The pre-game festivities were the main attraction to today's day of baseball. Tom Maney was honored by the MSBL National organization as a Hall of Famer. It was quite an emotional moment , with Tom's current teammates and friends.
The Albany Braves used that emotion in their game one match up with the Texas Blue Jays. Ron Massaroni got the ball to start, and got the first two Texas hitters in order. After a single and a stolen base, the Texas clean-up hitter singled to center, and the the runner on second headed for home. Scott Ross charged the ball and executed a perfect relay throw to SS Randy Craft, who turned and threw a strike to home, where catcher Jim Wing applied the tag with plenty of time to spare, and the threat was over.
The Braves used the momentum of this great defensive play, and the inspiration of wanting to "win this game for the dipper," to plate four runs in the first inning. In fact, the first four hitters (Scott Ross, Randy Craft, Mike Girard, and Dave Mitchell) all scored. Ron Massaroni pitched the next three innings without giving up a single run. Meanwhile, the Braves were scoring 7 more runs over that stretch, to expand their lead to 11-0. TJ Scorsone came on to pitch innings 5 through 7, and shut the Blue Jays out, while giving up just two hits, with no walks and one strike out. The Braves tacked on 7 more runs and gave up just 4 meaningless runs in the ninth to the Blue Jays, to make the final score 18-4. Tom Maney, Scott Ross, Mike Girard and Dave Mitchell led the way for the offense, with 3 hits each. Randy Craft, Doug O'Brey, and Ralph Caputo added 2 hits each.
A great time was had by all, and the tournament trail was off to a flying start.
