In a beautiful early summer day at Running Cedar, the White Sox started the second half of their season against the Cards. Despite the absence of Coach Emeritus Grossman, the White Sox still managed to submit their lineup to the other team — Assistant Coach Wynne stood in for the missing Coach Emeritus.
But we digress… Mark set the tone for the game with a leadoff double to left. He went on to score on an RBI single by David Wynne and the White Sox took an early 1-0 lead. Again, David Wynne looked good on the mound and did not give up a single well hit ball, but a few walksks resulted in two runs by the Cards. In the second, the Sox bats were quieted and the Cards eeked in two more to take a 4-1 lead.
The Sox quickly started to make their move in the 3rd with a walk to Dominique. Mark forced him at second with a sharp groundout to short. He then moved to second on a walk to David Riddle but advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on another wild pitch. Thus the Sox cut the lead to 4-2. In the bottom of the third Wesley came on and got a quick strikeout but the next batter followed with a clean double to right, he moved to third on a wild pitch and then the play of the game happened. On a wild pitch, the runner tried to score. Nolan, the catcher, flipped off his mask, ran to the ball, set his feet, turned and flipped the ball to Wesley who was alertly covering home. The toss from Nolan beat the runner by 8 feet and the White Sox prevented a key run from scoring. The White Sox fans lept to their feet and there was much rejoicing. Int he fourth the Sox bats came alive. Daivd Wynne got an infield hit, Nolan followed with a hit and Will picked up two RBI’s with a long smash to left. He ended up on a third. Tom singled to center to score Will and the Sox led 5-4.
No one else was to score as Brettton came in and shut down the Cards to preserve the tenous one run victory.
Coach Grossman had several prior committments and we were only able to briefly catch up with him on his way to his next coaching engagement. He said “We really looked pretty good today. The score was close, but the reality was that our guys were really hitting the ball and looked very ready in the field. Also, on the bench things went much nicer than last game. The other teams in the league are going to keep improving so there probably won’t be any easy ones, but if we keep improving and working hard in practice I think we’ll be all right. Coach Goldstein said he too was pleased but “I just wish our guys would turn and look at second when I tell them to TURN AND LOOK at second — but overall I like how we are progressing.”
This reporter has just learned that Coach Grossman will not be able to attend the game on Tuesday against the Yankees due to his need to be at a memorial service for a member of his wife’s (Coach Emeritus) family. He has already given a lineup and strategic direction to Coach Goldstein. The White Sox front office said that they are confident in Coach Goldstein and they expect all of the players will play just as hard for him as they do for Coach Grossman.
