On Sunday, August 19th the Wahoo BBC of Royal Oak traveled to the much heralded Walnut Grove for a match against the reigning "World Champion of Historic Base Ball" Lah-De-Dahs of Greenfield Village. The Wahoo BBC previously faced the LDD's at Starr Jaycee on May 6th where they lost after allowing an 8-run lead to slip away in the final inning. Looking for some redemption in front of a large crowd of cranks the Wahoos were momentarily stunned after allowing the LDD's to score 5 tallies in the top of the 1st inning. Playing at Walnut Grove requires some adjustment to the rules which include the fly rule (as opposed to usual "bound rule") and the use of stealing at the "first touch". The Lah-De-Dahs are known for using both to their advantage and were able to steal a good number of bases helping to move the runners around to score. The Wahoos did some striking of their own in the bottom of the 1st scoring 2 tallies to cut the deficit to 3.
Following the 1st inning the Wahoos buckled down on defense managing to hold the LDD's to no more than 3 runs in innings 2 thru 9. There were a number of very fine plays made in the field by the Wahoos including a number of double plays by the infield and a spectacular catch by Woody on a line drive to short. The outfield also played their part handling the switch to fly rule and the oddities of right field with relative ease. An especially fine play was made by Brain as he ran down off the hill in right field to make an out of the fly.
Offensively the Wahoos scored a large number of tallies in innings 3 thru 5. The Wahoos seemed to have a knack for striking the ball to open spaces and taking advantage of the hard singles to the outfield that would be a bound out in most of our other matches. Everyone in the line up contributed to the offensive success and "hustle" was certainly the word of the day. A number of shallow singles were stretched into doubles thanks to aggressive base running and stolen bases were aplenty. This was highlighted by Woody stealing home plate on a hurl past the behind.
The Wahoos entered into the 9th and final inning with a 4 run lead and managed to hold the Lah-De-Dahs to only 1 tally despite 2 strikers making it on base safely. The Wahoos took their final at-bats to complete the match and emerged victorious by a score of 18-15. Following the match our captain Hammer addressed the crowd and took home the game ball as a trophy.
This marks the first time The Wahoo BBC of Royal Oak has won a match at Walnut Grove against the Lah-De-Dahs. We thank our friends and family for coming to support us and for everyone at Greenfield Village that makes these matches possible.
The Wahoo BBC returns to the field August 16th at Historic Fort Wayne to play the Early Riser BBC of Detroit with the match commencing at 1:00 pm in the afternoon.