What the Deuce?!
Club Tap Destroys Lowly Concours Motors Team
It
took almost two years, but the men of Club Tap finally enjoyed a convincing
victory, and they enjoyed it in front of a record-high home crowd of 10. The victory, however, was not without its
fair share of drama.
For the first time in all
season, Club Tap had a lead after a first inning. And it wasn’t a small lead either. It was safe to say that the Tap bats came alive in the first inning. Coming into the game, the Tappers had scored
an abysmal 13 runs in their four previous games. In the first inning alone against Concours Motors, they scored 14
runs. The inning started off like so
few first innings before it had, with a leadoff walk; always the perfect way to
start a game. From there, Club Tap
simply piled on runs highlighted by back to back homeruns by Luke Kazmierczak
and James Riebe, which cleared the fence in left and the bushes in right,
respectively. In fact, the Club’s first
eight batters and 14 of its first 15 hitters reached base. Riebe complimented his three-run homerun
with a two-run blast later in the first inning. After Don Wadewitz threw strikes into a strong easterly wind and
a much-improved Tap defense held its own in the bottom of the inning, Club Tap
was comfortably ahead, 14-2.
Unfortunately, the game was
nowhere near being in the bag. Looking
to the west, huge thunderclouds were literally minutes away from washing the
game out. It looked as though the
implausible first inning showing would go for naught. However, something or someone was smiling down on Club Tap this
glorious night. The first huge wave of
storms must have missed the West Milwaukee Field by less than a mile to the
south.
Realizing that they had to
get an official, four-inning game in the books, the Tappers took to the plate
in the second inning trying to get out quickly. The loose, carefree attitude did not translate to a quick inning
in the least bit, though. Club Tap
proceeded to pile hit after hit on the devastated Concours Motor defense and
outdid its first inning showing with a 15-run second inning highlighted by
Manager Pianolegs Hanley’s first home run, a wind-gifted homerun to the shrubs
in center field. “Our guys went out
there and were not nervous or pressing at all, and look what happened,” said
the manager. “If we played that relaxed
every inning, we’d put up double-digit runs every game.”
After the long top of the
second inning, the need for Club Tap to get the game sped up grew even
larger. Fortunately, pitcher Don
Wadewitz and the Tap defense did what they needed to do and put together three
very quick frames. On the offensive
side, the Tap hitters intentionally made outs in the third inning and swung at
every pitch in the fourth en route to very speedy innings. Minutes after the game ended due to the
mercy rule, the rains came down hard.
It was obvious that some higher being wanted Club Tap to get its first
win of the year.
Though Club Tap shared a
bounty of hugs, smiles, and Blatz’s after the game, the Tappers quickly put on
their game faces for next week. The
convincing victory has served to whet the appetite of every Tap player for
winning next week against the Thumps Up Pub Chinchillas. The Tappers have been champing at the bit to
win the rematch with their archrivals to the south since an embarrassing
showing against the Chinchillas five weeks ago. Club Tap hopes to see another large crowd on hand next week at
West Milwaukee Field.