Looking at the Game of Baseball from all ends of the Spectrum
There’s a Chambana doubleheader at McKinley Field this afternoon. They’ll be taking on the Buckey Dutch Masters at 1pm. Buckley has sole possession of first place in the North Division of the Eastern Illinois Baseball League.
Chambana has dropped their last four games and fallen to last place in the South Division in the EI League. A doubleheader sweep would certainly help their situation.
Come on out for some baseball. I’ll be there.
For the second Sunday in a row, I took in a Chambana doubleheader at McKinley Field. Here are the photos I took.
I had the pleasure of hanging out with Bruce and Leo whose sons were the pitcher and catcher respectively for the first game. Aside from the good company, that had its advantages as they had the inside scoop on everything.
Matt Miller did give up five runs in his start but all things considered didn’t pitch as bad as the stats indicate. He did get the loss when the Royal Giants clobbered Chambana 8-3. Ironically, Chambana outhit Royal 12 hits to 9 but couldn’t capitalize.
Chambana got their revenge in Game 2 with a come from behind 4-2 victory. Unfortunately, all the Chambana took place AFTER I left. I’m a jinx, I’m starting to think.
I did get a chance to chat with Matt Wilke (left), catcher for Chambana. He’s as polite as they come and he not only did he manage to get hit in the first game, he hit the ball hard when he didn’t. He’s posing with his father Leo in the above photo. I don’t know anyone who knows more about the physical game of baseball than Leo. It’s learning experience to listen to him predict a pitch or critique a pitch selection.
Love those Green & Yellows!
Matt Miller on the mound
A subplot during the second game was this foul ball stuck in the backstop. With the dearth of available baseballs, the ump kiddingly said that the game might not be able to continue until it was brought down.
It was still up there when I left.
As I said, more photos in the Photo Gallery. Check them out!
Tomorrow, Chambana will take on the Royal Giants at McKinley Field, home of the Champaign Central High School baseball team. Game time is at 1pm. Both teams are in the Eastern Illinois Baseball League.
I showed up to McKinley Field last week to see Chambana play Effingham. I had a good time but had to leave before Chambana scored their first run halfway through the second game. Maybe I’ll see a little more offense from the home team this time.
The EI League is a wood bat league.
Today, I made my way over to Champaign to catch EI League baseball action. The EI (Eastern Illinois) League is a wood bat league which has mostly college or college-age players.
I made my way to McKinley Field. the home field of Champaign Central High School’s baseball team as well as EI’s Chambana team. Chambana was hosting Effingham today for a doubleheader. This was my first EI Baseball League so I was coming not knowing a whole lot about the players, teams or the league.
Kyle Wilson pitched 6 shutout innings for Effingham in Game 1
Someone did tell me that Effingham was at the bottom of their division. Boy, you wouldn’t know it by the way they played today. Behind the pitching of Kyle Wilson, they cruised to a 10-0 victory in the first game. The game was called after seven innings because of a 10-run rule, it was explained to me.
Wilson also managed to strike out 10 Chambana batters.
Manager Bruce Barber having a chat with the ump
Frustrations were running high in the Chambana dugout, it would appear. Manager Bruce Barber came out early in the game to argue about what he felt was a baserunning error by Effingham’s pinchrunner. Towards the end of the game when the score and pretty much everything else was getting out of hand, batter Drake Wallace argued with the home plate ump on a called strike. Obviously, they didn’t see eye to eye and words were exchanged. Wallace went back to the dugout and still more words were exchanged. Words I can’t really write here. Let’s just say he wanted the ump to kiss him… but not on mouth.
Well, needless to say, he got ejected. Then out comes Manager Bruce Barber with a song and dance about the ump not hearing him correctly (something about rabbit-ears) and it wasn’t long before Barber gets the thumb too.
A guy I was watching the game with said he thought Barber was just trying get the rest of team pumped up since they were down 8-0 at that point.
Chambana Game 2 starter Matt Miller
Game Two’s starter for Chambana was Matt Miller. Miller was practically a walk-on for today’s game, according to his father. Interestingly, the last league Miller pitched for was the Chicago Suburban Baseball League. The CSBL is a popular league for Illini players (this year, we have two playing there).
Unfortunately, for Chambana, Effingham played not like a last place team but a team on the rise. They defeated Chambana 13-3 with Ryan Bradley getting the win.
Analysis of Baseball
by May Swenson
It’s about
the ball,
the bat,
and the mitt.
Ball hits
bat, or it
hits mitt.
Bat doesn’t
hit ball, bat
meets it.
Ball bounces
off bat, flies
air, or thuds
ground (dud)
or it
fits mitt.
Bat waits
for ball
to mate.
Ball hates
to take bat’s
bait. Ball
flirts, bat’s
late, don’t
keep the date.
