Sunday March 23

 Bud's Boys Sunday Sentinel

A tee box suggestion, Thursday, Friday results and the penultimate entry of my baseball journal.

Build Your Own Golf Course!

Pete Dye, Donald Ross, Jack Nicklaus, and you. You too can be a golf course architect. Let me explain this with a suggestion.

We all agree that the main goal of Bud's Boys Golf is to have an enjoyable round of golf with our group. I don't think I am going out on a limb by saying we have more fun when we play well. So, consider this the next time you play. We are not bound to the scorecard when it gives us the 4 or 5 tee options. I suggest we tweak it as much as we want to reach the comfort level of each player. As long as you stick with your final choice of your 18 tee boxes, your handicap number will take care of itself.

Needless to say, if you are comfy with playing white, red-white, or red, (or blue, blue-white) then fine. You do not need to change a thing. But, let me give an example.

The coming of April will likely move the white tees on #15 to the blue teeing area as usual. Why not, if you are playing white or red-white, continue to hit from the front tee box? We can do whatever we want. You could play 17 holes from the white and one from the red. Or 16 and 2, or 15 and three. Or 15 red and 3 white. Or 6 white, 6 red and 6 yellow. The point is you make your own course.

Our Tuesday and Friday games favor scoring birdies and moving up would allow a better chance of reaching the green in regulation. Check out the yellow tees on some holes and consider how much better your chances are to be putting for birdie. 

Some of the ladies have played the new family tees and one lady shot a 79 when she usually struggles to break a 100 from the reds. Something to think about. 

Be assured this suggestion comes not from deep thinking but my usual shallow end of the pool, soon to move on to something else thinking, and if I never hear a single person bring it up, I am good with that.

Thursday Golf

Only 5 BB's put up with the weather. A 3/2 split on the 5 events with Roger winning CTP and Doc claiming the Thursday Medalist.     

Friday Golf

Another 3/2 split on Friday.

Roger wins CTP again, will go for the 'Floyd' on Monday.

 I-SC Hoosiers Part 5

The State Finals would be held at Meador Park in Springfield. We would leave Thursday to play the Friday semi-final, allowing us to skip the last 2 days of school. It was a surreal feeling as we pulled out of the school parking lot. Our seniors were leaving the school never to return as students. It had to be a bittersweet moment for them as the school disappeared from view behind us. Although we had all grown up together, these last 3 weeks had created an air of 'specialness', if that is a real word. The long bus rides to and from Van Buren and the 2 long rides in front of us to and from Springfield would only add to the special bonding. The overnight stay in Van Buren and the 2 upcoming nights in Springfield were just not something that often happened 50 some years ago. 

One of those bonding moments happened as we drove through Van Buren on the way to our destination. I forgot to mention that the previous week's stayover included our youngest player, a reserve who actually never got into a game, proving he was not able to handle the contents of a smuggled in bottle not meant to be consumed by minors. As he started showing out in front of this roadside motel, one of the seniors told him he needed to get rid of the bottle before Coach Willie came out and busted him. So, he did.

As we drove past the motel one week later, the bottle was still in plain sight on top of the roof. A huge cheer went up from inside the bus putting a look of puzzlement on Coach's face. Surely someone shared this explanation with him as the years passed.

Another non-baseball related story happened later Thursday evening. We had arrived and settled into our fancy, to us anyway, Holiday Inn rooms. We left to eat and then returned with an entire evening to kill. Some of our more, shall we say, 'progressive' thinkers had thought ahead enough to know we would need some sort of entertainment away from the ball field. They had brought along a super 8 projector along with what were called 'stag films' in those days. These were not PG-13, far from it. Anyway, during one of the 'showings', a couple of us were approaching the room when we see someone with their face up against the glass, peeking inside the room.

Let me step back a second. The story goes that the state tournament would charter us a Greyhound for our trip or they could pay us mileage to use our own school bus. Naturally the school chose money over comfort, and we took our own bus. The bus driver brought along his 12-year-old kid who was a baseball fan. Seems he was a fan of other entertainment as well.

We startled the young man at the window, and we alerted the room that they had a peeping Tom. One of the seniors, took matters in hand. He scolded the youngster and told him he couldn't stand outside the window as it would draw unwanted attention to the room and what was going on inside. "Come inside if you are going to watch." So, the 12-year-old sat among his new heroes, forever scarred, I'm sure.

