Today began the elimination round. Two of the six teams in each tournament had now been eliminated, leaving the top four to battle it out for the right to go to Williamsport.
The New England semi-finals were played today, with NESN broadcasting them. The Mid-Atlantic semi’s would be tomorrow, with ESPN taking over. ESPN’s headquarters are in Bristol – one of the perks that were offered to the teams was a tour of their studios.
We had gotten past the problem of who was going to be working what game – after the previous “oops,” Ron Leary left a copy of the schedule at the hotel front desk so that we could check it at breakfast. I was assigned 2nd base for the first game, which had the second seed Massachusetts playing the third seed New Hampshire. The New Hampshire pitcher pitched a gem – he wasn’t overpowering, but he threw strikes, and got a lot of ground balls. His infield was top-notch, and he finished the game with a 2-hitter, winning 2-0.
We did have one minor amusement – in the middle of the game, a single sprinkler head right behind the mound came on briefly. It was spraying right near the third baseman. He didn’t run away – we were back to very hot and humid weather, so maybe he was hoping he’d get a little wet. Some feverish scrambling by the staff had the sprinkler off inside a minute, but the sprinkler head didn’t pop back down. The pitcher walked over and started to step on it to push it back down, then seemed to think twice about it with a “what am I supposed to do? What if I break it on TV?” expression on his face. He looked at me quizzically at second, so I calmly walked in and stepped on it for him. He laughed, and then climbed back on the mound and the game resumed without incident. I got teased that it was a plot to get a little TV time, since second and third don’t get many calls in most games.
The other crew worked the second game, in which Connecticut met Vermont again. Connecticut had won big in their first meeting – my first plate game – but Vermont surprised everybody and played Connecticut very well. Connecticut went up 3-0 with runs in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd, but Vermont scored three of their own in the 5th. The game went into the 8th before Connecticut won it on a bases-loaded single, 4-3.
This game did have a protest in it. At one point in the middle of the game, there was a runner on first when the batter struck out. The runner was attempting to steal second at the time, but the batter stepped across home plate, interfering with the catcher’s throw to second. After the game, the crew told me that most of them agreed that the runner should be called out for the batter’s interference, but one umpire disagreed, so they went to Doc for clarification. He said that the runner should simply be sent back to first. The manager disagreed, but Williamsport upheld that ruling. This seems, in my opinion, to contradict rule 7.09(e) in the rulebook, but I wasn’t part of the call or the crew, and it actually didn’t make any difference in the long run. Frank Policano indicated that he was going to talk to Doc, however, and find out exactly why they ruled the way they did – most of us who thought the runner should have been called out will be interested to find out why it ended up that way. (Follow-up: Although nobody is coming out and saying it, the tacit understanding is that Doc and Williamsport got it wrong. We don’t know how Doc explained the play to Williamsport, so we don’t know the basis for the ruling.)
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