Laney College, 7:30 game time, 6:45 show up time.

The entire field (including base-paths) is artificial turf.  They say any type of shoes (metal or rubber) can be used.  (If you have more than one pair of shoes, you might want to bring both to see which one works best.)  J

The baseball Field is at:   5^th Ave & 8^th Street, Oakland, Ca.  The best approach is from I-880. Here’s a Google Map.

Directions (from the South) from I-880

Take exit 40 for Embarcadero toward 5th Avenue  0.3 mi
Turn right onto Embarcadero 0.1 mi
Immediately Turn right onto 5th Ave
5^th runs right into the Ball Field at 5th Ave and 8th Street.

Directions (from the North) from I-880

Take exit 1B for Jackson St 0.5 mi
Merge onto 5th St 69 ft
Turn left onto Jackson St 0.1 mi
Turn right onto 7th St 0.2 mi
Continue onto E 8th St  0.4 mi
Look for the Field on your left.
(Probably need to U-Turn at 5^th Ave to get on the right side of the street.)

There is a parking lot behind center field, or you can park on the street behind right field.  The Baseball Field will be unlocked around 7PM, but the parking lot will be open before that.

Gus Manning
Antiques Baseball
Traveling Secretary

We will play  Antiques Red vs. Antiques Blue on Tuesday, May 8, at Laney College in Oakland. Game time is 7:30. Show up time is 6:45. This is the makeup game from our rainout on what would have been the opening weekend.

As I’m writing this (Thu evening), we have 17 confirmed “Yes”. We need 18 at least and I’d like to get to 22 if at all possible. The list below is our current info. We’ll update this as we hear from you.

Part-timers: This is a good game for you guys to show up. For those of you who haven’t heard, Laney’s field has been redone. All turf, and lights, of course. I’ve been told that it is now a great field to play on.

If you’re reading this on the web, please submit the form below to let us know. If you’re reading this in your email client, and you don’t want to go to the web to submit the form, just send email to Gus.

-Denny

Status (Friday 5pm)

Legend: Blank = Yes, X = No, Maybe = Maybe, UNK = Have not heard.

Here is the Schedule for this weekend.

Black Sox vs Antiques Red, 3:30PM SAT (5 May) (show up at 2:45) at Livermore High

Antiques Blue vs Colt 45’s, 1:00PM SUN (6 May) (show up at 12:15) at Livermore High

Please let me know if you plan to play by Thursday. If you don’t tell me you are coming, I will invite extra guys.

Yours in baseball.

gmanning@assaytech.com

CR (Gus) Manning
Antiques Baseball
Traveling Secretary

The Blue lost to the Braves on Saturday, 13-3. Rankin Lyman, Bobby Scott, and Mike Perona did the pitching. New recruit Dave Roberto scored 2 of the three runs. We had 17 guys for this opening game. A few were Red players who came because we were going to be short or came because they were confused.

On Sunday, the Red lost to the Tribe, 9-3. Ted Hinckley and Mike Perona did the pitching. We were ahead 2-0 early on, but the Tribe came back on us. We had only 9 guys for this one, a few of whom played on Saturday too.

Please remember to let Gus know whether you’re playing or not. It helps us figure out whether we need to talk anybody into doubling up. And it helps us prevent having 17 guys one day and 9 the next.

I still need fees from many of you. If you haven’t paid yet, please do it now.

Rules

The extra rules in “modified” are mostly “no stealing; no advance on wild pitches or passed balls; no bunting with a runner on third.”

Tournament format

7 games of 7 innings each. Double headers on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Single game on Sunday. TH, F, and SAT games at 9am and 1pm. SUN game at 9:45am.

Results

We went 4-3. We split our two games on Thursday; won game 1 (Pirates) and lost game 2 (Bucs). We played the same two teams on Friday, and won both games. We played the 4th team (Padres) in our “modified” division on Saturday, and lost both games. So we ended up the round robin 3-3. The top two teams (Bucs and Padres) played for the modified championship on Saturday. They did a fun thing for our game on Sunday. Instead of playing the Pirates, the team we’d already beaten twice, we played the 5th place team from “full rules” (Yankees). The last place “modified” team (Pirates) played the last place “full” team (Braves). We squeaked out a 1 run win on Sunday.

The competition was pretty even. We won our opening game against the Pirates by 2 runs, something like 11-9. We got “mercy ruled” in the second game by the Bucs, something like 14-2. That was one of the few lopsided games in the whole tournament. We beat the Pirates on Friday in a tight 3-1 game. We got even with the Bucs on Friday, beating them 11-10 in 8 innings, and giving them their only loss of the tournament. Our two losses to the Padres on Saturday were by 2-0 and 6-4 in 8 innings. The Sunday game against the Yankees was a 5-4 win.

