Earth, wind and fire, oh my! Buccos edge Dodgers in elemental battle

It was well into extra innings when Eric Badener, arguably the League’s best hitter, strode to the plate with two outs and the bases loaded. Almost everyone expected a walk-off for the Buccos.

The game had been moved at the last minute to field 3 at the Sepulveda Basin – bitterly known as the sun field due to the setting sun (fire) shining in batters’ eyes - because the scheduled field for this first-round playoff game was deemed unplayable after all the recent rains (earth). Swirling Santa Ana winds, meanwhile, were causing pitches to swerve and drop like it was a game of wiffle ball.

“I stood with both feet facing the pitcher, pulled my cap brim down against the sun and just swung and hoped,” Eric said.

He flied out to deep left-center.

The long, weird and boisterous contest (more on that below) finally ended in the bottom of the 11^th when Buccos outfielder Mike Pivarnick made a daring dash to home from second base on a single off the glove of Dodger second basewoman Sandra Lueras for the 14-13 win.

"I had it in my glove,"  said Sandra who  lunged to the ground for the hit off the bat of Norm Friedman, "and it just spun out of my glove."

“That was a game for the ages,” said Archies coach Richard Steinmetz, who was among a large crowd of spectators from other games watching what may have been an unprecedented playoff game.

“It was the most innings I’ve ever played, and I’ve been playing for 33 seasons,” said Dodgers manager George Cliffords.

Pivarnick nearly walked it off for the Buccos in the 10^th inning, when again with the bases loaded, he smashed a drive to deep center that Steve Neimand, belying injuries, raced over and leaped to catch for the play of the game. Maybe of the season.

“That was the most amazing catch I’ve seen from a guy with back and leg issues,” Clifford said.

A SCRUM AT HOME

The 2 hour and 37 minute contest – twice as long as a regular season game when 7-inning contests can end in a tie – forced a substitute for the Buccos, Gene Sherman, to leave early to join his team for the late game on an adjacent field. (By the way, the League usually doesn’t play an early game on field 3 because, yeah, the sun). The rules allow a team to grab a sub during the game if a player is no longer able to play. And the Buccos shanghaied Rockies manager Mike Giangreco from the crowd to take Gene’s place.

Yet the Dodgers howled in protest. A scrum of shouting players gathered around umpire Chip Demetillo. Alas, this Culver City senior league umpire was making a rare turn at calling a game in the Valley and was not fully versed on the rules. Buccos manager Bill Tarrant raced over to the crowd and found managers and ratings committee members who assured Chip that the substitution was legal.

“You’d think it was the World Series,” Dodger pitcher Anne Kepple remarked, standing with amusement on the rubber.

Experienced umpires know how to dispense with all the argy-bargy from the players and huddle with just the two umpires to hash out disputes.

"Yeah, well that's a lot easier said than done," Chip when asked.

Both pitchers battled sudden, swirling winds throughout the game.

“Anne was throwing reverse curves (AKA screwballs) with that wind,” Cliffords said. “I was telling our guys to watch (Tarrant’s) pitches all the way down because of their late movement.”

Tarrant ended up with seven strikeouts. “That was 2.2 innings worth of outs,” Eric noted.

“We shot ourselves in the foot at times,” Eric said. “We argued about rules. The sun was in our eyes. The wind was blowing. They played well. Yet it all worked out in the end.”