by Pete

Beat Holds On to Upend Streak Pitching and defense key to 6-3 win in exhibition finale

It's been nearly five years since the Silver Streak enabled the Beat to back into a D-league championship in the Spring season of 1994 with a 7-1 victory over the hated Chameleons, a.k.a. Consumers. In that time a special relationship between the two teams has resulted in annual springtime exhibition games in which the now C-league Beat has regularly demolished their DD opponents, including last year's 14-4 drubbing.

This year it wasn't so easy. After jumping out to a 5-0 first inning lead on Streak pitcher Ken "Hooter" Meyerhoffer courtesy of seven hits, the Beatniks mustered only one run and four hits the rest of the way. Fortunately, it was the strong complete-game pitching of Kevin Austin and a solid defense that kept the Streak in check as the Beat held on to win 6-3.

"Kevin really mixed it up on the mound and the defense saved us a couple of times," said Beat manager Peter Wenner, "but we're going to have to hit a damnsite better than this if we're to have a chance against HGA next week. Streak is a pretty good DD team, but they're older and a classification below us so we should have been able to ring up more runs against them. I mean, we can win in C with pitching and defense, but we'll be facing some hard-hitting teams this Spring, so we'd better get our hitting shoes on fast," Wenner continued, referring to upcoming opponents HGA, Nicoya, Hammertime and the unknown Mars.

In the top of the first, it looked like it was going to be a day of batting practice for the Grays. Indeed, Wenner had exhorted the troops to think that way coming in. After the leadoff hitter Austin reached on an error, shortstop Brian Arcuri lined a single and looked ready to cruise into second base on an outfield bobble as Kevin streaked to third. Sensing he'd be a duck at second on a strong throw, Brian stopped halfway and proceeded to hang up the unwitting Streaksters in a seemingly unending rundown. During this intrigue, Kevin scored and Brian outlasted his pursuers as the throw dribbled away from the first baseman.

Then the hit parade ensued. Lukoski singled Arcuri to third. Big Daddy Donnell Moody knocked in Brian with a single for the second run and Butts doubled in Lukoski for 3-0 lead following a BJ Bateman fielders choice grounder and Steve Harper flyout. With runners on second and third, Pizza Man Mike Weiss lined a clutch two-run single for a 5-0 lead. Wenner then grounded out to end it.

The Silver Streak came back with a run courtesy of two singles and a sacrifice fly. It remained 5-1 until the bottom of the third when the Streak scratched out another run on back-to-back leadoff singles and a tough error on Brian at short as a hard-hit grounder bounced off his chest and into centerfield. With two out, the pitcher "Hooter" lined an RBI-single to make it 5-3.

Both teams went down quietly in the fourth before the Beat scratched out another run in the fifth on a Mike "Don't Call Me Joey" Buttafuso RBI single to make it 6-3. That was the last hit the Beatniks would generate on this day.

With the game on the line in the bottom of the seventh, the scrappy silver-maned Streak made it interesting. With one out, Pizza Man went deep in the hole to his right at short to make a sparkling stop on a grounder by Streak manager Jay Mocklin, but the throw was short. With a runner on first, the pesky "Hooter" singled to the newly transplanted Brian Arcuri in right. With Mocklin heading to third, Brian rifled an accurate throw to Donnell at third, who applied the tag for the second out. A grounder to Butts at second for the final out sealed the Beat victory.

"A win is a win. I'll take it, but I'm concerned about the bats. All those fly balls are going to be death at Jackson #1," remarked Wenner over a post game beer before waxing positive over the defense. "Those two guys at shortstop (Pizza Man Weiss and Brian Arcuri) are making it hard for me to figure out who goes where on defense, but we’ve got a lot of depth and versatility this year. I'm really comfortable with our pitching and defense, but we've got to have more than one big offensive inning per game. That's what killed us last year. If we can keep from giving away five runs on defense every game like last year, that’ll help us and we’ll win some close ones. We'll see."

Oh yeah, batting practice at 6pm Wednesday night, Jackson #1. And next week, bring on the Huge Grimy Ones!

View The BEAT's 1999 Final Batting Statistics

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