Game 26 Recap: Parks & Wreck
Coast Bust Ballers 18-5 as Beer Batter Bardowell Bashes
by Joe Horton
The Long Beach Coast scored early and often in a rare day game played in front of rainbow bleachers of brightly t-shirted students and campers on Parks & Recreation Day at Raimondi Park. If you’re going to have a blowout, have it in front of kids who are having a great time regardless.
The teams played each other even in the first inning 1-1, with the B’s scoring on a wild pitch and leadoff man Tremayne Cobb coming home. After that it was off to the races, or off to the LBC surf, as the visitors’ lead ballooned to 13-1 by the seventh inning. Nathan Hemmerling started for the Coast and went six unperturbed innings with only four hits and eight strikeouts. Jaden Collura was the only Baller with more than one hit on the afternoon.
Among the many Long Beach batters polishing their resumes today—C Derek Laferriere (4/5) and 1B Cooper Vest (4/4, 6 RBI)—Coaster Matthew Bardowell was the story: after two straight games in which he’d been the losing knockout round batter, and on a day where he was chosen as the Beer Batter and struck out his first time at the plate to great fan glee, Bardowell went on to record five straight hits, including a smashed home run in the fourth, that turned hometown glee into gloom fast.
Leehey’s homer takes flight
The game went 3h17 and felt much longer. The group of kids wearing pink shirts were the winners in the stands, lasting all the way to the end. Highlights to be found on the field included Nick Leehey’s seventh inning homer and a parade of disciplined B’s at-bats in the eighth that walked in three runs. In the Coast half of the ninth, Noah Blythe once again stepped in to pitch. His unhurried 40-and 50-mph parabolas (including at least one eephus) prompted a kid behind the plate to remark with pure joy, “Hey, he pitches as fast as I do!”
The feel-good story on an afternoon that needed one was Pleasanton-born Brendan O’Sullivan being called yesterday and appearing today in his first professional game. Dispatches caught up with O’Sullivan after the game and asked what his debut felt like.
“A little surreal. Exciting. Showed up pretty early today. Was excited when I got the call yesterday and joined the team—a local kid from the East Bay from Pleasanton.” Was he nervous for his first pro hacks? “That was probably little angst right there, a little anxious, but glad to get it out of the way.”
As a local player, does it mean more to be playing for the B’s?
"Yeah, I mean, I grew up an Oakland A’s fan, Raiders fan, so I was very angry to see them leave. I saw the Ballers come up and then followed them since the team got put into place. So, I'm excited to be here, and it's nice to be in my backyard, basically.”
And what tools does he hope to bring to the team?
“I'm just a gritty ball player. Somebody who's gonna show up every day and go balls-to-the-wall and fly around and play hard baseball.”
Odds & Ends:
Former Ballers pitcher Gabe Tanner had his first start for the White Sox Single-A affiliate Kannapolis Cannon Ballers during the B’s game. Tanner’s girlfriend and #1 fan Bella sent us some pictures at the same time Head Groundskeeper Anthony Alejandrez sat down with two Kannapolis hats to tell us the history of and Oakland connections with Tanner’s new team: they wear away uniforms with Ballers on the chest, they’re in the Piedmont region of North Carolina (and used to be, naturally, the Boll Weevils). When Kannapolis’s most famous hometown hero Dale Earnhardt bought into the team, they became the Intimidators, after his racing persona. Once Earnhardt died and his family sold his share, the team wanted a name that called forth Cannon Mills, the onetime textile giant that built this company town (and so what if the new helmeted cannon baller mascot looks just like Dale?) The takeaway, said Anthony: “Gabe found the two teams in the country named Ballers.”
Tanner’s final line: four innings, one hit, no runs, one walk and three K’s. You know what they say, once a Baller, always a (Cannon) Baller.
Cienna honored her late father Kenzie Smith before the game and threw out the first pitch; she also threw out some chirps to the Long Beach players throughout the game.
Video recap from Ben Verhoek
Joe Horton is the editor of Dispatches from Raimondi.
