Tonight on the mound for Vancouver, Michael Madsen (no, not the actor,
the gunslinging minor league pitching prospect who leads the NWL in ERA
- thanks for asking), owner of a record of 5-1, with a 1.85 ERA, 11
walks and 52 strikeouts on 68.0 innings pitched, towered over Everett’s
hitters like a Colussus. Then he throw lots of pitches, really hard, in
places where Everett couldn’t hit them.

This, for those not up to date on the vagaries of minor league baseball, is a very good thing.

It’s
even better when, in the top of the 4th inning, Chad ‘Tum-Tum’ Boyd
(left) comes up to the plate with Anthony Recker, Isaac Omura and Mike Massaro
each having singled to load the bases. Boyd, who as we all know is a
Gamer, promptly blasted a base-clearing Grand Slam over the wall in
right field to give the Vancouver Canadians a 4-0 lead and ensure, for a change, that they’d be ahead of the opposition going into the second half of the game.


But Chadstrom wasn’t done – in the 5th inning he was back, this time
singling, stealing second base, and then tearing home for the second
time in the game on a Justin Sellers RBI single. Previously, in the 1st
inning, he’d led off the game with a double, which meant he was just a
triple away from hitting for the cycle.

That made the Canadians players happy, for a while anyway, before
tonight’s NWL Ridiculous Umpiring Call ™ followed two at-bats later.

Jeff Baisley, who had worked his way back from an 0-2 count to draw a
walk, was deemed to have been picked off at 1st by the umpire, despite
the fact that he was at the bag, getting to his feet, and practically
dusting himself off when the ball got to the 1st baseman.

It was the kind of call that makes you hate umpires with a passion
usually only shared by people with anger issues, criminal records, and
Apprehended Violence Orders against them. Or Hockey Dads.

Baisley, who works by days as a mild-mannered reporter for The Daily
Planet, couldn’t believe the ridiculousness of the call, slammed his
helmet down in disgust, and proceeded to yell bloody murder at the
umpire. And, of course, the umpire’s clever way of winning the argument
was to toss Baisley from the game, which means the 3rd baseman will be
charged $25 by the NWL in fines come tomorrow morning… just to rub
salt into the wounds.

Still, let’s not dwell on how 90% of the NWL’s umpiring crew would
struggle to find a single functioning brain between them, let’s
concentrate on Chad Boyd (right, Alison?). On the night, thus far, Boyd
was 3-4 with 4 RBIs, a dinger, a double, a steal, and 2 runs scored -
and the game was only halfway done!

The beautiful thinig about that was not that Boyd was en fuego, but
that the Everett fans, despite this being their second-last home game
of the season, LEFT THE STADIUM EN MASSE.

That’s right, the ever-supportive Everett Aquasox fan-base walked out before even LA Dodgers fans usually leave their home games, missing the 7th inning stretch entirely.

Then again, few of them would probably havea whole lot of fun watching
Mike Madsen’s unbridled pitching excellence, overmatching every one of
their hitters entirely, and holding the Sox to one hit over 7 innings,
walking one and striking out 10 before Jason ‘Death’ Ray was brought in
to pull his walk two/strikeout three routine.

‘Mayday’ Madej got in a little trouble in the 9th, loading the bases
before Dangerous Bradley Davis was inserted into the game to use his
Jedi Mind-Trick powers to get the save, but not before Everett broke
the shutout with a single run.

C’s win 5-1, and now look to tomorrow’s game to bring about a mini-series sweep and maintain their 1-game lead in the NWL West.

Which means, yes, Salem-Kaizer
once again destroyed Eugene with 6 runs in the first 3 innings,
ultimately cruising to a 6-4 win. So thanks a bunch, Emeralds – give up
on the season much?

August 31, 2005
	Final 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E Vancouver 0 0 0 4 0 1 0 0 0 5 15 0 Everett 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 4 0 wrap | box | log W: M. Madsen (6-1, 1.68); L: R. Gibson (3-2, 5.01); SV: B. Davis (4) HR: VAN: C. Boyd (1).

GAME NOTES:
* Here’s hoping the Kane County Cougars don’t make the playoffs,
because if they do, I fear we’re going to lose Jimmy Shull and Mike
Madsen to them. In all honesty, Shull and Madsen are just far too good
for this level of hitter right now, and if development is the object of
the exercise, you have to wonder how much development they’re getting
throwing 7 innings of unhittable ball to rookies. That said.. HANDS
OFF, COUGARS!

* Every C’s starting hitter managed at least one hit today, though they
also racked up 12 strike-outs between them. Then again, Everett struck
out **15 times** on the night, so perhaps the C’s hitters felt entitled
to swing away.

* Props tonight to Chad Boyd, who we’ve talked about enough, but big
yo’s also go out to Mike Massaro, who managed a pair of hits tonight on
4 at-bats with a run scored, as well as Anthony Recker, who managed 2-5
with a run of his own. But the big "nice work" back-pat goes to Justin
Sellers, who performed the perfect #2 role tonight in racking up a 3-5
outing. With his lead-off man (Boyd) going 3-5 also and the #9 getting
on base twice, Sellers kept innings alive and gets the assist on
Tum-Tum’s outing. Great work all round, C’s.