The Shot Heard Round the NCBL

The National Capital Baseball league dates all the way back to the early 1980’s. Since its inception, thousands of players have played on hundreds of teams, but only a handful of these players can be called legends. I mean, just off the top of my head I can name John Robertson, Bill Beelen, Cory Bond, Geoff Magnus, Marc Charbonneau, and Andrew Hazard. Well today, we add a new name to that list. This here is the story of a boy named Marc Lett…

On September 22^nd of this year, the SweatSox and Cornwall River Rats faced off in Game 5 of a best-of-5 series for the Tier II Championship. Cornwall had taken games 1 and 2, while the SweatSox won games 3 and 4.

The first step was to figure out who was going to start for the SweatSox. We had already used 4 different starters (Ramage, White, Groves, Dorrington) so far in the series, but the games were so close together that nobody was fully rested. This would’ve been a problem in any other year, but the 2013 SweatSox have depth, and we still hadn’t used our GLE Cory Bond in the series. After all our pitchers had warmed up, it was decided for Cory that Cory was the best option; After all, he was the starter for our last Championship clinching game in 2005…

We also made sure that Craig Cornell batted after Kent Johnston, and Marc Lett batted after Cory. It worked in 2005, it had to work in 2013! In fact, the 1^st pairing paid off in the 1^st inning: Kent drew a walk then stole a base, then Craig knocked him in on an RBI single. This was a big run, not because it gave us the early lead, but because we knew we were 6-0 these playoffs when we had a lead at some point during the game, and 0-3 when we didn’t.

Things took a turn for the worse in the 2^nd, when the River Rats put together a 5 run inning, forcing Kent to almost make his 1^st career pitching change.

There was no scoring in the 3^rd inning, Chris Lidstone did get doubled off from CF though. In the 4^th the River Rats would add to their lead with a run off John Groves, they now led 6-1, and Susan Poirier’s pregame prediction was looking like a done deal.

Nothing worth noting in the 5^th, in fact the game remained 6-1 River Rats heading into the bottom of the 6^th…

Cory got the SweatSox their 2^nd run of the game, scoring on an Armando Navarro dirty sacrifice fly to 1^st base. Seeing their captain fight to the end inspired Eric & Kent to both get on base, which set the stage for Craig Cornell’s 2RBI single to right-center that scored them both.

THC was on the mound for the SweatSox in the 7th, making his 3^rd appearance of the series. After the leadoff woman got on base and was pushed to 2^nd on some classic Cornwall small-ball, The Janitor cleaned up his own mess and struck out the next 2 batters. So the task was simple for the SweatSox in the bottom of the 7^th, score 2 runs to send the game into extra innings, or 3 to win. Due up in the bottom:

Mark Stinson, subbing for Chris Lidstone, led the inning off and at one point in the at-bat the count was 2-2.

Stinson stayed calm, and drew the biggest walk of the season. The SweatSox had the tying run at the plate.

Bus Cop, who batted .346 in the postseason was up next, and got on base with a single to left.

This was it for Cornwall starter Ryan Daigle, bringing Tyler St. Denis, making his 6^th appearance against the SweatSox this season, into the game to face the RBI machines Cory & Marc.

During warmups, there was a mad scramble on the SweatSox sideline to figure out what Cory should do with his at-bat: bunt the tying run to 2^nd, or look for his 3^rd hit of the game. We then came to a consensus that he should ~~bunt~~ ~~swing~~ bunt.

Unfortunately for St. Denis, he struggled with control and 5 pitches & 5 pulled-back bunt attempts later, the winning run was at 1^st base.

We’ve been in this situation before, a week earlier in game 1 to be exact; the bases were loaded with nobody out and we got no runs. Lidstone & Elias couldn’t get it done then, but they don’t have the inner strength of an OM like Marc Lett, who was now up does. First pitch was a called strike. Second pitch was a swinging strike.

The 3^rd pitch will forever be known as: The Shot Heard Round the NCBL:

So, just to recap, the SweatSox win the Tier II Championship off a Marc Lett walk-off Grand Slam. Enjoy the celebration:

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I have no idea who hosted the Après Baseball Hyjinx, but there was beer, and there was lots of it.

The Hyjinx was extra special for MVP Eric White, who finally got to meet his new best friend, the Doug Dorion Memorial Trophy, handed over by last year’s MVP Cory Bond. Speaking of Eric & Cory, not only were they the only players to play in all 24 of the SweatSox regular season games, they were the only 2 SweatSox to start all 10 of our playoff games. Take care of him White.