No Lights, No Baseball At Fuller Field

18 July 2008


 



A large crowd packed the stands and hills at Fuller Field last night just waiting to watch a baseball game between the Falmouth Commodores and Orleans Cardinals. For a bit over an hour they watched ballplayers from each side throw balls around the outfield, and joke around with another. What they never did see, though, was an actual Cape Cod League Baseball game.
A power outage in downtown Falmouth left the ballpark without use of its lights or scoreboard. With a scheduled 7 PM start time both sides decided it would be in their best interests to not start the ballgame until either the lights came on, or they knew that they would be coming on soon. A little after 8 PM the game was postponed. An August 4 makeup at Fuller Field has been scheduled.

“What can you do?,” said Falmouth General Manager Dan Dunn. “We didn’t want to get our pitchers going and then have their starts wasted because we ran out of light.”

The Commodores were hoping to get back above the .500 mark when they took the field last night. The team evened its record at 13-13-1 in the ultra-tight west division with a win over Brewster on Wednesday evening on the road, 7-6. The Commodores rallied from behind, scoring twice in the seventh inning to tie it and then once in the eighth to win the game, which was shortened to eight innings due to darkness at Brewster, which is a ballpark without lights regardless of the power situation.
With the win, the local team tightened things up in the west division race, although the team is still currently residing in fourth place overall. With 27 points in the standings Falmouth is just two points behind third-place Cotuit and three back of second- place Bourne. Hyannis, at 16-12, is five points ahead of the Commodores.

Down by a 6-4 score heading into the seventh, the Commodores were able to produce a pair of runs with just one base hit to their credit. The rally started when leadoff man AJ Pollack (Notre Dame) worked himself a base on balls and then stole second base. Pollack would hold at second on a groundout by Joey Wong (Oregon State) and remained at the middle bag when Trevor Coleman (Missouri) walked to put two aboard for the Commodores.

A pitching change followed the base on balls and the hot-hitting Jim Cesario (Houston) greeted the new hurler in a rude way, knocking an RBI-single to right field to score Pollack and advance Coleman all the way to third base. Coleman would then score on a groundout by Kevin Nolan (Winthrop), which made it a 6-all game.

In the eighth Falmouth got the winning run. Again the team’s leadoff man in the inning set the stage as Ryan Jones (Wichita) started things off by doubling to left field. He then went to third on a groundout by Darin Ruf (Creighton) and then scored when newcomer Brandon Macias (Mountview CC), who was playing in his first game with the team, lifted a sacrifice fly to left field that brought home Jones with the go-ahead run.

Preston Claiborne (Tulane) came on in the bottom of the eighth and closed out the win, picking up his second save of the year for the visitors. Claiborne got the first man he faced to fly out, struck out the next batter and then ended the game by getting a ground ball to first.

Reliever Jon Kountis (Ohio Dominican) picked up the victory for Falmouth on the hill, improving to 2-2 on the season. Kountis worked two scoreless innings of relief, allowing three hits while striking out four. He did not issue a walk.

Falmouth had scored first in the game, taking a 2-0 lead in the top of the second on a two-run single by Jones, who went 2-for-4 in the game. Brewster tied it with two in the bottom of the inning and then took a one-run lead in the third. Falmouth came back to take a 4-3 lead with two more in the top of the fifth on a two-run double by Cesario, who had three hits in the ballgame. Brewster then went up 6-4 with three of its own in the bottom of the fifth.

The Commodores are back in action tonight, traveling to Cotuit for a 5 PM game. Tomorrow the team hosts Bourne at 5:30 PM. Sunday the team visits Wareham at 5 PM and Monday it’s at Bourne at 7 PM.
 


 


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