Ball goes in
(thwack) to mitt,
and goes out
(thwack) back
to mitt.
Ball fits
mitt, but
not all
the time.
Sometimes
ball gets hit
(pow) when bat
meets it,
and sails
to a place
where mitt
has to quit
in disgrace.
That’s about
the bases
loaded,
about 40,000
fans exploded.
It’s about
the ball,
the bat,
the mitt,
the bases
and the fans.
It’s done
on a diamond,
and for fun.
It’s about
home, and it’s
about run.
I just watched a fantastic documentary by John Fitzgerald called The Emerald Diamond. The movie is about baseball in Ireland. Surprisingly enough I got it through Netflix. It shows how recently baseball in Ireland began. Also mentions about how the Olympics getting rid of baseball in 2012 will be quite a blow to baseball in Europe. Here in the United States, Latin America, and now even in Japan, kids grow up with the idea of one day making it to the major leagues. But in Europe kids playing baseball dream of one day representing their country. This is a very well done documentary, that gave me a different perspective of baseball, and is a must see (even if you’re not Irish, but especially if you are).
You can find out more about the movie by going to website here. By clicking here you can even read the blog.
I TIVO’ed Playing for Peanuts, a reality TV show about minorleague baseball, that aired its first episode in Chicago Sunday night on CSN. Finally got around to watching it this morning, after a frustrating late night of watching the Halos crunch Mark Buehrle & the White Sox. I needed a reminder that our national pasttime was worth watching. Playing for Peanuts, John Fitzgerald Director/Producer/Editor, was just what I needed to see.
Wally Backman was the manager of the South Georgia Peanuts of the now-defunct SCL. The SCL was an independent league where players/managers hope to get a chance of getting into more organized ball. I remember when Wally Backman was an up & coming youngster in with the NY Mets. Backman was always a scrapper, being a 5’9″ secondbaseman, who’d do anything to win, and win it all he did, with the 1986 Mets over the Boston Red Sox. As a 26 year old Wally batted .320 for New York that year.
After his playing years were behind him, he was on the fast track to a big league managerial job, in fact he landed one, with the Arizona Diamondbacks. But his stint only lasted days, he never got to manage, before it was disclosed he had a DUI, an incident with domestic abuse, and a parole violation, for which the new skipper might have to do some jail time. The D*Backs quickly distanced themselves from Backman, which is why he resurfaced as the manager of the Peanuts.
Looking over the Peanuts roster I saw another familiar face in Mike Caruso. At 21, Caruso was the Chicago White Sox shortstop of the future when he batted .306 as a rookie in 1998. Mike came to the Sox from the Giants in the 1997 fire sale, in which Chicago shipped off Roberto Hernandez, Wilson Alvarez, & Danny Darwin in exchange for Caruso, Keith Foulke, & Bob Howry. The Sox cashed in the present for the future and Owner Jerry Reinsdorf took a lot of heat. The next year Caruso’s production fell off to a .250 batting average, and his bigleague career was pretty much history. A has been at 22, which is the reason he was trying his luck with the Peanuts.
Checkout the Playing for Peanuts website. Hopefully we’ll be able to do a podcast with John Fitzgerald in the not too distant future.
Here’s a nifty gadget that visually compares team salaries and their performance relative to all other teams. Slide the date back and forth across the top to see how the comparison changes over time.
My son Dylan took this photo and I thought it was good enough to post. He took it from the parking lot of Illinois Field last Tuesday.
The two large cranes you see are being used in the renovation of Memorial Stadium where the University of Illinois football team plays.
Click on the photo to see a larger version.
Jose Valverde was brought into a tie ballgame in the bottom of the 8th to hold the Padres and give his guys a shot in the 9th. But as luck would have it Valverde allowed the go ahead run.
So the Astros would have to bat off the alltime saves leader (526) Trevor Hoffman trailing by a run with three outs to go. Trevor got the first two batters he faced before the next three batters reached base on two hits and a base on balls, then Fat Elvis, Lance Berkman ended Hoffman’s night with a three run big fly. Papa Grande retired the side in order to close it out for a back door win.
Today, after last night’s blown save (#64 of his career), Trevor rebounded against the Stros protecting a Padres one run lead with a one, two, three ninth inning for his 527th save of his career. Most blown saves in the history of MLB are Goose Gossage 112, Rollie Fingers 109, Jeff Reardon 106, Lee Arthur Smith 103, and Bruce Sutter 101. Interesting to note that of the five Hall of Fame relief pitchers, three rank high on the blown saves list, Goose Gossage, Rollie Fingers, & Bruce Sutter. Only two Hall of Fame relievers didn’t hit the high note in blown saves, Hoyt Wilhelm & Dennis Eckersley. Amazing, with perception being what it is, I’d have thought Hoffman would have blown more saves and Gossage less, go figure.