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Bob Loblaw, Voice Staff Writer
June 14th, 2007
LOS ANGELES, CA. — If the Marauders planned to extend their season beyond the opening round of the tournament, they were going to have to go through Rec Sports, the #1 seeded team. Luckily, the Marauders were not the first team to play Rec Sports, giving them a chance to scout the the regular season champs.
Beginning around 9:00am the Marauders started to assemble at their team's camp on McAlister field. Conditions were bright and sunny, but a thin layer of haze kept temperatures down for the first half of the day.
Team manager Neil Teixeira was joined by Binh Tran, Kevin Chan and Shawn Matsumoto in scouting their opposing teams, Rec Sports and Formosa, as they squared-off against each other in the opening of pool play. That initial game was delayed about 10 minutes as Rec Sports eagerly waited for remainder of their team to show up.
Teixeira commented, "If I was Formosa's manager I would have had [Rec Sports] forfeit right already. At the very least, I would have had them take the field with seven players, as long as they had the minimum three girls, and forced them to play short-handed all game."
Grumbling continued among the Marauders as they saw Rec Sports, the tournament organizers, take advantage of Formosa's ignorance of the rules and add players to their line-up throughout the game as they arrived.
Rachael Caldwell felt cheated by the whole situation saying, "Well, I guess they can do whatever they want to do - it's their tournament. But, if they really wanted to win then their players shouldn't be sleeping in and showing up late. I mean there's no excuse, especially when they get to drive those electric carts all over the field and chauffeur their players around!"Yet, despite their subdued anger, the Marauders focused on getting to know the Rec Sports hitters and devise a game plan for defending against their potent offense.
After 5 innings of play it was obvious that there weren't many holes in the Rec Sports line-up. In fact, they had solid hitting from both the men and the women and a few power hitters, including a lefty who could potentially clear the fence in right field. As for Formosa, their main flaw was a poor infield, with first base being a real chink in the armor for them. When the game ended in a 8-0 win for Rec Sports, the Marauders knew what they had to do: keep the game close and avoid getting blown out.
As ten o'clock approached, the Marauders took the field as the home team and prepared for Rec Sports' onslaught. Despite giving up 5 runs on 3 errors in the first inning, the defense held together and settled down before the line-up made it all the way 'round again. Teixeira, playing in left field made the last out on a slicing foul ball, giving his teammates a chance to exhale.
But the Marauders were unable to score in the first or second when Teixeira flied out in the first with runners on base and again in the second with Caldwell, who tripled, waiting at third. Still, their defense did manage to keep Rec Sports scoreless for three consecutive innings.
In the bottom of the third inning, Nadia Barosy got the Marauders' only RBI of the game when she brought in Nick Sowers from third on a fielder's choice. With MAPP finally on the board, the players knew they had to keep Rec Sports scoreless in the fourth. They did - and the score was 5-1 going into the top of the fifth inning. The Pewter Pirates were accomplishing what they had set out to do: play tight and stay within striking distance.
Unfortunately, Rec Sports sensed the urgency for scoring and came up with an additional 4 runs in the top of the fifth. The Marauders were now facing an eight run deficit with the bottom of the inning to play. But the Rec Sports defense was too much for the Marauders, who left Tran stranded at first base to end the game.
"It was disappointing, " said Teixeira. "I blame myself for the loss not only because my batting cost us at least two runs, but also because of my poor management. I have no idea why I didn't have Dominic Lau in the game as the designated hitter! I just totally forgot when I made out the line-up card. So stupid!"
Others were a little more optimistic. Sowers tried to pick up the team saying, "I think we played them pretty close. It was just a couple of bad innings. When we play the way we’re supposed to play… I don’t think there’s any team in this league that can beat us,” he said. “It was stupid how close we were to putting 15 runs on the board. Offensively, we beat ourselves."
But the Marauders quickly turned their attention to their next game against Formosa, a primarily Taiwanese team that did not participate in the regular season.
"We really didn't know what to expect from Formosa when we got the schedule originally," said 3rd baseman Binh Tran. "They could have been a sorority for all we knew." What the Marauders did know was that they were not advancing out of pool play and that their game against Formosa would be their last of the season. "This game is for pride, this game is for all of us who played hard during the regular season, " said Teixeira before the scheduled game. "Let's go out and win it!"
The Marauders started out this game on offense and were unable to score a run, going 1-2-3 in the inning. However, the MAPP defense returned the favor in the bottom of the inning keeping Formosa off the base paths.
A two-out rally was cut short in the second inning when Nadia Barosy overran third base on Teixeira's double to left-center and was tagged out by the Formosa third baseman after a short-lived run-down. "To be honest, I made the exact same base running error in the tournament last year," said Teixeira. "You just get a little too pumped up and you forget to stop on the bag."
Luckily, the Marauders did get on the board in the third when they scored 2 runs on five consecutive singles by Linda Taing, Westley Nguyen, Chan, Matsumoto, and Caldwell. The Marauders were rolling to a 2-0 victory and couldn't have been playing better defense.But there was nothing they could have done in the bottom of the fourth when, with two runners on base, a Formosa batter hit a scorching line-drive that fell in the gap in right-center, clearing the bases for a home run. Chan, who played center field, couldn't have been more correct is his assessment saying, "It was just a really good hit. It fell right between us. That was the only thing we allowed all day and it beat us."
So, having put all their effort into making up the one run as quickly as possible, the Marauders were eliminated when August Cockroft sent a hard-hit ball into deep left only to fly out. "The game just flew by," he said. "I had no idea that we were in the bottom of the fifth. It seems like we only played for 30 minutes."
Still, the Marauders were proud of how hard they had played and how much they had improved over the season. As they sat together enjoying lunch they discussed their desires to continue playing next season and reflected on how much fun they had throughout the previous 6 weeks. They also concentrated on weaknesses and began developing a strategy to improve themselves.
From the look and sound of things, the MAPP Marauders are going to be back with a vengeance next year!
Tournament Photo Galleries:
Gallery 1 (photo credits Dominic Lau and Ray Madani)
Gallery 2 (photo credit Jackie Williams)
