Buccos 'razor sharp' in overcoming injury to skipper and limping to championship game

Media personality and Bucco outfielder Doug McIntyre is subbing for Bill Tarrant in writing this week's Bucco blog post. Tarrant was knocked out of the game with a massive leg cramp. 

        By Doug McIntyre

The underdog Buccos shocked the top-seeded Archies, in a 'razor sharp" performance after their pitcher and manager went down with an injury propelling team Black and gold to this week's championship game.

“You thoroughly kicked our ass”, the top-seeded Archies’ skipper Rich Steinmetz told Buccos manager, Bill “Pittsburgh Bill” Tarrant after the contest last Thursday evening. “We weren’t hitting the ball as well as we could because of your stellar defense”, said Steinmetz, who coaches special teams for the Venice High School football team. “After that, we lost our confidence and some of our mojo.”

Jumping out to a 1-0 lead, the game remained a nail-biter, with defense dominating. Knotted at 4-4 after four innings, it looked to be close to the finish.

But then an odd turn changed everything: while sprinting to second, “Pittsburgh Bill” collapsed in a heap with what appeared to be a season-ending injury. A hammy? Calf strain? Maybe a gunshot from a Balboa Blvd. drive-by? With a teammate on each arm, Tarrant gimped to the bench where he was expected to remain.

But the bench be damned!

Like Knicks legend Willis Reed in the ‘69/’70 NBA finals, Tarrant limped onto the field for the bottom half of the inning. Unable to pitch, he switched with Buccos super-utility man, David Aguilar, taking first base, hobbling into foul territory to recover a rare Buccos errant throw, and firing a strike to home. Patty Rebbe, showing a nice target with her mitt, snagged Tarrant’s toss just nailing the runner for an out. Steinmetz cited the play as one of several that deflated the Archies.

In the top of the next inning, Tarrant-- showing more guts than an Octoberfest beer hall—stood on foot at home, and drove in Doug McIntyre, who had made it to third, completing a four-run fifth inning and giving the Buccos a lead they would not relinquish.

"You guys were razor-sharp," said Steinmetz, an actor by day, known for recurring roles in daytime soap operas as well as Broadway shows. He said he started to get worried driving up to the field when he saw a half-dozen or so gold Bucco jerseys on the diamond practicing before the game, "while our guys were straggling in."

After his Lazarus-like return from the dead, Tarrant was finally persuaded to take a seat, but only after Mark Lambert rounded up the Softball Junkies’ Bob Sherwin to sub for “Pittsburgh Bill.”

The Buccos poured it on in the 6^th, scoring eight times, with huge contributions from the bottom of the order and sterling games from the usual suspects: Greg Waskul, Joe Blackman, David Aguilar, Lambert (Ed. note: and Doug McIntyre).

Twice the Archies chose to intentionally walk batters only to pay the price, with Gene “The Russian Bomber” Sherman blasting a ball over the head of the right fielder and bringing in a runner from third on one of those gambits.

“Pittsburgh Bill” Tarrant was raised in the Steel City where he caught the baseball bug while listening to the 1960 World Series champion Pirates on the radio with his dad. As a teenager, Bill patrolled the stands at Forbes Field as a vendor, more interested in watching Roberto Clemente than selling hotdogs or Cracker Jacks.

After attending tiny Albion College in Michigan, Bill earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. With sheepskin in hand, he launched his career in Boca Raton, Florida where he worked for a local newspaper that no longer exists. Passionate, quick-tempered, and filled with youthful bravado, Tarrant butted heads with his editor which is why he is not known as “Boca Raton Bill.”

With free time on his hands, Bill visited his brother in Bandung, Indonesia, and rode across Java on a Harley-Davidson while sending freelance travel stories to magazines such as “Destinations.” On the road, he met an Indonesian journalist who tipped Bill off about an English-language start-up, “The Jakarta Post.” Intrigued, and unemployed, Tarrant parlayed his journalism degree into a position with the neophyte newspaper, training staffers in the ways of layout, copy editing and the other fine points of journalism. This quickly morphed into an editor’s position, including front page editor, all while still in his 20s.

This was not an easy gig. Indonesia was under the thumb of a military dictator, Suharto, who did not care for reporters, especially foreign journalists. So, when the Associated Press, Reuters, New York Times, etc., needed information for a story, they had to seek out local journalists on the sly. Reuters quickly recognized Tarrant’s talents and hired him away from the Post. “Pittsburgh Bill” was now “Jakarta Bill.”

Over the next four decades, Tarrant was “New Delhi Bill”, “Kabul Bill”, “Kuala Lumpur Bill” and “Seoul Bill.” These posts saw him in the center of dramatic and earth-shaking stories - sometimes literally, like the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that killed nearly 230,000 people – as well as the conflict in Afghanistan, the Cold War standoff along the 38^th Parallel separating North and South Korea, and many other stories.

While abroad, softball kept the home fires burning, with Bill playing in various expat leagues, including managing a team in India with three cricket players on the roster. “Great bat-to-ball skills” he remembers. His odd squad also included a British journalist and Finland’s charge d’affairs who hosted Bill’s team to post-game saunas at the Finish embassy.

Along the way, Bill married and divorced a doctor, and fathered two daughters, one a doctor practicing in Ireland just like her mother; the other a reporter for NBC-TV in New York like her father. “I didn’t mean to spend 35 years away”, says “Pittsburgh Bill”, who is now “L.A. Bill” after Reuters sent him back to the States as their Los Angeles Bureau Chief in 2018. Bill retired from journalism in 2021.

Tarrant’s Buccos reflect this worldly, wise, kind and inspirational leader. They take on a talented and worthy Spare Parts squad this coming Thursday for the 2023 Senior Summer League Championship.

Count on Tarrant taking the mound, injury or no injury.

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