First Girls of Summer at the Game at the Corners; Talker wins it with three run walk off homerun

First Girls of Summer at the Game at the Corners; Talker wins it with three run walk off homerun

Mike Raff enjoyed feeling tall on the alien space mound. 7/31/16

Girl of Summer Kylie [Photo: Bobry] 7/31/16

2015

from “Pick up softball games still exist”

Sometime this week an alien mound landed on the softball field between the Brighton Middle and High Schools, the customary diamond of the Game at the Corners. (see at end)

Our necessitated shift to the field directly behind the high school worked well as we had our biggest turn out of the year. Both dugouts were filled as the sparkling July morning drew 19 players.

In the pre-game announcement, David Esan explained that because the fences are short on this field, each team gets only one home run over the fence per inning. After that, a ball hit over the fence was an out.

zev

The Rules Committee allotted Zev another week of paternity leave. From “Celebrating the Fourth of July at the Game at the Corners.”

Esan also announced that a week ago our comrade Zev had become a new father and that he had attended the bris.

Happy for Zev as a person but unmoved as a ballplayer, Bobry registered an objection to Zev’s absence. After Esan’s announcement, Bobry chimed in: So where is he? That was 7 days ago. The rules committee quickly huddled and allotted Zev two weeks of paternity leave.

Kylie (left) and Anne

Esan also introduced two new players, Anne and Kylie. Last year we had some Girls of Summer at the Game at the Corners. But Anne and Kylie were our first 2016 Summer Girls.

softball

The New York Times 7/31/16

The timing was fitting.

As described this morning in The New York Times, the Houston-based Scrap Yard Dawgs recently made national headlines by signing Monica Abbot to a million dollar contract.

hitting 2

Kylie hitting a single. [Photo: Bobry]

with reilly

Girl of Summer Anne

Wanting our own national headlines, we actually paid Anne and Kylie each 1 million dollars for this single game.

And they played like million dollar bonus babies, earning every penny as they covered their outfield positions deftly and placed line drives and hard grounders all over the field.

We’ve had some great moments this season. There was Kid Hansen’s Ruthian swat. And that deep shot that went into the creek. And when Caspar scored his spectral winning run (see at end). And another one today if I may modestly report.

carter

Winning the ’93 World Series, Joe Carter jumped up and down after hitting a three-run walk-off homer in the ninth inning of Game 6.

With an ability to throw meatballs, I pitched for both teams. Given my fat pitches, the teams were tolerant as I annoyingly pestered people to take pics of the Summer Girls. Through 6 1/2 innings the easy pitches were better serving the other team as we trailed 14 – 5 entering our last at bats.

eyeing ther short porch

Eyeing the short porch. [Photo: Bobry]

Pitching to them carefully, my teammates knocked one clutch hit after another. Then it was my turn down 14 – 12 with two outs and runners on first and third.

Feeling loose all day, I had already hit three solid singles. The night before I had watched A-Rod strike out 4 times but awoke this morning feeling decidedly not A-Rod. As we had not yet used our one home run,the short Fenway Park-like left field fence beckoned.

walk off hine run

Photo: Bobry

Raff pitched one high but in the zone. For a brief moment, the trot around the bases was just a little what Joe Carter of the Blue Jays felt in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series.

For what it’s worth, it was my most memorable swing since 1992 when I taught American History at the Harley School and during the faculty vs. student baseball game hit one like the younger A-Rod over center field.

hitting

Girl of Summer Anne hitting single [Photo: Bobry]

pst game

At the post-game handshake, the Girls of Summer were just like the other Boys of Summer

At the Brighton Farmers Market around the corner, the band played on as it does every week.

This week’s gig was a repeat performance by The Tree Shakers with RIT professors Babak Elahi and Grant Cos. As she has done several times in the past, Nancy Gingold took the picture.

band cropped

The Tree Shakers, Brighton Farmers Market 7/31/31 [Photo: Nancy Gingold]

king-and-hus-court 1951

1951 (D & C)

TEASE: Perhaps next week, NYS Assemblyman Joe Morelle will be joining us.

Back in the day, Joe was a solid softball fast pitch catcher. Recently, Joe challenged us to a fast pitch game — like a latter day King and His Court — in which Joe will use only 4 players on his side. Luckily, the Girls of Summer will be on our side.



THE GAME AT THE CORNERS SERIES

Pick up softball games still exist

The Boys of Summer are back at The Corners

Ball in creek disrupts Game at the Corners; Blake hits for the cycle

Casper scores the winning run at The Corners

Umpire added to Game at the Corners. Players subtracted

Who’s counting at the Game at the Corners

Celebrating the Fourth of July at the Game at the Corners. And much more.

About The Author

dkramer3@naz.edu

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle  blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C  ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones.  So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.

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