Wow, now this game was a classic -- like Yankees-Red Sox caliber. Dave and I umped. Both teams hammered away at each other for 90 minutes, hardly ever scoring because of really good defense and a little bit of drama.
There were seven and a half innings with a 0-0 tie. Both teams came close to scoring many times. A Ctrl/Alt/Del runner at third forgot the number of outs and ran home on a flyout, only to get doubled off. A Grass Kicker got thrown out trying to get from first to third on a hit to left.
Finally, Ctrl/Alt/Del put one run over in the bottom of the eighth. Almost on cue, Grass Kickers answered with a tying run with two outs in the top of the ninth.
In the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and one out, the Kickers shortstop dropped a liner, and the Ctrl captain crossed the plate with the apparent winning run. But the Grass Kickers turned a double play at the same time, by tagging a runner between second and third and forcing another at second. Since I had been smothered by the celebrating captain and missed the play, it took Dave's heroic diligence to determine that the run didn't count.
So we went to the 10th, and I got to invoke the rarely-used extra innings rule: "Teams must take a player off the field in each successive inning in boy-girl-boy order." This was getting interesting.
There were three more innings of stalemate and blown chances until the 13th. Finally, with only 7 players on the field, Ctrl/Alt/Del's defense broke down, and Grass Kickers scored three. They held on to win.
The offense and defense were fierce in this game, and everyone was really friendly and I felt a lot better about the league than I did after last week's incidents. I just wish we had been the team wearing the red shirts in the final.
Congrats to Grass Kickers. They only lost one game all season -- to us, natch. Hopefully they'll represent Pac-Man well in the Minneapolis tournament and represent Minneapolis well in Milwaukee.
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