The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
It was a punky reggae party
by Than Acuff
Not only was it a punky reggae party, but also it was a revenge game 11 months in the making. Just under one year ago, the Rent-A-Gades tore up the Rasta Hairnets 31-12 when the Rastas had returned to the local leagues after a four-year hiatus. This time, the Rastas rose up and beat the Rent-A-Gades like a… wait for it… like a rented mule 24-11.
The Rent-A-Gades showed up for the game with a brand new Miken Psycho bat in their bag and were looking to go psycho with their new bat in the opening inning. Base hits from Lauren Alkire, Jeff Snyder and Emily Ocanas scored their first run. Peace Wheeler then singled to join Ocanas on the bases and Ryan McCudden cleared the bags by clearing the centerfield fence with a three-run home run, putting the Rent-A-Gades on top 5-0 and looking to repeat the crushing they handed the Rastas early last season.
But the Rastas had some fireworks of their own and came right back in the bottom of the first inning with a similar mix of patience and power at the plate.
Johnny Green—you may remember him from last week’s article as some guy named Johnny—crushed a two-run home run. Reba Ares and Ed White each smacked base hits and Jesse Smith drove them home with an error-assisted double to pull the Rastas back to within one run.
Mikey Strauch flared a triple to deep right and scored on a single from Alkire for a sixth Rent-A-Gades run, but the Rastas remained in the zone at the plate to score four more runs.
Arliss Merrell, fresh off his recent wedding, led off with a single, followed by a single by Linn Moore. Both hoped to score when Merrell’s best man, Jack Wadden, came out of the stands with a Rasta jersey on underneath his civilian clothing and picked up a bat. The hope was Wadden, hailing from Boston, would bring some Back Bay, Jamaica Plains or even some Roxbury powah to the plate but his plate appearance proved otherwise as he popped out.
Regardless, Shelby Deutsch, who claimed she didn’t even know what to do, also proved otherwise as she connected for a RBI double. Green pushed two more Rastas to Babylon with a two RBI double and Ares stroked a RBI single for an 8-6 Rastas lead.
White then brought the heat to the mound for the Rastas as he fanned two Rent-A-Gades and the Rastas scored two more runs on hits from Smith and Ali McGuire. The Rent-A-Gades remained ice cold as the Rastas continued to pass the dutchie to the right-hand side at the plate to score six more runs as Emily Crooks joined the usual Rasta suspects to add in two of the six runs with a double.
While the Rent-A-Gades continued to struggle at the plate and in the field some, the Rastas kept on chooglin’ (mixed musical metaphor) when a series of base hits loaded the bags and Green did what he often does, cleared them all with a towering grand slam home run. The Rent-A-Gades saved some face, scoring three runs in the top of the sixth, but the Rastas officially eliminated all hopes of a comeback when they tacked on three runs of their own in the bottom of the sixth and rolled through the final inning to the 24-11 win.
