As the Legal Weed gathered for our first and only matchup against 3rd-place 78 Horowitz, it looked like this at Grand Army Plaza:
And this on the radar:
Would we be able to get in five innings (or an hour and 15 minutes) to make it a legal game? The forecast didn’t look great, but we would see!
Dylan was on the mound for the Weed, and got a quick strikeout followed by two groundouts … both of which were thrown away, putting runners on second and third. No problem: Dylan set the next two batters down swinging to end any threat.
Horowitz had Lucien on the mound, and he proved an able match for Dylan, striking out three in the 1st, though he did allow a line single to Sam, who extended his hitting streak to 14 games. In the top of the 2nd, Dylan walked a couple (home plate ump Jonah had a bit of a wandering strike zone) but also struck out two and induced a foul popup to first that Roan made a great grab on. In the bottom of the 2nd with two out, Dylan lined a 3-2 pitch to left for a single, then Ryan followed with an almost identical liner, but this one was caught for the third out.
In the top of the 3rd, Dylan got himself into trouble with a walk and hit-by-pitch to the first two batters, then worked right back out with three straight Ks. That took us to the bottom of the 3rd, just as things were starting to look a bit hairy:
Shiloh worked a walk, then after a strikeout, Sam dropped a single in front of the center fielder to put two runners on. Roan worked a walk to load the bases, then Max grounded a ball to the right sight that got past the drawn-in infield. Shiloh scored, Sam dug for the plate — and was called out, even as our entire dugout shouted, “He got in under the tag!”
By this point it was getting really dark and threatening, and I and the opposing coaches asked the umpire what the plan was for calling the game. His reply: “It’s not too dark to see! I’ll let you know if I see any lightning.” Ben M stepped up to the plate, and an opposing coach asked what I wanted to do. I said we needed to wait for the ump’s decision, she said the ump said it was up to us, and I said, “Should we call it now, then?” “Let’s wait until we finish this batter.”
Right then, I heard a hissing noise from the direction of Field 6 — rain? No, definitely wind in the trees, as made apparent by half the infield dirt on Field 6 lifting up into the air in a swirling mass. Seconds later, huge gusts of wind buffeted us, and all the coaches ran onto the field calling for the game to be called. The umps obliged (Jonah signaling that we were suspending play with a 3-2 count on Ben M), and we all ran for the dugouts through an impenetrable sandstorm. We grabbed everything in the dugout and ran out of the park as fast as we could. (Roan, I have your water bottle.) 78 deMause 1, 78 Horowitz 0 (suspended, 3rd inning)
The game was called at a little after 7 pm, so it was not an official game. As the storm clouds approached, I asked the Horowitz coaches if they wanted to find 45 minutes some time to finish off this game, and they said yes, definitely. I’ve emailed the league, and will let everyone know what the response is. It was a fun, tight game until the weather turned, so it would be nice to play it to a conclusion. Stay tuned.
