Göteborg Baseboll

Schizophrenic weather that bobbled between heavy rain and bright sunshine, but always windy wasn’t exactly what Ernie Banks had in mind when he would come to the ballpark and say, “Let’s play two!”, but two teams from two countries did exactly that this Sunday in Kungsbacka south of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Game one of the Division I South’s double-header between Copenhagen and Gothenburg was a pitching duel through five and a half innings. Gothenburg Sharks’ ace Martin Pennycook, who could take the mound due to the rainout on Saturday, gave up a run on three base-hits in the top of the first and it looked like Copenhagen’s bats would be on fire all day. Fortuanately for the Sharks, Martin’s fastball was sharp and his and his knuckleball tricky, as over the next five innings he methodically extinguished Copenhagen hitters. At one point Pennycook struck out four batters in a row, something that in Minnesota would have “won a lucky fan a new SNAPPER lawn-mower”. I told Martin that he had a SNAPPER “mow-em-down” inning, but he most likely had no idea what I was talking about!

Copenhagen’s starter was also on top of his game with a solid fastball and effective quick-breaking curveball. Sharks batters were only able to eek out one run through five innings. One of the most effective hits that Gothenburg had wasn’t a base-hit at all, but rather a ball hit! Sharks Jonny Edgren hit a hard bouncer toward shortstop and a bad bounce directed the ball and “cup check!”. One problem for Copenhagen’s shortstop and fleet-of-foot lead-off hitter… he had no cup. (this is the point at which every guy who is reading this say “OUCH, damn” and all women are saying, “well that was stupid, but anyway that is nothing compared to the pain of giving birth”.) To his credit, Copenhagen’s player made the throw to first to put out Edgren before unbuckling his pants and grimacing in pain!

After a fifth inning lead off walk, Copenhagen was looking to string some hits together to take a lead while Mother Nature had other things in mind. Rain began falling harder as a slow grounder bounced toward third-baseman and new recruit Leonardo, a student from Mexico. Instead of taking the sure out at first base, second-baseman Vanecek yelled, “two!”. Leonardo listened and threw an off-balance strike to second base that was a split-second late. Now Copenhagen had runners at first and second with nobody out.

Rain fell harder. Both teams retired to the dugouts to let the weather pass. The Danish guy from second base smoked a cigarette…SOOOO Danish!

I have never seen this on a pack of cigarettes, but I may give the suggestion to the Attorney General. “Smoking may be harmful to base-running”. When the game resumed a routine fly to left quickly became two outs when the cigarette-smoking Dane didn’t tag up and was doubled off second when Vanecek scooped up a throw from Curtis Dionne and tagged out Mr. Cancer-Stick. The next batter hit dangerous pop-up down the right field line that Vanecek caught up to and caught as he fell toward the foul-line.

In the bottom of the sixth inning the Sharks were looking to score one run to take the lead and close the game in the top of the seventh. Johan Weidolf led off the inning with walk. Vanecek bunted him to second and reached first on a low throw. And then the flood gates opened. The Sharks started to hit the ball and before they knew it the Gothenburg led 10-1 with the bases loaded and Vanecek up again with just one out. Copenhagen’s relief pitcher threw his first strike in three batters on the 1-0 pitch and Andy drove a sacrifice fly to left to score Tobias Angser from third ending the game. Catcher Daniel Ibarra was left in the on-deck circle just as he was when Vanecek went yard against Stockholm to end the Swedish Cup match versus Stockholm. Andy apologizes to Daniel.

Final Gothenburg 11 Copenhagen 1

Game 2

Copenhagen took two in the first inning of game two off of Shark starter Andreas Wahlin. The Sharks answered with one in the bottom of the first. The see-saw would continue. Solid defensive plays like a first and third steal situation where Leonardo threw a strike to Ibarra to gun-down the runner coming home or like the Wahlin to Vanecek timed pick-off play at second kept Gothenburg in the game. So did timely hitting…usually by Curtis Dionne who was 4-6 with two walks and two doubles in the double header.

“It was weird, but even though we were trailing the whole game, it felt like we were in charge…like we were the ones winning”, said Vanecek. “It has to do with our team chemisty. We believed in ourselves and each other today, something that we lacked when we dropped a few games the past few weeks.”

That belief was proven in the bottom of the seventh inning when the Sharks trailed by a run. Daniel Ibarra led off with a liner that was caught in the outfield. Now with just two outs to go from a loss, a lot of teams would stress. Not the Sharks. Dionne hit a double. Wahlin walked. Mattias Niklasson hit a two-strike blooper down the right field line scoring Curtis and tying the ball game. Then with runners at the corners, Jonny “ball-breaker” Edgren hit a hard grounder to short that this shortstop wasn’t willing to risk his family jewels to stop. RBI!

Wahlin scores! Sharks pull another rabbit out of their caps!

Final score Gothenburg 5 Copenhagen 4