Monday night saw the Finsbury Dazzlers travel to Clissold Park where they took on old friends and rivals the Tecumsehs in a pre-season friendly. The Dazzlers recovered from the disappointing cancellation of their planned excursion to Amsterdam over the weekend to turn out in force for Monday night’s game and were duly rewarded in a light-hearted but competitive encounter.
Both teams started slowly with runners left stranded on base as rusty batters struck out in the early innings, including new Dazzlers captain Tony ‘Chicken’ Campos who did so with bases loaded. Enter former Tecumseh Ed ‘Judas’ Taylor who started repaying the 30 pieces of silver investment with the opening score, a trademark rocket over rightfield for a home run. Simon ‘Big Si’ Joseph opened the pitching for the Dazzlers and kept it tight although his perfect game was ruined in the third innings. The lone Dazzler who did make it to Amsterdam, Tim ‘Magenta Muffins’ Jaffier livened things up with a grand slam as the Dazzlers opened up a comfortable lead heading into the middle innings. (I say comfortable, but those who were at the equivalent fixture last year would have remembered the Dazzlers giving up a 30-run lead...)
With the away team changing their line-up at the halfway point the Tecumsehs took advantage of some less sharp infielding to begin a recovery as the Dazzlers failed to close out some simple plays. However whereas in times gone by this might have precipitated a Dazzlers capitulation, Sicilian citrus-fruit pusher Rob ‘Don’ Tona applied his calming influence from the mound to hold the team together. He was assisted in this by what was comfortably the play of the game: Erin ‘Sony’ Ericson’s incredible bootlace catch, taken at a low stretch just millimetres from the ground as she steamed in from centrefield at full tilt. That is going to take some beating this season.
Ultimately the Dazzlers’ failure to gain a late insurance run did not cost them as the Tecumsehs left it too late, and in the fading light the game finished with the score Dazzlers 11 @ Tecumsehs 7.
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