Bottoms up! Buccos upend Red Sox behind Big Mark

As Bucco right fielder Mark Weber lumbered toward a line drive off the bat of Red Sox manager Ben Franko, a cry rang out: “Stick your glove up!” And so he did to record a game-changing out as the Buccos throttled the Red Sox 17-9.

The Red Sox held a fragile 9-8 lead going into the bottom of the 4^th in a nip-and-tuck battle “and then boom! You put the pedal to the metal,” Franco told me afterward.

“Big Mark Weber made two very good catches out there after that, with a runner or two on base, and had he not made them, it would have been a lot closer. I hit one of those and I was really surprised when he went over and made the play. Those two plays made the difference…After that, we just stopped hitting and you guys kept doing it. You made the plays you had to make to win it.”

Weber, who at 6’3” and 310 pounds, has to be the most imposing player in the LA County Senior Softball League, said he appreciated his fellow outfielder Norm Friedman’s shouted advice on where to stick his glove.

“Yeah, I heard that. It was nice to catch something. Usually, I’m out of position. (Norm) was very good about telling me where to stand. It was a reminder to get my glove up high and open the web up to make the catch.”

Weber, 59, also went 2 for 3 with two runs scored, as the bottom of the Buccos order went an astounding 14 for 18, good for a .777 on-base percentage.

This is Weber’s fifth season in the senior softball league and despite his heroics for the Buccos he’s only a 3-rated player. That could (and should) change by this season’s end. So far this season, he’s sporting a .600 OBP.

Weber, an RN who runs the data systems for the Providence Hospital network, did not play football or sports in high school, despite his massive size and build.

“I was a bit of a punk in high school,” Mark tells me. “My big thing was to walk into a show and dare someone to stop me. That was my punk thing back then.”

He’s channeled that rebellious streak into years of martial arts practice. So when this mountain man sticks that glove up, it could become a lethal palm strike.

The lopsided score against the Red Sox was a bit of an outlier in the League so far this season, which has already seen four tie games, compared to three all of last season, and a plethora of one-run games.

The outcome left both teams at 2-1-1, tied for 4^th place in the standings heading into Thursday’s slate of games. The Killebrews remain the only undefeated team at 4-0.