It was a humid, soggy, overcast day on Sunday, August 13, when the Sand Crabs visited the Rangers in the regular season finale of the MABL of SoWi 45+ division.  The wet weather weighed wearily on the bats of both squads, but the pitchers had a field day. Randy Gaber straddled the white rectangle for the Crabs, and Jeff Kunkle for the Rangers.  Both pitched brilliantly, as did their relievers, Troy Galston and Jason Witt respectively.

Bill Nolan and Chris Witt had 2 hits for the Rangers, who also got a rare EMLL triple from Paul Yurkovich.  Duane Walz was the lone Crab with 2 hits, but Brian Buol had two RBI while reaching on 3 Ranger miscues.Chris McGill knocked in a couple as well, and Jim Pliner made a dazzling and dizzying catch of a popup to short left in the bottom of the ninth to help seal the 6-3 victory for the Crabbers.

Both teams are back in action next week, for the first round of the playoffs.  The Rangers secured the second seed and the Crabs the first seed.  The Rangers also announced that next week’s promotion is Gene Rice bobblehead day!  When reached for comment, Gene didn’t say much of anything, he just kept nodding……..

On a drizzly sunday for the regular season finale the Crawfords sent catcher Paul “Paulie” Meyer to the hill for his first start of the season and only his 3rd appearance and he made manager Sean Michael Dargan look like a genius with 6 dazzling innings of 5 hit ball, giving up only 3 runs backed by some stellar defense. Jeff Adas, who has spent much of the summer in the Arizona instructional league trying to rekindle the magic was called upon to close out the game and he did in spades, firing 3 no-hit innings with 3 k’s to get the well earned save and a much needed rebound victory for the Craws after a not so great shellacking last week.

Playoffs (playoffs?) start next week with the Craws going up against the upstart Rangers in what has been a mostly one sided matchup in favor of the Rangers all season while the O’s look to rebound and pull off a shocker against the mightu Crabs.