Despite the "earliness" of a rain-soaked spring 2001 season, which left both teams playing only game 3 in week 6, another Cool Dudes/Beat matchup took on the specter of a playoff game. Due to a 9-7 loss to the surprising Rhinos, the Other Guys had been knocked out of the C-6 first place perch, leaving Cool and The Beat tied for 1^st place with identical 2-0 records.

Early on, it looked once again as if The Beat would exorcise the 4-time division champion Cool Dudes from its collective psyche. The boys in gray jumped all over C-league dominatrix Victor (Slick Vic) Loggins for 5 runs in the visitors' half of the 1^st inning and gamely extended the lead to 8-3 in the 3^rd. But true to form, "Slick Vic" settled into a histrionic groove to hold the Beatniks scoreless on 3 hits over the final 4 frames. Strawberry-esque cleanup hitter Carl Thompson tortured Beat pitching with a 4 for 4, 6 RBI day, and put Cool ahead to stay with a prodigious 2-run blast into the right field tennis courts off veteran tosser Dennis (OB) O'Brien in the bottom of the 5^th to make it 10-8. The Cool Dudes then proceeded to tack on 3 insurance runs in the 6^th to put the game on ice.

Perhaps a harbinger of things to come, manager Pete Wenner learned on Thursday that sparkplug lead-off hitter Gunnar Rosenquist (1.000 OBP in 2 games) would have to fly to Dubuque, IA on Friday to attend the funeral of his grandmother, who had passed away earlier that day. Gunnar's absence thrust rookie speedster Jacque Wilson into the leadoff spot and 2^nd year man Javier Urdiales behind the plate.

Nevertheless, the Beat got on the board in their first at bat as Jacque (3 for 3, 2 doubles, walk) led off the game with a bloop double. Kevin (Special K) Austin, Mark (Cottonmouth King) St. Georges and Donnell (Big Daddy) Moody followed with consecutive singles to make it 2-0. On the heels of a walk to Jim (The Thrill) Colletto and a RBI e-6 grounder by Mike (Pizza Man) Weiss, Greg (Lucky Luki) Lukoski lined a 2-RBI single to make it 5-0. A fielders choice by Bob (BJ) Bateman and a single by Brian (The Rifleman) Arcuri pushed runners to 2^nd and 3^rd on the throw attempting to get BJ at 3^rd base. Stuffing a Beat threat to add to its lead, the left-handed Loggins induced lefty EP Pete Wenner to ground out to 2^nd to end the threat. With runs at premium for the Beatniks as the game ground on, this failure to extend the lead would offer one of several subplots that’d later loom large.

Cool struck back with 3 runs of its own in the 1^st as Thompson knocked in 2 runs with a one-out single following an error by the Beat 3^rd baseman MSG. However, the Beatniks snuffed out further damage with 2 out when the Pizza Man, starting at shortstop for Dave Maxion, took the relay throw from Jacque, who had tracked down Gustavo Cubillo's deep drive, and hit the cut off man Big Daddy in front of the pitcher's mound. Alertly, Big D personally ran over to catch Cubillo dead in his tracks halfway between 3^rd and home for the final out of the inning.

The Beat made it 6-3 in the 2^nd on MSG's RBI single to plate Jacque after his 2^nd double of the afternoon. Kevin got the Cool Dudes to go down quietly on 1 hit in the home half of the 2^nd.

In the top of the 3^rd, the Beat rallied again. The Thrill tripled to right center on a deep drive that caught the jet stream and glanced off the top of Manuel Vargas' glove as he backtracked on the ball. Colletto scored on Pizza Man's RBI groundout to 2^nd. BJ then singled and scored to make it 8-3 on a boot of Dave Maxion's hard grounder by the Dudes 3^rd baseman. But the Beat missed a chance to cause further as an aggressive Brian (who had earlier doubled) was picked off 3^rd on the short relay throw.

In what could have been a sudden change in momentum, the Dudes battled back in the bottom of the 3^rd with 4 runs of their own that occurred in lightening strike fashion. Kevin walked fellow pitcher Vic to start the inning and the courtesy runner, Rigobento Quebarra, steamed to 3^rd on leadoff hitter Harry Moreno's single. Quebarra scored on Malvin Berrios's fielder's choice grounder to Max at short and 3 more runs crossed the plate on RBI singles by Vado, Thompson, and Coojios in the heart of the Cool order. Only an exhilarating Maxion-to-Arcuri-to-Moody double play could preserve The Beat's pencil-thin lead at 8-7.

The Beatniks went down weakly in the 4^th before the Dudes tied the score at 8 in the bottom of the inning on Vargas's RBI single.

The suddenly cold Beat bats could only muster 3 more hits in the final 3 frames as Cool surged ahead 10-8 on Thompson's booming blast over the tall right-field fence in the 5^th. BJ and Pizza could do nothing but stand and admire the rocket's red glare as did the Cool Dudes' bench. Thereafter, the Victor Loggins' comedy act--which really wasn't all that funny to The Beat--took over the game as the home plate blue called "6 minutes" as the bottom of the 6^th began. In that inning, the Beat tried an appeal play on the Cool courtesy runner Quebara (for Loggins), who appeared to have left 2^nd base early on a stellar catch by Jacque backing up in left center. Vic gestured and jawed animatedly as the umpires, ruled that Quebara had not left too soon. Following the controversy, a 2-run single by Vado and an RBI single by Coojios to make it 13-8, effectively sealed The Beat's fate allowing the Cool Dudes to take over 1^st place in C-6 after the Beat stranded 2 runners in the top of the 7^th.

Regardless of the disappointing loss, it was an exciting game and, similar to their epic matchup last May, this Beat/Cool Dudes' matchup didn't lack for drama. The losing Beat team can take some satisfaction in playing the Dudes much closer than previous opponents for most of the game, but it smarts to let a game slip away courtesy of a team-wide 4-inning offensive brown-out.

Fittingly, in a post-game interview from his perch in Sonoma, Beat pitcher Kevin Austin said "I think this was one of those games where no one walked away really feeling bad, but everyone walked away with one thing they wished they'd done differently."

In other league action, the Renegades evened their record at 2-2 with a 10-5 win over winless Finnegan's A+B. The Van Ness Monsters, still looking for their first win, were thoroughly annihilated by Joey J's 33-5.

Stay tuned next week as the boys in gray take on The Renegades in what could be a pivotal matchup with ramifications on The Beat's hopes to stay in title contention this spring.

On The BEAT News Archive