Friday, April 16th, 2010
OTHG Opening Night
(Also: Makeup Aug 6th, 2010)
[you submit it, we'll print it]

Opening Night...

This year's opening night ran into some bad weather.  The 7:00pm games went to completion but the 8:20pm and 9:40pm games were rained out.  The league will be notified of any make up dates near the end of the season.

Update: August 6th was the makeup date for the 8:20 and 9:40 games. Write ups are added below.

7:00pm - Moby Drugs versus Barco Construction - 90ft field

In action on April 16th, last year’s two divisional winners battled with Barco Construction edging out Moby Drugs 14-5. Moby, in their first at-bat, jumped out to a quick three run lead but Barco responded with five in their half to take the lead that they would not relinquish. Dave Saur and Dennis Ryan had the key RBI hits along with Bill White’s sac fly to get Barco’s season off to a good start. Barco increased their lead to 8-3 in the 3rd on RBI hits from Terry McPartland, Russ Graham and Kevin Moloney. Dennis Ryan added a sac fly and James Widmer an RBI single later in the game as Barco cruised into their opening night win. Barcos’ Gary Jambor added three hits and Terry McPartland two before he had to leave the game due to an injury. Almost going without notice but not quite, was Big Bill White’s called “K”, and he thought he was safe since no one mentioned it after the game. The Barco Boys would like to welcome rookie Mike Angarita to the team and to especially thank Artie Bartone of Barco Construction for his 22nd straight year of being the team’s sole sponsor.

8:20pm - Autocraft versus Singletons - 90ft field

Autocraft was down some significant players but those who showed up made the most of the evening as Autocraft belted out a 28 to 12 win over Singletons, the defending tournament champs. Key contributions came from pitcher Mike Ferretti who held the dangerous line up to only 12 runs. Mike also hit a grand slam as did Don Simone and Benny Macchia. The 3 grand Slams hit in one game could be a league record. Both Mike Mormino and Robert Huebner had some timely hits as they have done all year generating strong offense thru-out the lineup allowing Autocraft to average some 20 runs per game. Other players with multi-hit games included Joe Lutz, Chris Piccininni, Frank Quarto Cinco Ses Quartomano and Denny Oehl.

9:40pm - Zwanger Pesiri versus McCourt & Trudden- 60ft field

(This game was rescheduled in the 7:00pm timeslot instead of 9:40pm)

Zwanger-Pesiri Radiology made it two wins in a row with a 6-2 victory over McCourt and Trudden Funeral Home. Marc Fischer filled-in on the mound and supplied what turned out to be all the runs needed with a monster 3-run homer in the first inning. Bino Reverberi had a fantastic game in right-center with a number of impressive grabs, including a key running catch to end a M&T rally. ZP tried to mount a rally of its own in the 7th, but it fizzled after one of the most unusual plays in OTHG history. With the bases loaded and no one out, Reverberi hit a grounder to 2nd, Jack Brosnan threw home for the force, which should have left the bases loaded, right? But for some inexplicable reason, Jerry Mazza, who should have been on 2nd, ran off the field. A bonehead move for sure, but to make matters worse, no one on ZP noticed, not even T-Ball who was in the dugout. Hernandez followed with a single and then all of a sudden ZP realized they were missing a runner! Fischer picks up the story from here: Where was Jerry? Perhaps it was the sunlight in his eyes? Perhaps he got caught up by the roar of the crowd? Perhaps he needed a drink of water? He was in the dugout looking to see who was coming up next. M & T was all over it however and negotiated with the umpires to have an automatic second out for the play. Luckily , ZP held on for the win.