KENOSHA, Wis. – Last night was unlike any baseball game I have ever seen and I do not type those words lightly. I usually will keep these to about 250 words, but I have a feeling this will be one of my longer ones of the year. I’ll give you the shortened version of what my bewildered and fatigued eyes watched late into the night on July the 13th.
Here is some of the stats from the 13-11 Kenosha win over the Kalamazoo Growlers you could pick up in the box score: 32 combined hits. The Kingfish had 17 while Kalamazoo added 15.
13 different pitchers: The Growlers brought in seven different arms and Kenosha plopped six of them on the rubber.
11 combined runs in the 8th inning alone: Kalamazoo scored four runs in the top of the 8th to take an 11-6 advantage. The Fish responded with a seven run home half to take a 13-11 lead. Believe it or not there was only one error for the game and it was Kalamazoo who had it.
There were eight hit batsmen between the two squads and Connor Doyle (University of San Diego) broke Kingfish single game records for most runs scored in a game (5), doubles (3) and times reached base (6). Derek Bangert (Bradley) extended his on base streak to 40 games with a 3-4 night.
Total Game time: Four hours and 21 minutes. This coming after a 3:30 a.m. bus arrival home from the Fish’s two game road trip the night before.
Okay, here’s things you couldn’t account for on the stat sheet.
Three injured players: Tyler Bordner (Kirkwood CC) took a fastball off his right middle finger in the 2nd sidelining him for the season. Kalamazoo’s Christian Moya (USC) was hit in the head with a fastball but was able to walk off the field in the 6th.
The most insane of them all: Billy McKay (Florida) was hit in the head on a pop fly foul ball while sitting in the bullpen. He went to the ground and we had about a 10 minute delay because of it, he is doing just fine today.
Other strange incidents: Three light posts went out with one out in the 9th inning forcing a 20 minute delay as the front office had to reboot the entire circuit. 40 years to the day, the New York Mets had an infamous light delay at Shea Stadium.
That was on top of a 15 minute delay to start the game because of flooding that ran rampant in Kenosha the night prior.
Humidity level throughout the game: 97%.
The real winner of the night? Our camera crew, press box team, concession stand members, grounds crew, ticket office, front office along with everyone else who worked tirelessly through it all.
Hats off to them.
Tonight, the Fish will look to finish 7-1 against Kalamazoo for the year and they will attempt to get ten games above .500 for the first time in 2017.
Baseball is fun.
Best,
Rylan
###
The Kenosha Kingfish are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The 23-year-old summer collegiate league is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 20 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, more than 170 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including two-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champion Ben Zobrist (CHC) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET), Curtis Granderson (NYM) and Lucas Duda (NYM). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.kingfishbaseball.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Kingfish as your favorite team.
