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So, yesterday, Huntington Beach’s Ocean View Little League team beat Billings, Montana’s Big Sky All-Stars to become America’s top Little League team – that means today, at noon PST, they go up against the JAPAN team to see who’s actually BEST IN THE WORLD.
If you’re worried, as I was, that this means the best players in ONE SECTION of Huntington Beach are going up against all the best players in the country of Japan, worry no longer – this is actually just the team from a little town called Hamamatsu City. But they’re pretty fierce, having just slaughtered the great Mexico and Venezuela teams, and having not one but TWO star players with the last name Suzuki (Yoshiki and Kaito.)
If you can’t catch this historic game on KABC at noon, watch this space for LIVE-BLOGGING!
FIRST INNING
Japan up first, hits, tagged out. Another out. On average our American team is 3 inches taller and 29 pounds heavier than the Japanese team. The exception is big Yoshiki Suzuki (Y. Suzuki) their star, who is up now. And HE hits and is tagged out. D’oh…
Hagen-Daas at bat – ooh – hits, tagged out. Windisch at bat – walks. Pratto up – hits and is tagged out but Windisch makes it to second! Kotkosky up – WILD PITCH gets Windisch to third! Kotkowky walks. Takada up. Flies out. Still nothing nothing.
SECOND INNING
Strikeout – our pitcher in this game (so far) is the famed Braydon Salzman (pictured above.) Our star Danner has already pitched in this series as much as he’s allowed to. Line drive caught by Cataño! Three outs.
Cataño up – possibly with good energy left over from his great catch. This blog is proud to be the only media outlet known to spell his name right with a ñ. And the only announcer to pronounce it right was whoever was with Brent Musberger Wednesday. Cataño strikes out. “Braydon the Brim” is up. The Brim walks. (That’s a reference to the brim of his hat saving him from a line drive hurtling toward his face the other day. Better than my contribution “Line-Drive Magnet.”) Dill Pickle up now. Any longer and they’ll all have nicknames. Dylan flies out, great catch by Japan’s left-fielder. Martinez up. Hits, tagged out. Damn.
THIRD INNING
Japan’s Fujita hits a line-drive single. Totsuka bunts, sacrifices in a RUN! Fujita runs in – Japan ONE to ZERO. Next, ground out. Two outs. One more ground out. Sayonara for now…
Danner’s up, he’s our man! Hagen Danner HOMER – another one! ONE to ONE now… Windisch flies out, nice catch by Fujita at third. Pratto up – line drive single! Kotkosky up – flies out. The three Suzukis on the Japanese team are not related – it’s just such a damn common name there. Mayorga up! Whoops. Strikes out.
Still ONE TO ONE.
FOURTH INNING
Matsusuda hits a single, barely gets missed by our guys. This is in dispute, it was so close… no, Matsusuda is ok on first. BIG Y. SUZUKI UP. He’s a southpaw. Struck out. He looked like he was distracted by the quickly changing weather – the sun just came out real brightly – wither Irene? Wild pitch and Matsusuda gets to second! Strike out – two outs. And another strikeout – Salzman’s sixth so far! Still tied at ONE.
It’s cool that foreign teams all look alike, while we’ve got white, latin, asian kids … that’s one thing I like about being American.
Justin Cianca at bat – hits a pop-up, should have been caught but wasn’t, made it to first – and the funny thing was it was like ONE SECOND after the announcer said “I shouldn’t be rooting for anybody here, but I AM rooting for Justin Cianca to get his first hit.” That worked. Salzman strikes out. Jack Furry up – walks. Two on base, one out. Eric Anderson bunts, Cianca forced out at 3rd (fielder’s choice) Two outs, two on base. Wild pitch, Furry sneaks to third! Danner hits, fielder’s choice, third out.
ONE TO ONE still.
FIFTH INNING
Japan hits a single. Our Salzman “pouring in great fast balls.” I would add that he also spits every second. There’s his 7th strikeout. One out, one Japanese on first base … sneaks to second on a wild pitch. Another strikeout – Braydon’s 8th, two outs. ANOTHER STRIKE OUT BY BRAYDON THE BRIM! 9 of ’em this game, 3 outs, still tied at one.
