Sharp Glass
With one final chance to prove their playoffs worth, teams came to the field with a sense of urgency to get the job done and put themselves in prime position for next week’s playoffs that will determine the champs. While the atmosphere on the field was as competitive as ever, the atmosphere off the field was as social as ever. A couple of hot grills on a chilly evening helped the teams and their fans stay warm and cold ones let them toast to the end of a great regular season.
After watching Big Brown Stix fall to Pitch Slappers in the first leg of their double header, The Jerks welcomed Sharp Glass to the diamond. The Jerks, who are a staple of our Monday night league, were looking to pull off the upset and severely damage Sharp Glass’s playoff seeding, while Sharp Glass was looking to represent their company and have an A+ performance on the field to go along with their A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. An enthusiastic crowd watched Sharp Glass jump out to an early lead on the back of their sharply hit balls that had the Jerks scrambling to limit the damage in the top of the first. Five runs and allowing none in the first inning gave Sharp Glass a great boost of confidence as well as the early lead. In the second, power was on display as Sharp Glass played long ball to increase their lead albeit it was only a two run bomb and in the world of softball that’s going to cost that gentleman a case of cold ones for breaking one of the golden rules. Three more runs in the inning increased their lead to eight and that’s when the Jerks finally said, “enough”. In the bottom of the second their bats came alive and chipped away at the lead with a pair of runs and executed a shutdown inning in the top of the third, but Sharp Glass came back with caused them to get a goose egg in the bottom half despite some extremely hard hit balls. On the defensive side of the ball, the hot corner at third was a major area of action throughout this game with both teams’ third baseman and basewoman displaying some highlight plays to save runs and get crucial outs. With another five runs in the top of the fourth, Sharp Glass cruised the rest of the game to secure the second seed in next week’s playoffs but as we all know, in the playoffs anything can happen and it usually does.
Cheers to all the teams for a fantastic regular season. Next week promises to be a night of intense emotion as teams will be overjoyed with the thrill of victory or heartbroken with the crushing blow of defeat. One thing is for certain, we will all enjoy watching it unfold. Until next Monday, cheers!