Tucson Old Timers (TOTS)
60-and-over-baseball
The final 60-and-over Tucson Old Timers baseball game for the month of October was a dandy with no clear winner in the end. Team Blue and Team White played to an 8-8 tie today at Udall Park.
Back-to-back RBI-doubles by John Mathews and Mike Dawson highlighted a 4-run rally in the fourth and gave Team White a 7-4 lead, but in the 6th inning Team Blue's Doc Thompson singled in the gap to right center field and Dennis Crowley, pinch-running for Jesse Ochoa, scored to put Team Blue back in the lead at 8-7.
At that point, it looked like Team Blue would end up with the hard-fought win. Team Blue's starting pitcher Tim Boyd had gone five innings in the game and Thompson took the mound in the sixth and hurled the final two innings.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, Thompson and Team Blue needed just two outs for the win, but newcomer Steve Foster had singled in the hole between third and short and thanks to a throwing error found his way to third. That brought up another newcomer Carl Schwanbeck, who singled to right to tie the game. Foster scored and the TOTS' ended up with a kiss-your-sister game -- no clear winner.
Foster and Schwanbeck are"newbies" with the TOTS. Foster is 61 and Schwanbeck, 71. Schwanbeck still competes in the Tucson MSBL, 45-and-over division, and is the oldest player in the highly-competitive league at Reid Park. The Tucson MSBL regular-season ended on Oct. 21.
The TOTS' rules allow for a tie after seven innings with no extra innings.
It ruined a pretty good day for Thompson and Roger Beebe. Both players had four hits on the day. Dawson, Team White's starting pitcher, had four hits and his teammate John Mathews collected two doubles in three trips to the plate.
The oldest player on the field today, the remarkable 94-year-old Floyd Lance. When Foster receives his TOTS' cap and becomes a full fledged member of the organization, he'll become the youngest TOT.
The TOTS next game is on Friday, Nov. 1, at Udall at 10:00 a.m.
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