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| Ty Griffith added a little local flavor for the Bucs today. |
The baseball Gods finally cut the Alaska League some slack and parted the clouds for an afternoon exhibition between the Heroes of the Diamond US military all-star team and the Anchorage Bucs. Of course, only a couple dozen people managed to make the game -- which is about what I expected for a Thursday afternoon, and is just fine with me as amateur photographer/scout/scorekeeper/journalist who brings plenty of junk to the park and needs a good seat with room to spread out -- but I had a very enjoyable afternoon at the park. I even got a little color in my pasty white face.
The game ended in a zero-zero tie; the two teams combined for seven hits overall, and one of those was pretty generous, with Bucs right fielder Colin Zimmermann letting one bounce off the wall about waist high right by him. I originally wrote E-9 on my scorecard; that's how it looked to me, but I'm not the official scorer and I could very well be wrong, and it's going in the history books as a double. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that there wasn't a lot of offense in this game and it moved along at pretty good clip, wrapping up in about two hours even.
Not surprisingly, I noted a lot of really good defensive work for the Bucs. But first, let's talk about the offense: I have a growing man-crush on Chris Serritella. He looked really good in the batting cage today, with a lot of pop in his bat, driving the ball to all fields, and displaying home run power despite the wind blowing in from left field. Maybe they should have put him in the lineup, but hey, I'm not a manager either.
On the glove end, there's several guys that I really liked today. Second baseman Ryan Pineda out of Cal State Northridge really impressed me with his quick hands and strong arm. He made a lot of throws to first and all of them were good hard ones made on a line. I have no doubt that he's got enough of a cannon to handle the far side of the infield. Pineda has some legs on him, too. He can flat out run and besides the obvious offensive advantage, it gives him superior range in the field.
Shortstop Zach Vincej made a great over the shoulder catch in the outfield, showing that he's got pretty good range and skill. Colin Zimmermann displayed some good hustle in left field, as did first baseman Joe Lewis. Both of them made some hard-nose defensive moves. Brian Bello's strong arm in center may have kept the Heroes from putting a run on the board.
Finally, some pitching. With today's game being an exhibition game, Bucs skipper TJ Bruce must have thought it was a good time to get the local guys some innings. Eagle River native Ty Griffith put up a pretty good game. I thought he looked like he was running out of gas in the top of the ninth when he walked the bases loaded with one out. But he must have caught a second wind when he struck out the next batter and induced a fly out to Bello to get himself out of the jam. Great brinkmanship by the hometown guy.
OK, so how about some photos? These are mostly Bucs photos. I got some good action photos of the Heroes but my priority was getting some face shots of the Bucs guys for future use. Below are some of the cooler ones of the set; but of course you can see the complete set of 93 photos with name captions on most of them. I also stuck around to catch the Pilots warming up and got a handful of photos of them. As always, you're free to use these photos as you wish, but please credit them to 49thStateHardball.com
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