Why am I calling this a Marathon? I do, in fact, understand that we were not running 26.2 miles together against Benilde.
This game was a marathon because neither team was forced to surrender in defeat in the normally allotted 7 innings. Only after 10 innings was the better team determined. That team, I am proud to inform you, was your own Hopkins Royals.
It was a long afternoon at Pat Berger Memorial Field.
For all of you who were concerned about Coach Berger's health, let me be the one to tell you that he is alive and well. Our field does not, to my knowledge, have a real name, so I figured I would give it a name, and seeing as Coach Berger has done the most work on the field over the years, I decided we should all remember that by naming the field after him. He did not die, he is alive and well.
In my first blog, I mentioned that I have a grip on the two most important skills in blogging, one of them is the lingo (simply adding the word blog to everyday words. For instance keep you blogs fresh and chilled in the blogerator), and the other being making things up. I demonstrated my ability to do the latter by giving the field a name and suddenly I'm being asked if Coach Berger is ok.
I digress.
It was a long afternoon at Pat Berger Memorial Field. By the time I left, the season had changed, I had grown a beard, and my haircut had gone out of style. Valiant efforts by Tim Shannon and Matt Sinderson on the mound kept us right in the game the whole time.
Tim's intimidating scowl caused one of the Red Knights to step up to the plate a little early which happens to be against the rules of baseball. Coach Lerner called time, slowly rose from his chair, sauntered (slowly) over to the umpire, and calmly (slowly) pointed out to the umpire that the other team had made an "Uh-Oh". He didn't ask the umpire, "Can you tell me what you were thinking out there?", but he did delay the game for quite awhile, allowing me newly grown beard that I mentioned early to gray. This counts as one-half of a Coach Lerner Umpire Chit Chat. The new total is as follows:
Umpire Chit Chats for Coach
.5
In the middle of the game, something happened that I hadn't seen since little league. Joe Melles, Red Knight pitcher, and friend to many on the team (including myself) hit a home run, and before one of out players could go chase the ball down, one of the Red Knight parents had beat us to it. The ball was safely in the hand of Joe Melles' mom. Poor Chris Code was charged with the duty of fetching the ball from Mrs. Melles, an unlucky task. Chris was booed by the Red Knight fans. To clear things up for Hopkins fans, we didn't take the ball because we didn't want Joe to have it as a souvenir, we took it because the umpire was running out of balls and the game might have come to an abrupt halt without the home run ball.
It also seemed to be family day at PBMF (Pat Berger Memorial Field). All three of the Coach's wives and all of their children were in attendance. In attendance were Coach Lerner's wife, Mrs. Lerner, and their kids Max and Sonjna; Coach Berger's Wife, Mrs. Berger, and their three kids, Leo, Gus-
Gus, and Ellie; and Coach Strong's wife, Mrs. Strong, and their new (5 week old) daughter Ella. It's refreshing to me to see a program built around family. Leo Berger told me after the game that the Berger Family was going to go to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, so I hope they enjoyed it!
After many attempts at ending the game, Matt Sinderson decided that not only was he going be a stud catcher and pitcher, he was going to end the game with a base hit right up the middle. Mattie was the hero today in a game that we won't soon forget.
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