The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Hot bats, cold rain
by Than Acuff
“How about this rain?”
Shut it.
“It’s good for the flowers!”
Shove it.
“At least we’re not in California.”
Blow it out your pie hole!
California? Don’t even get me started. They made their karmic bed years ago redirecting massive amounts of water to provide green lawns and urban sprawl, among other things.
Our current weather pattern does have its effects though and is enough to drive people mad. Not mad crazy, mad pissed. Wait until this fall when it starts snowing and people will be wandering around wondering what happened to summer. You want to see mad? People will be mad crazy and mad pissed.
On the bright side, this current weather pattern does remind me of something. When I was living here in a tent during the summer of 1992, it rained like this and, I’ll admit, it wasn’t that awesome, until the winter when it dumped, which was totally awesome. I’ll take a rainy summer if it means a snowy winter. So here’s to a repeat of that.
But I’m sure the rec league softball teams are over it altogether. This monsoonal flow has pretty much thrown rainout dates out the window and teams are just trying to get in games no matter how hard it’s raining.
Tuesday night was another case of that as the Avalanche and Elevate were forced to play despite the constant rain.
Elevate, God bless ‘em, keeps coming back for more. They had yet to win a single game heading into Tuesday night averaging just five runs per game. So, imagine yourself as a player on Elevate, 0-4 record, pouring rain and then ask yourself, would you get off your couch to go play? Probably not, but they did. Like I said, God bless ‘em.
And things didn’t start out so bad for Elevate down just 2-1 after two innings as CJ Hoover singled and then snuck home on a base hit by Grant Spear.
Things then started to fall apart for poor Elevate. Rather, the Avalanche bats turned red hot and there was really nothing Elevate could do to stop them, or the rain.
Adrienne Weil singled and then scored when Michael Blunck crushed his first of two home runs for a 4-1 lead and then it just got worse, or better if you’re an Avalanche fan or player as they proceeded to knock nine base hits and score eight runs in the top of the fourth inning.
Ian Dethloff led off with a double to center, Jill Lindros tapped a single and Mark Reaman pushed Dethloff home with a base hit. Maggie Chlipala singled to load the bases, Henry Linehan slipped his was to a two RBI double, Ron Chlipala and Ben Reaman knocked two more in with base hits and Blunck stepped up to clear the bags, once again driving a three-run shot over the centerfield fence for a 12-1 Avalanche lead.
But Elevate never dropped their heads and scored their second and third run of the game in the bottom of the fourth inning. McKinley Lenker crushed a powerbunt single that traveled a total of, maybe, six inches but fired up the team’s morale. Hoover then singled and scored when Claire Bartholomew tapped a grounder that resulted in an error-assisted RBI triple. Spear followed with a bloop RBI single to shallow center and the team was rolling, until it wasn’t, when the Avalanche returned to the plate in the top of the fifth by tacking on four more runs capped by a two RBI triple from Ben Reaman. Nevertheless, Elevate had something to still smile about as Stacie Lysko backpedalled into shallow center to make a falling grab for the highlight of the night.
The rain continued, and so did the game, but things were quiet for the next two innings until the Avalanche added three more runs when Lindros and Reaman both knocked RBI doubles and Maggie Chlipala tapped a sac hit RBI.
Down 19-3 heading into the bottom of the seventh inning, Elevate finished on a high note, scoring two final runs to reach their season average. Bartholomew and Spear both singled and then scored off a double by John Vanderheofven before the Avalanche closed out the game.
“How about this rain?”
Eat a bag of dirt.
