After nine full days off, the SweatSox returned to action last night at Southgate against the Cornwall River Rats, a team having their way with Tier 2 this year, almost like they’re playing video game baseball on the lowest difficulty setting. It’s not too late to send them up to Tier 1 right now is it? After all, the league is bending some bylaws to get Jose Canseco on the field tomorrow night; we’ll take the Outlaws or Cardinals back to even things out if need be.
During the Cornwall double header 11 days ago, we saw River Rats pitchers 1-B and 1-C, last night we finally got to see their 1-A: James Amelotte. Pretty much like every pitcher we’ve seen this year, 1-A had very little trouble disposing of the SweatSox, throwing a complete game shutout, striking out 13 and giving up just one hit: a broken bat single to Cory Bond. On the other side of the mound, SweatSox starter Martin Trepanier held his own for 6 innings, his only real blemish was a ground ball that 2B Ross Hughes couldn’t handle, eventually leading to both River Rats runs.
The winner of the 2004 A&W Kamloops International Baseball Game MVP award was: Martin Trepanier. The Wizard, pitching in his first game since injuring his knee nearly a month ago, threw 6 innings of 3-hit 0-earned run ball, striking out 8 and walking only 1. The winner of the anti-award Odlid was: Ross Hughes, not for the error that led to both runs, but for falling on his bum on a routine fly ball to 2nd, then curling into the fetal position in case the ball hit him on the way down.
I also became aware during last night’s game that some of the River Rats don’t really know who I am. Gentleman (and lady), my name is Shaun Keay (#35), my birthday is March 4th, I’m a 25-time winner of the 2004 A&W Kamloops International Baseball Game MVP award, I’m the 2001 winner of the Doug Dorion Memorial Trophy, I once batted .592 in a season, and I may or not be a spelling bee moderator.
The Après Baseball Hyjinx was hosted by: Craig Cornell, who’s feeling pretty good about his .120 average after seeing what everyone else on the team is hitting. Most of the pre-11pm Hyjinx (aka the Cornell threshold) was spent discussing whether or not we all got fatter (or buff in Army’s case), or whether the new hoodies were really one size smaller than the label says. If things don’t go well over our 2 games this weekend, there may be a SweatSox bonfire next week where we sacrifice the new jerseys, hats, and hoodies to the baseball gods and get back to our roots of random everything.
The post-midnight portion of the Hyjinx was spent at the Royal Oak, where the topics of chiropractors, honking, bait-girls, blowing tubes, and the possibility of an Après Season Vegas party were discussed. That took us until about 2am, about an hour after the Braves called it a night over at McCarthy.
For the Cornwall POV on last night’s game, as well as recaps from all their games, be sure to check out their site at: http://www.eteamz.com/cornwallriverrats/.
The boxscore from last night’s game can be found on the Statistics page, or by clicking here.
Updated team stats (through all 10 games) can be found on the Statistics page, or by clicking here.
An updated schedule (including Brewer tournament games) can be found on the Schedule page, or by clicking here.
Next up for the SweatSox is our 3rd and final matchup with the Gatineau Marc Sports tomorrow night at Kinsmen. While the #gameofthenight may be at the Sportsplex with Canseco & the Athletics taking on the Bytown Battalion, things could be interesting at Kinsmen with rumours of a “Super Hyjinx” being in play.
#WONTHEHYJINX