Göteborg Baseboll

Opening day 2004 for the Gothenburg Sharks was filled with fireworks, from the United States rather than China. The offensive explosion that occurred this sunny Saturday in Sweden advanced Gothenburg to the Quarterfinals of the Swedish Cup. An astonishing blow out victory 24-4 over visting Stockholm.

The Sharks parade of runs began off the bat when 6 runs were scored after a beautiful 1,2, 3 inning by Sharks ace Martin Pennycook who struck out two while retiring the other batter on a tapper back to the mound.

Stockholm clawed their way back to a 6-4 deficit after a deep homerun by Stockholms import Kaneko of Japan. The game was beginning to look like it might be a battle. It wasn’t.

Shortly after some words of inspiration by catch José Riera, the Sharks came out with another 6 run inning. ”We score runs like most people buy eggs…”, commented Gothenburg second baseman Andy Vanecek. “By the half dozen!” Stockholm changed pitchers to a crafty left-hander that had stymied Gothenburg two weeks earlier in a pre-season tourney.

In the bottom of the fifth inning the Sharks could not be denied. With the score 18-4 with two outs, two runners on base and three men to bat ahead of him Andy Vanecek did some quick math. “If I get up this inning and hit a homerun, this game is over”, Andy said to former teammate and double-play comrade Lennart Karlsson. Sure enough, the Sharks kept on hitting and soon the score was 22-4 with a man on first and Vanecek at the plate.

Stockholms tricky southpaw didn’t know about Vaneceks homerun prediction, but if he did he probably wouldn’t have thrown that 2-1 fastball for a strike. Vanecek knew that with a 2-1 count that a hard fastball was going to come next, so he choked down on the bat (kids don’t try this at home) and just tried to drive the ball out of the park.

The ball hit J Lo (Vanecek’s nickname for his bat) in her sweet spot and flew high and deep into left-center. It had a chance and Andy knew it. He watched as the ball sailed out and felt like he was in a dream! A walk off homerun and a called shot…Disney couldn’t have written a better script

Final score 24-4….Sharks win!