Oh what a weekend it was. Super Saturday Was Full of drama and celebration. Rob Scotland has the lowdown.
A mid-summer classic 10 years in the making went down Saturday afternoon at The Hood. Yes, this was the 10th installment of the TBL’s annual event and perhaps the most star studded and intriguing to date.
Jack Cherry was called upon to assemble the very best of the Premier and with stars from multiple generations of the TBL such as Joe Callaghan, Kevin Leach, Matt Kowall and even the founder himself Adrian Golombek...this team had every ingredient needed to follow through and show why this is where the big boys play.
The Kings Conference was not ready to back down or conceed anything. Led by a former Premier division starter named Scott Baker, along with the likes of Andreas Constantinou, Darren Osborne, Marty “The Virtue” Patience among others, this team was loaded with former Premier players and rising Kings stars.
After a fun, if not uncomfortably hot homerun derby which saw the likes of Chris Toman, Rob Irvine, Luciano Perna and Matt Kowall fight it out til the end, it was eventually (not shockingly) a Beach Duster who would win the annual power showcase as Toman won the derby(his first) in walkoff fashion with help from perennial derby pitcher Gary Massey. With that out of the way, it was time to get down to business.
Joe Callaghan and Scott Baker got the starting assignments and came out slinging. Despite a couple hits and minor threats the game remained scoreless until a player clearly holding a grudge for not being in the derby decided to start one of his own in the 3rd inning. Kevin Leach launched a no doubter onto Boultbee Ave to make it 1-0 Premier.
The Kings would get strong relief from Duane “The Rock” Cobham, Massey and Andreas to keep the Premier constantly off balance and frustrated. With momentum starting to swing in their favor the Kings began to chip away when Leach entered in relief, eventually leading to Andreas knocking in a run to tie it up in the middle innings.
The defense and pitching took over from there. Rob Scotland and Duane Cobham went back and forth with key catches in the outfield as neither team could string anything together. 1-1 after 9 innings thanks to excellent relief work from the aforementioned Kings relievers and the likes of Kowall, Toman and Naazim Sufi keeping things clean for the Premier.
1-1 after 10. 1-1 after 11. The sun coming and going from behind the clouds as both teams desperately searched for water and offense. The squads agreed to play one more inning (the 12th) before switching to modified rules to determine a winner a little quicker. Jack Cherry had a different plan. With Muzafar “The Moose” Malik in relief duty, Cherry joined the Dusters homerun parade by tattooing a pitch across the street to put the Premier ahead 2-1. The former Kings conference standout Naz Sufi would stay in the game and continue his dominance with a tidy bottom of the 12th recording a 2 up 2 down to lock down the win.
When this format was introduced it was no suprise to see both teams chirping about how and why they would win the game but it’s truly been an eye opener that both divisions are stacked with solid ballplayers who are competitive and this was anybody’s game to win. Hats off to the Kings for a tremendous showing. The MV-3 for this game were Cherry (game winning homer) Baker (lights out pitching) and Sufi (carried to Premier staff across the finish line)
See you next year
Rob Scotland
