A bunch of old timers got together at Tucson Udall Park on Friday morning, the day after Thanksgiving, to play in an old fashioned slugfest.
The Arizona Ratters, a club team from the southside, got the best of the host Tucson Old Timers (TOTS),13-10, thanks in part to a seventh inning uprising, spearheaded by a three-run home run from Rueben Leyva. Thirty-one players participated in the Thanksgiving Holiday Baseball Game, which gave the participants a chance to run off the extra turkey and mashed potatoes that they had consumed the day before.
It looked early on like it was going to be the TOTS day as they received six consecutive singles in the bottom of the first inning to take a 4-1 lead. Floyd Lance, Ed Rife, Danny Price, Chico Bigham, Doug Mullins and Brad Tolson, all hit safely off of Rattlers' starter Carl McCormick to get things off and rolling for the Tucson Old Timers. The Rattlers chipped away in the middle innings and trailed only 6-4 when they came to bat in the top of the seventh. Leyva's shot off of losing pitcher Chico Bigham capped the wild seventh.
Ed Rife pitched the first four innings for the TOTS and gave up six runs, mostly unearned. McCormick hurled the first five innings for the Arizona Rattlers and reliever Rueben Hernandez pitched the final four to pick up the win. Lance, who went 3 for 3 for the TOTS, summed up the holiday game. "It was a beautiful day and lot of old guys got a chance to get out and play the game of baseball." The TOTS hit the ball well through out the contest as Jerry Hamelin, Ed Rife and Doug Mullins garnered two hits apiece to go along with Lance's three singles. The oldest player to take the field Friday was TOTS' catcher Clarence Fieber. Fieber, a former diary farmer from Wisconsin, is 89 years old and he caught over half of the game. Clarence said, when asked about his performance on the field, "It's all good. Every day is a good one."
Fieber and the rest of the old timers will be back at it on Monday. The TOTS play every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Udall Park, while the Arizona Rattlers normally play their games at Mission Manor Park with a Tuesday-Thursday schedule year round.
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