2009 Youth League Baseball And Softball Season (1)
Winson Thai

 

Before the start of the 2009 Youth League Season, changes are made to the New York Subways of baseball. Peter Harris is sent back to school on his father’s request and replacing him is 22-year-old Ricky Ting, who is of Korean descent, so the team now has two Asian-American players. Ricky and Jamie Wang look alike, having nearly the same height and body size. New batting and pitching coaches, all female, are signed, making the Subways the first male sports team in the world to have all of their coaches be women.

The Motorgirls of softball sign two new players, 18-year-old Dana Thompson and her 23-year-old sister Adrianne. They are about 5’3”-5’4” and weigh less than 130 pounds. Adrianne will play center field while Dana will be at third. They will alternate games with Crystal Lewis and Christina Bay, respectively.

The sisters for the Motorgirls’ home opener against the Minneapolis Wizards combined go 5 for 8 offensively with three homers and make great defensive plays also. Adrianne’s running catch robs Britney Banes of an RBI double in the first. Kim Hamilton in the fourth hits a slow roller down the third base line. Dana runs, grabs the ball and tosses it to first in the nick of time to get Hamilton out. Her team wins 12-8.

Versus the Hawks in Philadelphia, the Motorgirls go up 1-0 via Jessica Dignon’s RBI single in the first off of Cory Li after a double, but the Hawks tie it off of Melissa Lang on Jolene Wallaby’s shot in the lower half. Sammie Nate’s RBI single in the third after a double puts her team up 2-1. They load the bases intentionally in the sixth off of Li and Carmen Diego. Gina Twain in relief gives up consecutive homers to Dignon and Dakota Russel, then a double. Terri Bell in relief allows single and Shelby Catalina’s sacrifice fly. She next inning permits two singles, Dignon’s RBI double and Russel’s two-run single. Lindsey Dean allows a two-out walk, single and Kyle Glasco’s RBI single in the lower half. A strikeout closes the game.

The Subways start 2009 with a six-game road trip, going 2-3 in the first five. In the last versus the Canton Dragons, Jamie Wang must wear his glasses after he pinch-hits in the ninth after losing his contact lens before this game. As he emerges from the dugout, everyone cheers and applauses. He guest starred as himself three months earlier on the sitcom iCarly where he taught Gibby to play baseball to impress a girl he liked. In the two-part episode, it was revealed he wears glasses and looks geeky when he is not playing sports, shocking many fans as they learned they had passed by him on the streets without knowing it since they did not recognize him through his glasses, which he finds odd. After that, fans requested he play with his glasses for one game. Their wish came true for this one. With Mario Ruiz on first and his team up 7-5, Wang hits Ethan Applegate’s pitch deep to left and not sure if the ball will go fair or foul, remains at home plate watching until it hits the stadium’s roof catwalk. It looks fair, so he and Ruiz circle the bases, but the Dragons say it is foul and argue with the Subways. The umpires use instant replay, where they look at T.V. camera replays in the videotape room, for the first time for Youth League to determine the right call. They show the ball was fair. The umpires return after ten minutes to give Wang a homer. New York wins this 9-6 and the set’s first game 7-0, but drops the next 7-1. Jamie at first opposed fans’ request for safety issues.

They go home for six games, taking four of the first five, but a bad base running choice by Coach Marcy Lowe costs them their last. Down 7-6 against the Minneapolis Wizards after the bullpen blew a 6-2 lead, allowing three runs in the seventh inning aided by Damien Khaliq’s error and two next inning, Ricky Ting leads off the ninth with a single before a walk to Jamie Wang moves him to scoring position, causing fans to stand, cheer and clap. Kris White bats next and, knowing he hits good and that Ting and Wang are her team’s fastest runners, Lowe orders first base coach April Chester to send them both on the next pitch. A master with base running as she had 54 stolen bases in her four years with the Arizona Wildcats softball team, Chester disagrees with Lowe, but must follow her orders. As Ting and Wang run, White hits the ball hard, but second baseman Leonard Putin leaps and catches it for an out. He then touches that base to force out Ting, then tosses the ball to first baseman Laurie Edison. Wang, caught between first and second, runs hard and slides into first, but is narrowly tagged out to finish the game-ending triple play. Fans boo aloud. Lowe and Chester argue first base umpire Robert Hill’s call, but a replay shows Wang did not beat the tag.

New York sweeps the Hawks, who fail to sweep the Storms in a three-game set at Chicago, in late April in Philadelphia and goes up 2-0 on Sean Lorenzo’s shot off of Jose Campos in the second of the first game. Adrian Bentley’s shot off of Zane Serena in the third puts the Hawks up 3-2, but New York leads 4-3 in the fourth on Campos’ bases loaded hit-by-pitch and subsequent wild pitch. Mario Ruiz homers in the sixth off of Jim Hardy and next inning hits an RBI double off of Matt Carasiti. The Subways put the game away in the ninth on Damien Khaliq’s grand slam off of Jason Lieu to win 10-3. They win the next one 3-2. Bernie Hales in the finale tosses a complete game shutout and tags Adrian Bentley on a soft ground ball along the first base line for the final out. In the fifth, Mario Ruiz hits an RBI single after a two-out double. Next inning, Jacky Martinez’s shot makes it 2-0 Subways, the final, both off of Kyle Stevens, The Hawks’ four-game losing streak is their longest of the season, but afterward, they win a season-high eight straight.

Some players on both New York teams are achieving records on the first few weeks of the season. For the Motorgirls, Erica Beach is going for career strikeout #300 and earns that against Ryan Colin of the Springfield Isotopes in the top of the third after a ten-pitch at-bat. Her team wins 9-5. Maria Abraham gets her 100th career save. Jennifer Finley is aiming for her 200th win and it takes a few tries before it happens.

