Bad day at Santa Rita

The Aces, a team consisting of fifteen of our best Tucson Old Timers (TOTS) baseball players, traveled to Santa Rita Park yesterday to take on an old nemesis, the Tucson Old Pueblo Club. Half of the Aces' roster consist of individuals who are between the ages of 60 to 70. In recent outings against the Old Pueblo Club, there's been some close games, competitive games. The games have gone down to the wire.

But not yesterday. The Aces came out firing on all cylinders and scored five runs in the top of the first inning, but by the end of three innings the Old Pueblo Club had whittled away the deficit and thanks to a few timely hits and a handful of Aces' errors evened the score at 8-8.

Seventy-year-old Arnie White threw hard for three innings for the Aces, but gave way to yours truly to start the fourth inning. I left my position at third base and headed for the mound. I should have stayed at third! I was wild and inconsistent. Somehow, I managed to get through three innings, but in the process I hit a batter in the elbow and another in the shoulder. My fastball was all over the place and my curve ball was fighting against a left to right breeze.

Bottom line: We lost 15-9. I left the game shaking my head, realizing I need a lot of work if I want to continue to pitch. In a lot of ways, I'm throwing harder than I did 30 years ago, but I wasn't a pitcher then...and I'm not sure I'm the man for the job now. The Aces had their chances yesterday. Our youngest player, Tim Tolson, drilled a double to deep center field to score a couple of runs early on and I blooped a single to left field, later in the game, which scored a couple of runs.

Sixty-one year old Ted Davis had the biggest wallop of the day, adding a run-scoring triple, which sailed over the head of the left fielder and rolled all the way to the fence. We had our share of nice plays, including an over-the-shoulder catch in center field by 69-year-old Pete Cerenzia and a running catch in left field by 73-year-old Chico Bigham, which resulted in a double play as Bigham hit the cutoff man, 62-year-old Dennis Crowley, who then threw out the runner at first base who had ventured too far of the bag.

The Aces will play host to the Old Pueblo club in a few weeks, looking for a payback.