Baby Bull out duels Pigpen in TOTS thriller

TOTS Senior Baseball Network

60-and-over baseball

The Tucson Old Timers (TOTS) baseball game came down to the wire this morning at Udall Park.

Team Blue had taken a 5-3 lead into the top of the seventh inning,  thanks to run-scoring singles by 61-year-old Tim Tolson and 88-year-old Floyd Lance, giving their starting pitcher, Pigpen Price, 68, a cushion.

It had been a long game for Price who was nursing a sore pitching arm from the get go, but yet here he was in the bottom of the seventh with a chance to pick up a win. "I was hurting every time I tried to throw a fastball, so I started the batters off with some slow curves and every now and then -- if I was lucky enough to get two strikes on them, then I'd rare back and throw a hard one."

The strategy had worked for 6 2/3 innings, but the problem was Price needed to reach back and fire a couple of hard ones to get the final out. With two runners on and the score Team Blue 5, Team White 4, Price faced hard-hitting Dick "Double D" Ducklow.

Price had kept the ball away from Ducklow in the previous at bats by using the off-speed pitches, but this time the "sore armed" right-hander tried to get the fastball by him. "Whack!" The 73-year-old Ducklow got just enough of the pitch to pound it over the head of the shortstop, two runs scored and Team White wins it 6-5.

"It was one of the best games of the year," said "Baby Bull" Barzell, the winning pitcher. Barzell, 64, who went the distance for Team White, added,  "It was a real pitching duel." Barzell, winner of three games in February, evened the score with Price, who won the last outing between the two.

This time Baby Bull gest the win over Pigpen.

Price added, "I guess the next time we go at it, we'll have to call it the rubber game."

The fact that it is or isn't a "rubber game" is up for interpretation. The baseball term has been around for a long time and usually means the third game of a three-game series, after both teams had split the first two games.

Some say the term came from England in the 1500s and had to do with lawn bowling.

Wherever the origin, it matters very little to Baby Bull and Pigpen. But one things is for sure, the next time they take the mound against each other, they'll toe the rubber.

Photos: (Top) Baby Bull Barzell, (Bottom) Pigpen Price