We continued to play solid baseball with a 4-3 win over Brockport on Thursday. Down 3-2, the big play came from John Bennett who robbed Brockport's Nick Bunce of a three-run homer (Bunce got us with a walk-off homer last year). We escaped the top of the eighth without any more damage and set up our offense for the win. Matt Casilio tied the game with a bases-loaded single. Bennett then worked a full count and drew a bases-loaded walk for the game winner.
The team approached the game with enthusiasm. We knew going in we'd be facing their ace with the game being pushed back a few days. I sent a text to our players the night before reminding them about Pete Rose's enthusiasm towards facing the best.
Back in '97, I was on the same team with Telly Helms -- Tommy Helms' nephew. Tommy was a member of the Big red Machine with Rose, Morgan, Bench, Perez, et. al., back in the '70's.
As Telly told it during a rain delay in Kalamazoo, the Reds were in Houston for a series with the Astros. Nolan Ryan was pitching the next day. Rose was so excited, he woke up at 8 a.m. for a night game and went to every hotel-room door, knocked on the door and told each player to wake and start preparing for the night's game -- 11 hours early. Rose could not contain his excitement to face the best.
A shout out to David Tubbs for following us on Twitter, and Tommy Dee who watched the game via webcast in Florida.
We are back home Saturday for a pair of non-conference games vs. Bradford. Act 3 of the Skipping the Banquet Tour continues on Monday evening.
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