by Pete

The Beat Grounds Mars Attack! Balanced offense dominant in 20-11 rout. Austin masterful on the hill.

Any fears that a 2-week layoff following The Beat's 23-9 Game One thrashing of The Other Guys would dampen the team's momentum were quickly quashed as Cafe Mars became the latest victim of the black & gray blitzkrieg offense and air tight defense. Cap'n Kevin Austin continued his dominance over Mars by allowing just 5 hits and 2 earned runs over 4 innings to keep Mars off-balance and well behind, while the relentless Beat offense did its thing. In jumping out to 2-0 to begin the Spring season, the exciting Beatniks remained in first place as the undefeated Mad Dog in the Fog (1-0-1) was idle this week due to a bye.

With opening-day hero John "The Bomber" Palmer sidelined with babysitting duties, the juggernaut Beat offense was still good for a couple of touchdowns and field goals. The Boys in Gray took advantage of their speed to opportunistically frustrate Mars with aggressive baserunning. Sparkplug catcher Gunnar "The Splendid Stump" Rosenquist went 4 for 4 with a double and two RBIs to win a share of the game ball with Kevin, while rookie walk-on Dave Maxion debuted impressively at shortstop with a 3 for 4 day, including 2 doubles, a home run and 4 RBIs. Jim "The Thrill" Colletto also chipped in with a home run, triple and 4 RBIs on a 2 for 3 day.

Early on, it looked as if the usual pitching duel between Mars and The Beat would ensue as the score held at 3-2 after 2 innings. In the top of the 1st inning with 2 out and 2 on, Jim Colletto jumped on a Gysels pitch and drove it hard down the left-field line past the diving McCune for a 3-run homer. In the home-half of the 1st, Mars struck back for 2 runs on a 4-base outfield error on Stan Fukuda's center-field flyball. Both teams went down quietly in the 2nd.

In the top of the 3rd, the suspect Martian defense let down. Speedy leadoff hitter BJ Bateman reached for the 2nd time that day on an error by the 2nd-baseman Brook. Kevin followed with a drive that bounced off the left-center fielder's glove to put runners at 2nd and 3rd. After Mark "The Cottenmouth King" St. George was called out on batters' interference for stepping on the plate, the wind whipped up just in time for Donnell "Big Daddy" Moody. After fouling off a pitch, the fearsome slugger drove a blast over the left-fielder's head for a bases clearing 2-run triple to make it 5-2. Colletto followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 6-2. Mars came back for a run-scored on a sacrifice fly of their own in the bottom of the 3rd to make it 6-3.

The Beat fireworks really got going in the visitors' half of the 4th. Former Martian ringer Brian "The Rifleman" Arcuri led it off by drawing a base-on-balls. Gunnar-man followed with an opposite-field double down the right-field line to put runners on 2nd and 3rd. Rookie Dave Marks hit a hard shot at the shortstop Lillianstein who let it bounce off his glove while Brian alertly scored. With runners on 1st and 2nd, veteran Greg "Lucky Lukie" Lukoski lined a 2-2 pitch to center to score Gunnar and make it 8-3. After a swinging bunt by Mark "Eminem" Melin put runners on 1st and 3rd, the normally sure-handed 3rd-baseman Gamble booted a hard-hit Bateman grounder to make it 9-3. That set the stage for some heroics by mound ace Austin. Feeling especially virile with a big lead and nothing to lose, Kevin lined a shot down the left-field line which bounced over the hapless left fielder for a 2-run homer to make it 11-3.

Mars threatened in the bottom of the 4th to make it 11-5 with 2 quick runs scored on 4 consecutive singles, including a 2-run rope by the outfielder "Norma" Desmond. "Special K" then settled down to get the next 2 batters on flyballs to Lukie and heads-up force at 2nd on a grounder to the Beat shortstop Dave Maxion.

In the Beat 5th, the floodgates opened in dramatic fashion and solidified our hold on the lead. JC led off with a booming triple and the rookie Maxion followed with a long home run off a flat illegal pitch to make it 13-5. At that point, the Martian defense broke down completely. With a big hole up the middle, Brain popped a high fly that dropped into the chasm between the on-rushing middle infielders and out-of-shape centerfielder. Arcuri adeptly motored into 2nd as the outfield relay scooted past the 2nd baseman Brook. Without breaking stride, Brian took 3rd on the error. Singles by Gunnar, Lukie and BJ blew the lead out to 16-5 by the time the dust cleared.

The wily veteran and Beat co-founder Dennis "OB" O'Brien came on in the bottom of the 5th to protect the Beat lead with an efficent inning of relief. With the score at 16-6, the Beatniks hung up another 4 runs courtesy of doubles by Big Daddy, Maxion and "Yours Sincerely", with my second pinch hit in as many games. Mars mounted a gallantly futile 5-run comeback off OB in the garbage-time 6th but unlike last Summer, it was too little, too late.

The happy Beatniks headed off to the trees inside the right-field foul lines for another festive postgame party and watched the Cool Dudes outlast The Other Guys for an 11-5 win. Heading into the meat of the schedule with back-to-back games against the 1999 C-8 champion Cool Dudes and the upstart Mad Dog, The Beat was quietly confident in its ability to meet the task ahead.

In a postgame interview from his Sonoma ranch, the winning pitcher Austin remarked "We're playing like we did in the championship summer of '95. This is the season we've been dreaming of, when everyone hits every game. We've always said this team has potential and it just needed to come out. Now all we need is to be consistent.

"The subs are good now. We're deep," Kevin continued. "We've got four sluggers in John, D, Jim, and Dave, and we've yet to play a game with all four of them. G's hitting like he's possessed. BJ's getting on base. This team excites me."

Me too, Kev. Stay tuned next week!

On The BEAT News Archive