All-Star Saturday went down on a sunny Saturday afternoon at the Hood. Once the exciting Kings conference game and the not so exciting HR derby wrapped up, many TBL legends took to the field for the Premier game
Due to Shawn Leah missing the game with injury, there was a pre-game trade to even up the odds and give the East an arm, and a fighting chance. Jack Cherry acquired Marcus “The Artist” Belardi and promptly sent him to the bump opposite Papa Joe Callaghan.
This game was quiet and uneventful through 3 innings as even with 3 outs per inning, neither team could push any runs across. Callaghan and Belardi exited after 3 and Joel Heard entered for the West..A couple hits and a walk set up Chris Toman with loaded bags and he (as he did all day) worked a tough at bat and got the RBI base on balls.
Rob “The Janitor” Scotland, normally only used to clean up a messy game, had a shaky but scoreless inning of relief before giving way to Toman, who shut the door on 3 short flyballs.
Troy Weston, who hasn’t got much run for the Rockets on the hill this year, stifled the East bats throwing a shutout inning of his own to keep things tied.
Callaghan re-entered the game to hold the score for the West and Leach tossed a clean 6th for the East to bring us to the 7th. Belardi came back in to close the door and did just that. Belardi is your winning pitcher and All-Star MVP.
This was a longggg and tense game with a playoff burby feel to it, neither side wanted to give any ground and it made for a great game. Thanks to all who came out and supported an awesome All-Star Saturday
Rob Scotland
