With only 3 remaining Cardinals from the team that started the summer excited to be able to play summer ball although not being selected to the WR Blue or Red All-Star teams, The Capital City Cardinals picked up enough players to threaten to comeback and go to the semi-finals of the IBA's first ever National Championship. The Carolina Heat however were able to do just enough to hold the Cardinals from coming back and advancing.
On Saturday, the Cardinals could only get 9 players to the field so they played without a catcher which Team Elite and Seagroves were able to take advantage of on several occasions. Team Elite managed to get another of their players ejected and somehow avoided getting the Head Coach ejected though the umpire said to him that he could have ejected him five times. The Seagrove All-stars who we would play next ended up calling the police who came because of the comments and gestures being made infront of the parents and kids. Penn Sealey helped ignite some humour with his fouled off lined shots that hit the mini van parked behind team Elite's dugout. After the first one, the guy yelled out about scratching his minivan as everyone laughed. Then the next pitch, he lined one off exactly like the first one hitting possibly the same minivan on the door as the same guy cried out again to everyone smile and laughter. Team Elite is like the Jerry Springer baseball team. It's a mess but it is something to watch. In this game however, they were able to win. I hate to blame umpires being an umpire myself but they did blow about five calls today that went against us and I did tell them with a smile about it on Sunday after congratulating them for the good job they did on Sunday. Steve, the umpire chief, is a great guy and to his credit he told my son that he robbed him of his shot that went over third base after Daniel flew out to deep left center on that atbat as Daniel hung his head back to the dugout.
Team Heat was a team I knew could hit having watched them in the championship game in the gold bracket last weekend. We were able to stay in the game being down 6 to 5 in the fifth. Everyone, parents and players felt confident that we could and should win this game. The Cardinals struggled with some errors in the 6th again though that allowed the Heat to score 3 more runs and we ended the game and the Cardinals first season 9 to 5.
After achieving some success with the WR players that we put together for this travel select team to win a championship with USSSA and a runner up trophy with Top Gun and Nations baseball, it was nice to be able to keep playing with Will, Anthony, Jackson and Daniel along with some new friends we made from other West Raleigh families that enjoyed being able to experience travel ball and get their spring training in if you will for the fall season coming up. It's not about winnning or losing but about having fun, getting the repititions in, having good sportsmanship and giving it your best for the team win or lose and we did all that this year. Thanks to everyone for being apart of what came together this summer around this wonderful game of baseball.
No comments:
Post a Comment