This was the first game in 3 weeks where we weren't heavy underdogs, because in fact, we knew literally nothing about the other 3 teams. We arrived at the park to watch the last innings of game 1.

It looked like the state decided to pair the rich private schools in game 1 and the rural teams in game 2.

Game 1 had Pembroke Country Day of Kansas City vs St. Louis Priory. To say these were elite schools is an understatement. I was able to look at Pembroke's 73 yearbook online. They had a squash team! I think that is like racquetball using badminton rackets. Also quite noticeable were the uniforms. Pembroke had the new elastic belt double-knit uniforms worn by the Major Leagues. In fact, their red-white-blue colors looked similar to the STL Cardinals unis. Priory had exact replicas of the LA Dodgers road uniforms. Classic dark gray with blue lettering and number on the back and a red number above the waist in front. Both teams had 2 dozen new Louisville sluggers leaning against the fence. By now, we were down to about 4 bats that weren't broken.

Pembroke dispatched Priory with no problems, winning 13-0 in 5 innings. Don Petrie, who from the stands seemed to throw extremely hard, pitched a 1-hitter. 13 of the 15 outs recorded were strikeouts. Only 3 batters in the 5 innings put the ball in play. Petrie had now struck out 110 Batters in 68 innings pitched with an ERA of 0.78. He had 5 innings available for the Championship game.

We had drawn Humansville high school, about 70 miles northwest of Springfield. They looked a mirror image of us. The black and orange trim on their just as old as our uniforms made it look like we were squaring off with Scott County Central. They had a 6-foot 3-inch pitcher, Mike Tennant, who as expected of a team that got this far, threw heat. Nothing we hadn't seen. Or had we? 

Humansville scored twice in the first when a 2-out ground ball went right through the legs of our third baseman allowing 2 unearned runs. They added another unearned run in the 2nd when a wild throw allowed a runner to score following his in the gap triple. 

I walked in the first and came around to score the first of the 2 we scored. I came up in the second inning and got to see what made Mr. Tennant different than the other line of hard throwers we had faced. The count was 2-2 when he threw another heater on the outside corner. I started my swing when the ball disappeared, dropping down in the dirt. The catcher couldn't handle the pitch either and I reached first on the error. I scored to tie the game at 3-3. 

Every pitcher we had faced up till now threw breaking pitches. they were of the Adam Wainwright curveball type, more of an off-speed pitch. This was different. I had just encountered a 'slider'.

Most people just say slider instead of curveball because it sounds better. Near the end of his career, Harry Carey seemed to call every pitch, whether he really saw it or not, a slider. I just read in today's local high school report of a pitcher 'hanging a slider'. I doubt it. Likely a hung curveball.

A slider looks like a fastball until a sudden break at the plate. Think Steve Carlton in his prime, Gerrit Cole among today's hurlers. They come in over 90 mph before the break.

This guy could do it, but it was hard to control and hard for his catcher to handle. More about Mr. Tennant later.

Jim allowed only one baserunner after that 3rd inning, a 6th inning walk, continuing his run of dominance. We pushed across the lead run in the 4th and then broke open the game with 4 runs in both the 6th and 7th giving us a 12-3 lead. After our last run had scored, I was standing on first and Glen was on second with 2 out. I was daydreaming about wanting Glen to break for 3rd and I could nab another stolen base going to second. In the middle of my dream, the pitcher snapped a throw to first, catching me flatfooted. I dove back to the base but, alas, too late. I will never forget the smiling face of the umpire as he said, "Son, if you could have made it look even a little bit close, I would have called you safe." He knew embarrassment when he saw it.

We had punched our ticket to the Championship game without much drama and would face off with KC Pem Day the next day. We loaded up the bus to head back to the Holiday Inn. As soon as the bus started moving, we broke into our victory song, 'Rolling in my Sweet Baby's Arms' an old-time country song. I believe Lynn, Glen, and Vince introduced us to the tune after an early district game and it had been our victory anthem ever since, another special piece in this story. By now everyone knew the lyrics, some had started adding their own extra touches, and I'm sure anyone within earshot could only shake their heads and say, "What a bunch of rubes."