4 August, 2005

Pitching was the name of this game

The Cape Cod Baseball League lived up to its reputation as being a pitcher's league Saturday when the East squeezed out a run in the top of the ninth inning for a 1-0 victory over the West.

Colin Curtis, Orleans center fielder from Arizona State, doubled down the left-field line and scored on a double play. Curtis, who was 3-for-4 on the day, earned the game's MVP honor.

Home runs galore

Brewster's Aaron Bates of North Carolina State took advantage of an error to win The Baseball Factory home run hitting contest with an awesome display in the final after defeating Hyannis' Justin Tellam in a playoff, 5-1. The two had tied with five homers, one behind Wareham pitcher Josh Copeland.

Bates led off the playoff, in which there were supposed to be five swings for each contestant. He took it to five outs, but the fans certainly didn't mind.

He went on to surpass Copeland's five homers in the final by hitting six without making an out, and there was no doubt with most of his towering shots.

Ramblin' Wreck boasts strong arms

Georgia Tech has a full staff of five pitchers competing in the league this summer. One of them, Tim Gustafson (Yarmouth-Dennis) pitched a solid fourth inning in the All-Star game.

And one of his teammates at Tech and with the Red Sox, Blake Wood, a spectator at the game, was discussing which situation is worse for a pitcher - walking someone with the bases loaded or having a batter 0-2, going to 3-2, then walking him after six foul balls.

Wood (4-3) had no such problems Sunday night pitching at Wareham, where he threw a complete-game 5-0 five-hitter, striking out 10, giving up a lone walk, and allowing only one runner to reach second base.

Better late than never

Missing from the game for the first time in 10 years was ESPN's Peter Gammons of Cataumet.

Gammons is revered by members of the sportswriting fraternity for introducing the baseball notes column when he covered baseball for the Boston Globe in the early '70s. That kind of column since has become the prototype for similar columns in most newspapers around the country.

He was absent for good reason - finally being voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. The formal induction took place Sunday in Cooperstown, N.Y. His friend and former colleague at the Globe, Bob Ryan, put it best when he wrote "What took them so long?"

Etc.

The All-Star game crowd, estimated at more than 4,600, drifted into McKeon Field in Hyannis throughout the afternoon, living testimony to the league's popularity. More than 60 Major League scouts were evaluating the stars of tomorrow and several times that many volunteers kept the day's events moving smoothly. ... The college a capella group Hyannis Sound sang "The Star Spangled Banner" before the game and 14-year-old Kelly Mosher sang "God Bless America" at the seventh-inning stretch. ... The All-Stars were honored Tuesday at Fenway Park during the Red Sox game against the Kansas City Royals.

By Don Sherlock
dsherloc@cnc.com