Friday, July 29, 2011

Beautiful Baseball At the DBAP

Game 105, July 28, DBAP
Gwinnett Braves 2, Durham Bulls 0
Season: 59-46; This Home Stand: 4-3
Wrap, Box, Herald-Sun, Examiner, Indy Week

Sometimes I let myself get caught up in all this arcane roster folderol and I lose track of why I go to the park in the first place. I go because I have the opportunity to see talented athletes play a very interesting game.

The win-loss aspect of last night's game was pretty straight-forward: their relievers were just a little bit better than our relievers and one of their athletes got a big hit to score a run.

But what pretty plays I got to see on the field!

In the 2nd inning Ray Olmedo, playing second base, dashed to his right nearly behind the base, gloved the ball, jumped up and made a perfect throw to first. Beautiful.

In the next inning shortstop Reid Brignac went deep to his right well behind third baseman Daniel Mayora and made the long throw to first. Very smooth. Very pretty.

Olmedo went on to make three more very slick, if not as spectacular, plays. Brignac also made three more, including a very nice 4-6 play where he teamed up with Olmedo on a crucial fielder's choice.

Olmedo and Brignac were part of the terrific 2009 Bulls team and they make one heck of a combination out there. They look like they are having fun. I hope so, sure is fun watching them.

Sigh. Back to the more serious stuff.

Ray Olmedo is a switch hitter with very slick hands. What that means to fans is that it doesn't matter if you sit on the third base side or the first base side of the stands, he will throw his bat at you. Last night he threw two! One of them didn't make it over the low wall. Instead it hit the wall on the first base side and broke. On Wednesday he threw a bat into the third base stands. On the 25th, batting right, it went into the third base stands. There have been several more at home and on the road this year.

He's not the first Durham Bull to have this problem. Ray might recall that a teammate of his from 2009, Jon Weber, had a similar problem and was given the opportunity to leverage his bat-tossing proclivities into a business proposition. I have it on good authority that the law firm in question — Farfaleaux, Foghart, & Bloviate — is still in business over there in the Diamond View II building and that the Get-a-Grip pine tar product is still on the market. If this keeps up an offer is surely on its way.

1 comment:

  1. someone dispatch some pine tar to Olmedo ASAP

    that one on Wednesday was extra scary

    ReplyDelete