April 20

Friday night at McCaskey for the first night game of the season. Some years ago a new concession stand was built in the southwest corner of the football stadium, that required the bordering baseball field to be repositioned with home plate moved forward about ten feet southeast of its former spot. At the same time field lights and a PA system were installed with the second floor of the concession stand becoming the PA booth. When I was in school I was involved with baseball, the thought of a night game at McCaskey at that time was a fantasy. On this night Ephrata was the opponent for another crossover game, at 7:00 first pitch it was 45 degrees with prevailing winds from the west. Ephrata scored single runs in the first and second, in the home second Jonathan Metzler doubled and scored on Noah Bergey's RBI single to put JPM on the board at 2-1. In the third the Red Tornado put together a two-out rally, Alex Dominguez started it with a base hit and Joe Cunningham drew a walk. Metzler's RBI hit scored Dominguez, Bergey followed with a two-run double and scored himself on a throwing error to put JPM up 5-2. Ephrata responded with three in the fourth and one in the fifth to take a 6-5 lead. In the bottom of the sixth Evan Proulx and Zach Liss reached on back-to-back singles, Caleb McFarland's RBI hit scored Proulx to knot it at 6-6. Dylan Esh reached on a fielders choice groundout, Mason Lee followed with a two-run double to score Liss and Esh to put JPM back ahead 8-6. Ephrata put up a three-spot of their own in the seventh to go ahead by a run but in the bottom half McCaskey tied it when Proulx walked and scored on a fielding error to make it 9-9. On into extra innings (and deep into the night) we went, in the tenth Ephrata scored twice and the Red Tornado could not reply in their half. The 11-9 loss is hard to swallow because in the Ephrata seventh with two out the man at bat appeared to take a third strike which would have ended the game. The home plate umpire didn't make the call and on the very next pitch the batter had a big hit to continue the inning. Dylan Esh was JPM's starting pitcher, he was followed by Noah Bergey and Alex Dominguez with Alex taking the tough-luck loss. With it all we weren't done until almost 10:30 and I couldn't help but think of the Golden Days in Berks County before it was ruined by ego and arrogance (been there, done that, never going back). The boys have four home games left, the last three of them are 7:00 games. Maybe by them we'll have some warmer weather. Take care, thanks for reading.