I played in the Palm Beach Classic last week. The event is put on by Play at the Plate. The tournament takes place at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, FL. This year there were 10 teams in two divisions. 6 teams were in the “full rules” division. 4 teams in the “modified rules” division. I played on the White Sox in “modified rules”. Both divisions make no age restrictions. The modified rules teams tended to be a bit older, but we had a 22 year old on our team, for example. I was second oldest on our team.
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.
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