Take Me Out to The Balgame

The Bugs got squashed, big time.

Former Major Leaguer, Jose Canseco, player-manager for the Yuma Scorpions saw his team get its butt kicked by the Na Koa Ikaika Maui team, 15-4.  And his twin brother, Ozzie (in the photo at left), who coaches third base, got his butt kicked off  the field for arguing a called out at home plate.  Jose himself had an undistinguished performance, going 0-5 at the plate, striking out three times, and then hitting two batters and giving up four runs on four hits when he took his turn on the mound.

All of this drama played out at Iron Maehara Stadium on the boundary between Wailuki and Kahului.  Over a thousand fans, including Cindy and I, turned out for the Saturday evening game played on a field of fair size (340' to left, 400' to center, and 360' to right), but with far less seating than one would probably find at a Cactus League venue.

We opted for "V.I.P" seating which meant we were sitting on plastic patio chairs at a folding table like ones that might be used for a reception in the social hall of a small church, in a cordoned off grassy area about five yards behind the left field fence and just to the outfield side of third base.  We probably would have had a better overall view of the action up in the bleachers, if we hadn't sprung for an extra $4 for the $13 "Seats for Swells" down on the lawn.  And if we had brought the beach chairs for the condo and sat just few feet back, we probably could have seen the game for a pittance or maybe nothing at all.

But we Very Important Persons had one big advantage over the hoi polloi  - we didn't have to fetch our own food and beer.  The downside is that we were sitting right in the line of fire from foul balls and in a persistent wind that gusted to about 20 mph as it pushed a bank of clouds up against the windward side of West Maui.

After a scoreless first inning, the Scorpions quickly jumped out to a two-run lead in the second.  But the local boys tied the game at the bottom of the inning.  The Valley Isle's pitcher seemed to want to give away the game, and his poor "stuff" let Yuma pound in two more runs in the top of the third.

But the Bugs from The Desert would not score again.  Solo and three-run homers by Na Koa in the bottom of the third gave them a 6-4 lead and they never looked back.

The intervals between innings were filled with contests for local kids:  T-ball hitting, a foot race down the third-base line and back, and eating a hot dog faster than the competition.

Although we had light jackets on, we would have needed blue jeans and fleece tops to keep us from freezing to the plastic chairs by the end of the game.  Even a deep-fried Twinkie and a cup of hot cocoa didn't warm us up for long.

By the end of the fifth inning at 9 pm both starting pitchers were gone, and the glacial pace of the game, caused by lousy pitching and the large number of base hits (28 at the end) and runs scored (15 total), meant the game probably would have gone on until midnight.  So we packed it in and headed back to the condo when the home team's lead was 8-4, figuring we could read the recap in the Sunday paper.