KBUT rolls through first playoff game

Pledge now and crank it

by Than Acuff

Twenty-eight years of listening to KBUT and it still works for me. For one, it frees me up of any musical decision making. Secondly, it’s like the weather here in the Rocky Mountains: If you don’t like it just wait awhile. It will change.

Granted, it’s a bit more newsy these days but information is a good thing. There’s also Transistor Radio, Live from the 17th Row, not one but two reggae shows, the venerable audiophile Jim Michael, The Thomas Jefferson Hour, Shankar Vedantam, Lakshmi Singh (if you’re a reader of the Barrel you know how much I loves me some Singh) and probably the best radio show in the universe, Lonesome Bob. I know what you’re thinking, some of the B-side ’80s rock songs he plays test the limits of radio but there is no better way to wrap up the work week and kick off the weekend than Lonesome Bob.

“It’s my favorite part of the week… the end.”

He literally plays some songs you will never, and I mean never, hear on any radio station anywhere, and that’s a good thing.

Besides, as one previously mentioned KBUT DJ was rumored to have said, “There is no bad music—you just don’t like it.” I would beg to differ on some Yoko Ono work but that’s just me and I just don’t like it.

One thing is for sure, there is no bad softball and it’s only getting better now with the onset of the post-season. We’ve entered three weeks of double elimination ball and KBUT opened their title run in fine form against a shorthanded CB Extreme squad easing their way to a 13-2 win.

As I mentioned, CB Extreme was missing a player, specifically a woman, leaving a gap on defense and forcing them to take an automatic out when it was the missing player’s time to bat.

Nonetheless, they gave it their best. It’s just KBUT was better. Even with a full CB Extreme squad, there was no holding KBUT back as they paired patient and precise offense with disciplined and determined defense.

CB Extreme looked solid through the first four innings with the help of some exceptional defense. It all started in the top of the first inning for CB Extreme when a KBUT hitter caught the outfield playing in with a line drive that bounced to the fence in right center. As the batter looked to stretch it for an inside the park home run, a perfect relay caught the runner between third and home. As he turned to retreat, a toss to third was on point and the tag applied to stop KBUT in their tracks.

CB Extreme followed that with base hit RBIs from Lee “Mick” Demi and Katie Hubert to take a 2-1 lead and Rhett Yarbrough played out of his head at short for CB Extreme to continue to hold KBUT in check.

RBI hits from Heather Heinz and Jo “…” Ellipsis put KBUT in the lead 3-2 by the fourth inning and when their defense clamped down on CB Extreme, aided by an automatic out, they found their stroke at the plate to score eight runs in the top of the fifth inning.

While Yarbrough robbed Sohrob Nimrouzi of a base hit with a leaping grab at short, the rest of the KBUT hitters started finding gaps all over Pitsker Field with pinpoint precision hitting.

Lonnie Eichinger, Alec Lindeman and Kelley Dole rattled off three singles in a row to load the bases and Scott Stewart pushed two of them home with a single down the first base line. CB Extreme secured the second out but KBUT kept rolling as Ed Dujardin knocked a RBI double, Heinz connected again for a two RBI single and Shawn Harrington, of the Garage Street Journal, swatted a two-run inside the park home run. Nimrouzi then avenged his earlier missed base hit opportunity with a RBI single and KBUT was sitting on a comfortable 11-2 lead.

CB Extreme then had to open the bottom of the fifth inning with an automatic out and Will Dujardin pulled off a shoestring grab to add a little more salt to the CB Extreme wound.

Heinz and Ellipsis connected for two more RBI base hits in the top of the seventh inning to go up 13-2 and CB Extreme was over the experience as they went into the evening quietly and are now headed to the losers’ bracket, playing every playoff game as if it is their last.