Windisch up. Go Winsdisch!!! Darn, Windisch strikes out. Pratto up! Hits grounder to left field, single! Kotkosky at bat … strikes out. That was Japanese pitcher Totsuka’s final allowed pitch. Their pitcher for the rest of the game will be Takakura. Two outs. Takata up! He speaks both Japanese and English. Takata walks. Two on base (Pratto, Takata) and two outs. Cataño at bat, flies out, caught by right fielder.
Still ONE TO ONE.
SIXTH INNING
Fujita up, Salzman pitching. Fujita bunts and makes it to first! Another single / force out at second (fielders choice) One out, a Hamamatsu Citier on first. ANother single… with great defense work we tag the other runner out at third. Another hit… and we BARELY catch the guy at first. Three outs.
At the beginning of the game, Japan won the coin toss… and opted NOT to be the home team for some reason. That means we got the bottom of the sixth to ourselves, and who knows how much mischief we could cause in the next few minutes?
Braydon the Brim at bat. Braydon walks. Dill Pickle up. He squeezes a grounder thru the infield to shallow center! He makes it to first, Braydon gets to second. One of our guys strikes out, missed who it was. Danner up! Hits, bases loaded. Japan’s defense has started to screw up more than usual. Salzman on third, Palmer on second, … never mind, Windisch hit, and Salzman forced out. TWO OUT.
PRATTO HITS WE WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And diminutive Eric Anderson, as pinch-runner, gets to be the last grinning guy to run the bases! WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!! But that song sucks ass and I’m not gonna put it up.
Our goofy mayor Joe Carchio has called a parade for Sat. Sept. 10 at 3pm –
Orange and Main Street to the Pier!
“– that means today, at noon PST, they go up against the JAPAN team to see who’s actually BEST IN THE WORLD.”……. Hmmmm
Comrade Vern, that is hate speech aimed at these who are less capable to win.
As a good ultra left moron mongoloid you should push for equal win.
All teams and all players should get Gold metal.
If not, it will leave emotional scar on their brain and will become same retards like you.
the Japanese kids just seem to be having more fun than our kids. Heck our guys want to meet Warren Buffet as a dream outing.
LOL
Yeah I agree…it’s REALLY hard to root against this Japanese team. The smiles and joy with which they’re playing is contagious!
That’s cuz you’re not from HB.
Mmm, not quite…it’s because I appreciate the attitude they bring to the game.
Obviously because they have no Liberal Teacher’s Unions in Japan to force “Ritalin” into kids as early as kindergarten to suppressed their childhood fun.
THERE’S NO SPEWING IN BASEBALL! No spewing!
Nice job with the recap, Vern. A hearty congratulations to the Ocean View team and (as a former HB kid) special thanks to whoever made them wear Edison High School’s colors!
Congratulations as well, of course, to the Hanamatsu City and all of western Shizuoka Province (assuming that Wikipedia is telling the truth about the name.) Of course, on discovering that Honda Motor Corp. was founded there, and that not only Suzuki Motor Co. and Yamaha Corporation, but also Kawai Musical Instruments Mfg. and Tokai Guitars Company Ltd., are headquartered there, I can see that it’s not exactly like playing Japan’s equivalent of Montana.
So, ya like baseball Diamond? (See what I did?)
Yeah, this is my first attempt to be a sports writer; Dan C from the Liberal OC, who coaches Little League has been giving me grief the whole time… but also some constructive criticism.
I loved the sportsmanship at the end; hugs instead and including handshakes. That always makes me happy! Congratulations to both teams but yay HB!!!!
As highly civilized white male European myself, I like good bloody fight after the game; broken noses a blue eyes, etc. That way there is always lot of entertaining bragging and laughter going on among friends in the local pub until the next game.
It makes testosterone going and chicks are turn on.
Stanley, I think most decent American chicks’ libido would plummet rapidly with the highly civilized white male’s version of celebrating a victory. Just sayin …
“American chicks’ libido would plummet”…….. Hmmmmm
American chicks have no libido.
However, highly civilized white female Bohemian chicks are different story.
*What Harry Lime doesn’t know about sports..could fill the Library in Alexandria….
Congratulations Ocean View Heroes…….fantastic. A great moment….for kids who
obviously sacrificed greatly……and found an incrediblly wonderful result. See you
at the parade on Tuesday!
September 10th…..Main Street Huntington Beach…..3PM…..be there to help
celebrate with our local Little League heroes!!