Two Girls, Keagy, GV Insurance reign supreme in BAJA

Special to the Green Valley News

After two full days of softball, hot dogs, sodas, and desserts — and yes, full stomachs, too — Two Girls Pizzeria reigned as champions of the annual BAJA double-elimination softball tournament.

On day one, the Cow Palace had the dubious honor of being the first team to be eliminated, soon to be followed by the Arizona Restaurant and the Inn at San Ignacio.

Managers Dick Fryan, Ivan Allison and Art Janssen came away with the usual battle cry, “Wait ‘til next year!”

One champion was crowned on that first day: Nick Charles won the hot dog eating contest, going away. He is rumored to be preparing for Nathan’s hot dog eating contest later this year at Coney Island. The dogs were again prepared by Glenn and Nancy Yauney and their able crew, and were they ever delicious! The “crew” consisted of Shirley Johnson, Sharon Ruble, Sharon Lyons, Mike Willingham, Pat Sommer and Mike Miller.

Jim Click upset Two Girls 16-9 on day one and 3 1/2 Happy Barbers upended the Inn at San Ignacio, the leagues second place team, 19-17, to attain the right to face each other in the winner’s bracket. The Clickers (also know as the Men in Black, due to their black shirts) came up with 11 runs in the top of the eighth inning and hammered the barbers, 32-22. Bruce Peters beat Mark Haskoe in this classic “pitcher’s duel,” sort of.

This caused the barbers to face Two Girls Pizzeria, who were coming up through the loser’s bracket and had downed Triple Play 15-6 earlier in the morning. Triple Play, behind the hitting of Rod Lichtenberger, Lu Smith, and manager Marty Camacho jumped off to an early lead, but despite the defensive efforts of Smith and John Brassell and the pitching of Jim Mollsen, could not pull off the victory.

The haircutters and the pie-men faced off in perhaps the best game of the tournament. The green-clad Barbers scored seven runs in the top of the seventh to take a six-run lead, but, behold, the “pizza people” also scored seven runs in the bottom half, allowing Two Girls to win, 19-18.

Dave Hyslop, Gil Moss, Dave Sheedy and Jerry Sutherland led the Barber offense, but defense did them in. Manager Jim Reedy just couldn’t find two more runs. Special thanks go to Shirley Welch, who kept score all year long.

This brought us to the championship games. Two Girls needed to down Jim Click twice to win the first place trophy. That is exactly what they did, defeating Click in game one 13-8, and in game two, 21-14 — this being their fourth game of the day.

The “Men in Black” were led by Stormin’ Norman Brooks, Dave Erickson, Craig Burgess and Dave Cowan in game one and Brooks, Billy Kerr, Burgess, Jack Naughton and Bob Barry in game two. But again, defensive lapses led to the double defeat. Manager Bob Royes reported he was proud of his team and he, too, uttered that famous phrase, “Wait ‘til next year!”

For Two Girls Pizza, who also won the regular season championship, its usual team effort enabled them to win both crowns.

Bob Schwankl and Jeff Harrison made a winning pitcher-catcher combination. DeWayne Schmidt, Greg Pettet, Wally Towne, and Terry Charney all made key plays in the infield, while Glenn Carter, Tom Kennedy, Steve Rankins, and manager Bryon Taylor roamed the outfield, catching most everything that came their way and tracking down ground balls to limit runs.

Injured players Alan Cram and George Hetherington handled the coaching duties at first and third, while Dick Harris, recovering from recent heart surgery (perhaps the stress of the season was too much for him) was rooting while recovering at home.

Their 10-man lineup and their consistent hitting simply proved to be too much for the other teams to overcome and showed that throughout the year, they were the best team. Congratulations go to them from the other teams and from Softball Commissioner Bob Epstein!

Friday Select League

After 11 weeks of softball, more than 1,500 total runs scored, more than 3,300 base hits, more than 1,000 extra base hits, more than 5,600 at bats, more than 100 balls hit out of the park, more than 200 walks (20 intentional), more than 250 fielding errors, more than 300 throwing errors, and roughly 100,000 senior moments, the BAJA Friday Select League ended in a draw between Keagy Edward Jones and Green Valley Insurance.

Both teams ended the season with 15-5 records and identical records against each other. With the blessing of the commissioner, Bob Epstein, coaches Steve Wentz for Keagy’s and Randy Higa for Green Valley Insurance opted to share the title.

While Keagy’s dominated the first half of the season going 10-0, Green Valley Insurance dominated the last half of the season, also going 10-0.

The Friday Select League players and BAJA wish to thank our generous sponsors, Hickey Automotive Repair, Comfort Inn of Green Valley, Green Valley Insurance and Keagy Edward Jones.

A special thanks to Bob “The Commish” Epstein for his help in establishing the league and holding the reins loosely so the wild horses could run.

Additional thanks go to coaches, Chuck Catino of Hickey Automotive Repair, Randy Higa of Green Valley Insurance, Steve Wentz of Keagy Edward Jones, and Bob Barry of Comfort Inn of Green Valley. We also wish to thank Lu Smith, Mike Sommer and all of the other volunteers, who prepped the fields every Friday. What a wonderful facility we have at Sahuarita Park.

Thanks also to the BAJA Executive and Board Members.

Kudos to one of our longtime BAJA veterans and great ballplayers, Johnny Fawcett as well as Mike Iannacchino who shared the League batting title at .838. Iannacchino led the league in extra base hits and total bases.

Gale Van Hoorn led the league in home runs with 27. Jim Molsen led the league in games pitched (18) and games won (15). Lu Smith, Fred Searle, Tommy Liedtke and Steve Heath led the league in fielding percentage, .975.

We also extend a special “high five” and a “knuckle bump” to Nick Prevenas, Sports Editor for The Green Valley News & Sun for editing and preparing our articles and photos for the sports pages. (Editor’s note: No problem at all. The BAJA stories are always a fantastic read! Thanks, again, Norm and Steve.)

And lastly, to our lovely and long-suffering wives, girlfriends, kids and grand kids. Thanks for making us feel like heroes, again.

Norm Brooks and Steve Wentz are your faithful BAJA correspondents.