The first attempt is versus the Chicago Storms on the road. Finley holds her former team to only a run over the first five innings, but Kasey Southern keeps this game close by giving up only two runs in six innings. Finley is still in line for the win, though, until Allison Holiday allows a ground-rule double in the sixth to Jessie Warden to tie the match. Chicago wins it 3-2 in the ninth on Kameron Vincent’s blast off of Melissa Lang. Finley’s husband Christian and son Al are at the game. TV cameras show their angry faces.

Her next attempt is again against the Storms, but at home. Finley permits two runs in the first, but shuts down Chicago after that. Her team ties the game on Joan Meadows’ shot in the second and leads 3-2 in the fourth on Erin Evans’ RBI single, both off of Kourtney Davis. Allison Holiday comes to pitch in the sixth, but blows it like in her last relief appearance, allowing a Janine Tanner homer that dashes any hopes of Finley getting her 200th win. She escapes the inning without further damage, but the fans boo her as she leaves the field, covering her face with her glove. She returns to throw a scoreless seventh, getting the win when Sammie Nate hits an RBI triple off of Amanda Scarborough in the bottom half. Angry at her second straight blown save, Holiday declines a postgame interview, then runs home quickly after taking a shower.

Finley loses her next two starts. First versus the Seattle Marines on the road, she allows eight runs in 4 2/3 innings as her team loses 10-1. Then versus the Vermont Rip Tide at home, she gives up just three runs in 6 1/3 innings, but is no match for her U.S.A. teammate Cathy Ohms, who throws a complete game shutout to give Vermont a 3-0 win. She finally gets her 200th win at her next home start versus the Stanton Dolphins. Despite her objection and boos from the crowd, Motorgirl head coach Jean Tamsin pulls Finley, reaching 90 pitches, from the game in the fifth with her team up 3-2, two outs and a hitter on first. Allison Holiday replaces her and the boos get louder after she allows a double, but she escapes the jam by striking out Jerri Holden on three pitches. Mandy Phillips’ two-run homer off of reliever Hollie Jones in the lower half gives insurance to her team. Holiday allows a solo blast in the seventh and gets her first save of 2009, but still struggles. She earns a 3-7 record and 8.30 ERA by June, losing four starts and blowing five saves.

The Subways fight the Eureka Eagles at home. Eureka’s Andrea Bianchi in the second allows two leadoff singles. Sean Lorenzo goes to third on a double play and scores on a wild pitch. Brian Jones tosses six shutout innings. Hayley Ericson’s bases clearing double off of Dorian Santos puts Eureka up 3-1 in the seventh, but in the eighth, New York scores three runs off of Bianchi, Dakota Miranda and Joan Len to go up 4-3, the final. Miranda gets a loss, charged with the inning’s last two runs, as Len suffers a blown save.

Many offensive records are being broken for the Subways. Against the Whales at Tampa, Kenneth House homers twice and is the first player to hit 12 in the first three weeks of the season. New York drops the match 10-8, though. Henry Williams, in his first game after the collision with Ted Husain in 2008, hits his first career walk-off homer in the ninth off of Colorado Racers’ Alison Clifford to give his team an 8-5 win. They get outhit 12-8, have four walks, hit into four double plays and strand no men. Before the blast, Damien Khaliq hits an RBI single after two walks. In the first, Loren Pierre homers off of Ariel Chung. In the third, Logan Ray hits an RBI single off of Zane Serena. Khaliq homers after one walk in the fourth. In the fifth, Cameron Toller hits a bases-loaded two-run double. Ted Husain homers off of Chung in the fifth. In the sixth, Rick Hague homers off of Serena, then again in the ninth off of MJ Esmeralda. James Cooper is seeking his 50th stolen base and caught twice, one of which ends the game, before succeeding on try #3.

Kris White is going for his 150th career hit and it is a huge one. In the bottom of the first with two on, Husain sends the first pitch from Eureka Eagles’ Bobby Eliot into the left field corner seats, then waits until it is gone officially before circling the bases for a three-run homer as fans cheer. His team wins 16-8.

Jamie Wang is the most discussed Subway member, hitting 13 blasts (including one that beats the Philadelphia Hawks 6-4 in 11 innings with Ricky Ting going 4 for 4 with four RBIs) in this year’s first 45 games. His total with the league rises to 35 and he is on track of becoming the youngest player to have 40, but not long after his girlfriend Allison began her bad pitching, he starts to struggle at the plate, hitting the ball barely beyond the infield and occasionally reaching first due to his speed. Usually, he hits into double plays or is retired when his team needs him like with guys in scoring position and they are down by under three runs. If this happens at home, the fans and even his teammates boo him, angering him. His struggles hurt his team. Before interleague play starts, they lose three games of four to the Isotopes in Springfield to end up last in the eastern division at 17-19. With Holiday playing poorly, the Motorgirls do not fare better, losing three of four at home to the Tampa Whales to start interleague at 17-16 and third in the conference.

Versus the Racers girls’ team in Colorado, the Subways get men on first and third off of Kimberly Holt on a walk and error in the first. Ted Husain’s RBI single puts them up 1-0 and another walk loads the bases, but they do not score. Colorado ties the game in the second via Cynthia Daly’s groundout after two singles off of Brian Jones, who throws a complete game. Mario Ruiz hits a two-out RBI single in the third after a leadoff walk and stolen base. Holt walks three and gets two outs in the fourth, then gets relieved by Tina Whitlock, who gives up Husain’s grand slam. The Subways get just one more runner, a single to lead off the seventh, and win 6-1, but are outhit 5-4. They lead 3-1 next game, but rain stops play in the fourth. It is eventually postponed and restarted from scratch two weeks later. Colorado wins it 4-2 to win this set.

 

 

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Copyright © 2009 Winson Thai
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