‘The Russian Bomber’ helps swashbuckling Buccos into semifinals
Gene ‘The Russian Bomber’ Sherman had a triple and a single, as the bottom of the Buccos lineup again was the difference in an 18-15 slugfest win against the 4th-seeded Mudhens and now advance to the semi-finals in the LA County Senior Softball League.
The Buccos put 29 folks on base over the 7-inning game – none via a walk – including four doubles and four triples. Both teams struggled with outfield defense on field 1 in the Sepulveda Basin, where the setting sun can blind players on the right side of the field.
“Our defense was awful,” Mudhens manager Mike Abeles told me after the game. “I thought Jack (Stotler) pitched great. I’m surprised you guys weren’t complaining about his high pitches.”
In fact, I did speak to the umpire before the game about that and he did call high pitches against Jack a number of times during the game. But the Buccos had faced Stotler – who was subbing for the Mudhens – a week earlier when he was pitching for his own team and knew what to expect.
The Buccos took an 18-10 lead into the final frame, facing the top of the Mudhens lineup. They scored five runs – after two outfield errors – to make it interesting at the end.
Greg Waskul led the Bucco offense – a recurring theme this season – going 4 for 4 with three runs scored. The powerfully built Mike Montez continued our run of super subs at short, smashing two doubles and scoring three while playing flawlessly at short. Mark Lambert (3 for 4, three runs scored) had two spectacular catches in right-field purgatory.
The bottom six in the Bucco lineup, which went just 3 for 14 against Stotler last week, harassed him this time around, going 11 for 18 collectively, with Sherman going 2 for 3 in the 9th spot of the order.
Mad bomber?
Sherman, a Russian émigré, only started playing softball three years ago and is still learning the nuances of the game. Veteran coach Donna Sloan gave him “The Russian Bomber” moniker after he displayed surprising power as a lefty for her Ohdahorra team for someone who had never before played baseball.
Sherman nearly morphed into the ‘mad bomber’ on the basepaths on his triple, running almost on the heels of lead runner Jim Paul, oblivious to the third base coach’s exhortations to stop at second. That left two men standing on third, which is verboten in baseball.
“I played a little soccer and volleyball in the Soviet Union, but who the fuck ever heard of baseball there,” said Sherman, who left Russia in 1979 under an agreement between former President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev allowing Jews to emigrate to Israel.
Sherman and his wife Irina, who is not Jewish, made it to Vienna, and like many other Jews changed course to come to America. He had a mechanical engineering degree from the Soviet Union specializing in industrial laundry and eventually found a job in Lomboc, north of Santa Barbara, with Aramark, a uniform services provider, as “a grease monkey.” He retired as chief engineer in charge of Aramark’s west coast operations.
Hitting the ball was never a problem after “all those years of swinging a hammer,” he said. Catching it was an altogether different experience.
“The ball coming straight at me in the outfield scared the shit out of me. American kids grow up with baseball and get used to it. And then figuring out the trajectory, too.”
A blazing sunset staring you in the eye can be pretty terrifying, to boot (as Mike Novak can attest from a previous post on this blog).
“I did get one line drive (against the Mudhens) that went into the sun and all I could do was hope it didn’t hit me as it went over my head,” Sherman said.
Sherman said he got into the Senior Softball League at the urging of Ira Jacobs, a league veteran, who was also his former manager at Aramark.
This came not long after his retirement when his wife ordered him out of the house.
“When I retired, Irina found me on the couch watching TV one morning. She said, ‘what are you doing?’ I said ‘I’m retired. This is what retired people do.’ She said, ‘no, you need to find something to do.’”
Looks like he’s found his new life’s work in the sunny fields of the Sepulveda Basin.
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The Buccos face the top seeded Archies in the semifinals. The number 2 seeded Softball Junkies face the 6th seeded Spare Parts.
The 15-1 Archies’ only loss this season was to … the Mudhens. The Mudhens went undefeated last season only to lose in the finals of the Fall-Winter season to Joey Carbone’s Yankees.
Roster attrition is a huge wild card during the playoffs, as teams are forced to find subs for multiple positions due to planned vacations and season-ending injuries or illnesses.
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