran out of gas. And somehow, even with the sun falling below the horizon, the Gallos began hitting the ever-living crap out of the ball. It made me think these guys would fare better at the plate if they wore Skywalker’s Blast Shield Helmet during their PAs (jokes).
Sure, that Skywalker crack is a joke, but I have no way to explain how they struggled to square up the ball until the sun went down. They ended up putting up 7 runs in the bottom of the 6th (only 1 run in the previous 5 innings and that run certainly wasn’t earned) by repeatedly peppering the leftfield line in the worst visibility.
I guess that’s baseball.
Goldilocks critiques:
You always hope for a close, fun game.
If you can’t have a close game, hopefully it remains a fun one.
There is nothing truly noteworthy to report, but a few of their players (like, basically two that I observed) were expressively not happy with how the game was playing out and that’s fine. Nbd.
But, maybe we could’ve had an earlier start time? It’s 14 hours of driving over a 60 hour timeframe. It’d be cool to get 9 innings in, but “you do what you can” and show gratitude for the opportunity to play at someone else’s park; someone else’s home.
I can’t imagine that playing a full nine would change the outcome of the game, but it’d mean more baseball for everybody and that’s the primary purpose of the trip.
What are the secondary purposes of the trip?
Spending a significant amount of time with teammates while camping under the Marfa Lights, eating an otherworldly $3 pancake, ordering cocktails from establishments you wouldn’t normally go to (a karaoke joint), experiencing abstract art with people you wouldn’t normally expect to, sliding into a cowboy pool hot tub at 3am then Balmorhea Pool nine hours later, sharing 14+ hours of discussion during a damned-interesting road trip, sharing in a very important and meaningful toast with exceptional teammates and some very friendly Gallos, and simply getting to enjoy baseball and community, all while escaping Austin for two fleeting days.
And so often, those secondary purposes outshine and have a much more lasting effect than the primary. That’s the point.
We went on a baseball trip.
And baseball arguably wasn’t anywhere close to the best part of the trip.
Final Score after 6 innings (cut short due to light/visibility)
Drag – 23
Los Yonke Gallos – 8
10.29.2023 – Ft. Worth Panthers vs. Austin Drag
@The Longtime – 10:30am
Link to instagram post.
Rickner– out of town for a wedding.
All I know is that everyone had a good time and that it rained quite a bit.
Possible entry from another Dragster coming.
Final Score
Panthers – 8
Drag – 20