Cubs top Pirates in second annual Old Timers Game
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Submitted by Ross Fleckenstein
HARRISVILLE -- There were plenty of heroes to go around at the second annual Friends of Cuyler Park Old Timers Game last month, as the Cubs beat the Pirates 10-8 in a game that featured three dozen players 50 years old and up from around Alcona County.
The players and participants in attendance shared a love of the game, relived old memories, commemorated Harrisville's Baseball Hall-of-Famer Kiki Cuyler and raised money for charity in the process.
The players themselves put on an entertaining show in front of a large, enthusiastic and appreciative crowd at Cuyler Park while also helping raise more than $2,000 for the Alcona Backpack Program which provides weekend food for area youths and their families.
The game itself was a throwback - complete with wooden bats - to the days of great municipal baseball played throughout the area and the players may have been a bit rusty, but they rose to the occasion.
The contest had a bit of everything. Timely hitting? Check, including a stellar performance from the oldest player on the field. Great defense? Check, including an infield that turned four double plays for the victorious Cubs. Solid starting pitching and great relief out of the bullpen. Check, though with a bit of a twist.
In the end, Roger Lemons of Harrisville provided that twist, pitching his Cubs to victory by saving his own win thanks to a rule for this old-timers' contest allowing a player to re-enter a game at his old position. Lemons started and went the first five innings, scattering 11 hits while managing to hold the Pirates to just three runs as his teammates staked him to a 9-3 lead. Paul Marwede came on in relief to start the sixth and left with two outs in the seventh.
He gave way to none other than Lemons who retook the mound, pitched out of a bases loaded jam to end the threat in the seventh and then retired six of the next eight hitters he faced to close out the game.
The Pirates didn't go down without a fight, though. Terry Ferguson opened the ninth with a hopper up the middle for a single, then Lemons put up back-to-back strikeouts before Brendon Jaskolski singled to right, bringing Phil Potter to the plate representing the go-ahead run. Potter battled Lemons gamely, putting up a six-pitch at-bat before going down swinging to end the game. That gave Lemons four strikeouts for the game - with three in that final inning.
Lemons' pitching prowess was matched by some solid glovework, as the Cubs turned four double plays on the day including one in each of the first three innings. Third baseman Shawn O'Callaghan was a stalwart, flashing the leather early by corralling a grounder and stepping on third before firing home to the catcher for a rare 5-2 twin killing to snuff a bases loaded rally in the first. O'Callaghan also went 1-for-3 and chipped in an RBI at the plate.
Charlie Fowler of Lincoln, pitcher for the Pirates, breezed through the first couple innings, retiring six of the first seven hitters he faced while fanning three.
Things picked up offensively in the third, though. The Pirates strung together four straight singles to start the inning, culminating with Tom Weichel chasing Winston Reeves home for the game's first run. Then O'Callaghan worked his defensive magic again, starting an around-the-horn double play to stifle what could have been a big inning before then ending the frame with a routine play to first.
The Cubs struck back in the bottom of the inning, as Kevin Rasche of Hubbard Lake banged a hard-hit double to open the frame, then moved around the bases on a wild throw to second following a wild pitch before scoring on an error. Walt McCurdy of Harrisville brought Jimmy Hart in to score before the inning ended and the Cubs led 2-1 after three. Hart played for the Spruce team in his youth, and still resides there today. They struck for three more in the fourth and another four runs in the fifth highlighted by McCurdy's two-run single. McCurdy, a 1970 graduate of Harrisville High School and the oldest player in the game, ended the day 2-for-3 at the plate with a run and three RBI. That two-inning outburst gave the Cubs a 9-3 advantage after five innings.
Another potential big inning was negated by a Cubs' double play in the top of the sixth though the Pirates did plate a run. Then, in the seventh the Pirates' offense finally clicked as they pushed across four runs with two outs. Jimmy Otsby from Mikado smacked a two-run double in the gap to left with the bases full that was followed by a Troy Sommers two-run single to center to tally the four-spot. After Marwede then hit back-to-back batters to load the bases, Lemons reappeared on the mound and induced a shortstop-to-second base fielder's choice to end the inning. But the Pirates had closed the gap to 9-8, setting up Lemons' late inning heroics.
The Cubs tacked on another run in the bottom of the seventh to make it 10-8 after Rasche laced the ball down the right field line for his second double of the day and then came around to score on an error. Rasche ended the day 2-for-3 with that pair of two-baggers all accomplished with a bat dating to 1977.
"Back in 1977, I had my favorite bat break," he said. "And there was this old-timer in Black River who told me to bring it to him and he told me he'd make me the same bat and guaranteed it will never break. Thank you Frank Brusso - who has passed away - who made that in his garage with his lathe off ash he harvested off his property."
In addition to McCurdy and Rasche, John Katona (3-for-4 with a run and two RBI) helped pace a balanced Cubs' attack. For the Pirates, Jaskolski went 3-for-4 and scored a run and Jimmy Otsby was 2-for-3 with a run and two RBI while Sommers chipped in a hit with a couple runs batted in.
"Well, it was a good game, but they did hit me," said Fowler, who took the loss for the Pirates. "It's a fun ride with a bunch of guys who haven't played together in at least 20 years. We all want to do it again next year and the fans seemed to want us back, too."