Aces send Hares into off-season

Is this the last year for the Hares?

By Than Acuff

Is this the end of an era? Not just for the Hares but for Sam Lumb? Lumb played way back in the days of the Paradise Bathhouse team and did a stint as owner/player for the Bakery Café team. After an extended break, Lumb returned to action with the Hares and wrapped up his 21^st year as a Hare and 25^th season of playing local softball spread over 40 years as the Hares fell to the Aces Tuesday night at Tommy V Field officially ending their season, and possibly Lumb’s career.

It was a dubious close for what has been a tough year for the Hares, if you focus on results, as they finished the 2024 softball season with just one win. Though that one win was against the league leading Pitas franchise.

But Tuesday evening, while still chipper and excited for another game at a beautiful field on a beautiful evening, they were short a girl, “I prefer to be called a coed,” and that spelled their demise. That and the hot bats of the Aces.

The Aces, on the other hand, continue to show signs as a threat and I can’t remember if I called them a post season spoiler, but they can be if they keep playing like they did on this particular evening.

They made quick work in the bottom of the first inning spraying the field with hits to generate seven runs. 

Mike Lauerman led off with a single and while Dave Clement made an incredible play at third to scoop and fire across the diamond to get the next batter, Bryce W. Miller singled and Tom Harken scored both with a double to centerfield. Kristi Miller and Katie Brawner came through with RBI singles, Marcus Qualls knocked a two RBI double and Lauerman returned to hit an RBI single for a 7-0 lead.

The Hares are no slouches, though some are a little slouchy but if you spent as much time under the duress of gravity as some of them have, you’d slouch too. I know I’m slouching. But whether they are slouching or not, they still get after it and they got after it in the next couple of innings starting in the top of the second. Lumb and Brian Brown singled and scored on a double from Connor Brown. Kent Fulton and Mark Bortolin tacked on two more Hare runs to pull within three only to have their rally ended with an automatic out due to their missing a player.

Miller did find one of the many gaps in the shorthanded Hares outfield to stroke a solo inside the park home run (ITPHR), but the Hares defense held them to the one lone run, inspired by a shoestring grab by Ralph Landi at shortstop, and got back to hitting and scoring in the top of the third inning.

Landi and Lumb led off with a double and a single to set the Hares up for one run on a hit by Paul Kirschbaum and then held the Aces hitless in the bottom of the third and proceeded to climb even closer in the top of the fourth inning.

Fulton and Bortolin each singled and then scored on a double from Alex Mattes-Ritz and a two RBI single by Brian and midway through the fourth inning, it was an 8-7 game.

Then things unraveled for the Hares. Or rather, the Aces turned red hot at the plate as they rattled off 12 hits to score 10 runs.

Miller did it again as he picked another gap in the Hares’ outfield for a two-run ITPHR, Derek Yeadon stroked an RBI single and then Brawner punched a two RBI double to light the fire. Qualls and Brett Gardner fanned the fire with RBI singles and then Dan Brown brought it to a blaze with a two RBI double to rightfield and then Tom Stenerson put the final touches on the blaze with a sac fly RBI and an 18-7 Aces’ lead.

Don Bunnell had something to say though and he spoke with his bat. Bunnell is an original Hare and stated rather emphatically prior to the game, win or lose, he was retiring from softball ending a career that started as a sixth grader on a coed softball team at a four-room schoolhouse in rural Indiana.

Bunnell led off the top of the fifth inning with a single and made his last trip around the softball diamond as Lucas “King of Sole” McMullan singled and Bortolin scored both Bunnell and McMullan with a two RBI triple.

But that would be it for the Hares as the Aces scored two more runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to finish off the Hares 20-9. As for the team’s future, well it was pretty obvious following the game as Fulton brought the team together and closed with, “stay healthy, see you guys next year.”

As for Lumb, while he hesitated when I first asked him, he came back to let me know he would most definitely be back next season. 

Thank God, because as things continue to change at a seemingly rapid pace both here and in the world and we’re staring down the possibility of Fat Bastard being in office four more years, the fact that the Hares and Lumb will continue playing town league softball brings some calm.