I got to pitch every day. On Thursday, I went in in the bottom of the 6th agains the Bucs, behind 13-2. After getting two quick outs, I gave up a couple of “hit or error” flares, and then a solid base hit to score the mercy rule run that finished the game.

On Friday, I started against the Bucs. We were tied 3-3 after 4 innings. In the top of the 5th I gave up a ground ball base hit and then a seeing eye double down the right field line that hit the chalk. So with a tie game, nobody out, and runners at 2nd and 3rd, it was time to take me out. They put in one of our better, younger pitchers. He got one quick out, but then lost the strike zone. After three walks and a hit, they brought in our best pitcher, who took a couple more hitters to get out of the inning. The bad guys ended up scoring 6 runs and going ahead 9-3. We got a couple back in the bottom of the 5th, but were still down something like 9-5. So instead of sending our best pitcher out again, I went back in and pitched the 6th, holding them at 9. We scored 5 in the bottom of the sixth to go ahead by 1. So we put our best pitcher back in to close things up in the 7th. Unfortunately, he gave up a run to tie the game at 10. After we didn’t score, they decided to put me back in for the 8th. I held them again. We scored a run on the bottom of the 8th to win it.

On Saturday, we only needed to win one game to make the championship game. We lost the opener 2-0. Both pitchers pitched really well. Some semi-shaky defense on our part, and a timely hit beat us. In the second game we got down 3-0 right away in the first inning. We got one back early on, and one more in the middle innings. I came in to pitch in the 6th, I think, down 3-2. I held them in the 6th and 7th. In the bottom of the seventh, I came up with runners on first and second with one out and got a base hit to load the bases. After they got the second out, we got a base hit down the right field line that tied the game. The runner from second was going all the way, but got thrown out at the plate. So instead of a walk off win, we went into extra innings. I gave up 3 in the top of the 8th. Some shaky defense loaded the bases and then one of their good hitters hit a good pitch, down and away, for a two run single. Then a seeing eye base hit scored their 3rd run. We scored one in the bottom of the eighth, but left two runners on to end the game.

On Sunday, in the game against the Yankees, I came in in the 6th with a 5-4 lead, and held them in the 6th and 7th to close out the win.

All in all, it was a fun tournament, and a good way to get the season started.

The draw for me was also that the tournament was held an hour from Jeff’s house in Boca, and 30 minutes from my sister’s house in Lake Worth. We visited my mom and my sister every day after the games. Jeff was in Minnesota, so we didn’t get to play together this time.

If you haven’t paid your fees yet, please do so this weekend. $325 for the year. Best way: Pay via Paypal by visiting the “Pay your fees!” page on the website. Second best: Mail a check made out to “Antiques Baseball” to my office address. See the website for the address. Third best: Bring a check to the game and give it to Jake. Fourth best: Bring cash in an envelope with your name and amount on the envelope, and give it to Jake.

Sat, 4/21, 9:30am, Livermore High, Black Sox at Giants
Sat, 4/21, 1pm, Livermore High, Braves at Antiques Blue
Sun, 4/22, 9:30am, Livermore High, Antiques Red at Tribe

No games are scheduled for the Easter weekend, 4/7 – 4/8.

Next up:

Saturday, 4/14/12. 9:30am, Livermore High, Antiques Blue at Black Sox
Saturday, 4/14/12. 1:00pm, Livermore High, Giants at Antiques Red

Based on your responses to my request for input on whether to balance the teams or not, Robin, Gus, and I put our heads together and came up with these two lists. There’s still room for some movement between the two teams, especially to accommodate people who drive together and that sort of thing. Please let me, Gus, or Robin know if you think you’re on the wrong team. Robin and I will negotiate “trades” to accommodate your requests when we can.

The *’s indicate people who have said that they only plan to play part time.

We still need players. There are many guys who plan to only play part time, some for injury reasons. So even though there might be 15 names on the list, we’re not close to being “full”. So please continue to recruit guys who want to play.

-Denny

I also just got the word that we will start the season next weekend! We’ll play next weekend, take the Easter weekend off, and play the weekend of the 14th and 15th. I will post the detailed schedule tomorrow, Sunday.

If you haven’t voted on how you think we should organize the teams, please do that now. Click here to vote.

Click here for info on this year’s playing fees. Please pay your fees as soon as you can. I need to pay the league fees.

-Denny

I will send out a weather report Saturday night, and, again, around 8:15AM, Sunday morning.

Opening Day
Opening Day may be March 31 or April 1.  If Opening Day is delayed to April 15 (Easter is April 8), we will try to practice on April 1.

Yours in baseball.

Gus Manning
Traveling Secretary
Antiques Baseball