Sandlot Baseball Logs – 06.2024 – Part II
6.23.2024 – Gulf Coast Sugar vs. Mashup of Ramblers + Playboys + Smoke @ Wishing Well – 3pm
Fun game. I had previously never taken the field with The Sugar and hadn’t taken the field against them since some time before 2020.
Players began showing up for the mashup squad and as those numbers approached 16, since the other dugout looked a little on the light side, I jumped over to The Sugar.
As stated, really fun game. The Sugar are some old-school ballplayers and long-time pals. It shows on and off the field. Great guys and good ballplayers. Happy they let me hop on.
It was a close game all the way through but The Sugar went home with the sugar bowl.
Post-game note: Godbless. The Wishing Well is a great time, but boy howdy, it’s also pretty darn hot out there.
6.29.2024 – Town Lake Nightcrawlers vs. Austin Drag @ Govalle – 3pm
Game’s instagram post.
We were able to put up some runs in the first.
Then our offense cooled way off as Brandon Terrell (The Nightcrawler’s SP) got settled in. At one point he sat down eight (or so, maybe nine) consecutive Dragsters.
Chill Hand Luke thankfully broke that streak to begin a much-needed two-out rally that plated two runs in the bottom of the fourth inning.
Defensively, Steven Carrizales (RJ’s best friend) was lights out on the mound. He threw strikes while avoiding barrels. It felt like anytime there was a threat, Steven would bare down and get us out of it.
Defensive highlights:
With a runner on second, Sever (RF) fielded a groundball that got through the right side, then quickly got the ball to Braden (SS) who was behind second. The runner sort of took a second to consider staying at third or breaking for home. The runner broke and Braden fired a strike to nail the runner at the plate.
He’s good at that. As a Dragster, he’s fired home to nail at least three runners now (maybe four or five).
“Scotty Doesn’t Know” had an exciting catch in left off the bat of The Worms’ big-swingin’ cleanup hitter, Willie. Braden also made an incredible on-the-run scoop + throw to first to kill a rally.
On the Dragster downer side, we stranded quite a few runners (our 2024 trend) and had a baserunning error or two (another emerging 2024 trend).
No big deal. I have no doubt that we’ll have this whole baseball thing figured out by October (only to forget everything we’ve learned come December).
Final score —
Nightcrawlers – an amount
Drag – a fair amount
Post-game notes: both games I attended were super clean. I don’t remember any goofy chirping or side-eyed mean mugging or any mumbles or grumbles. Just fun baseball and cold beers. Hear hear!
Photos from Nightcrawlers game + our previous SA game (album link here):
