Baseball Review // Great Falls Gators 9, Canton Crushers 0 [9/20/20 @ Bowdoin Field, Canton, CT]

 

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Following the Banditos-Monsters game earlier, I went home, had some food, warmed up and put a jacket on over my sweater for this game.    While it was supposed to warm up in the afternoon, it didn't warm up a lot.   I'd never been to this field before and I'm not even sure I've been to Canton before.   I got off of 84 and went through Bristol (but not near the Blues) and then Avon.   The fun thing is that I got onto the road which this is on and the directions told me my destination was on the left.   There looked to be a baseball game there, but I wasn't sure so I took the first right which also had baseball fields but no one was on them.

I drove back, behind the school and saw umpires who looked like the type and thought "It must be around here".  As I saw the umpires go into the woods I wondered what was happening, such a strange sight for someone who had never been to Bowdoin Field before.   I got out of my car and let me assure you 100% that had I not followed the umpires I would have never been able to find this field.  There are a lot of trees and a smaller path you must go down to find the field tucked away back there.   Later I would realize there was also a road out there so if I had left as I did at the end of the game I would have drove by and seen the field and players on it, but going down this path felt magical like when you go hiking and find a cave behind a waterfall but then imagine there's a baseball game in there.   I felt like I'd go back there again with my dad and it'd all just be woods and I'd tell him "I swear! It was here last time!"

To add to the overall illusion of this game the sun started on the infield and made its way to the outfield.   This made it feel like- for most of the game- that half the field was in the dark while half of it was in the light.   On top of that, there was this rare occurrence at times where a lone ray of sun would come down on Gators' pitcher Bobby Chatfield, and only him somehow (it didn't seem to shine for the Crushers pitcher)

This game started off with the Gators going through their entire lineup in the top of the first inning, putting six runs on the board.   It was just hit after hit after hit.   Some people like to see homeruns, but I like to see the ball just get put into play and the runners just move along the bases.   After the Crushers pitcher sort of got rocked in the first inning, he seemed to settle down in the second inning.   Then the Gators got one more run in the third inning and in the fifth they scored two more, putting them up 9-0, which would stay the final score. 

The Connecticut Fall League has the rule that you stop after five innings if a team is up eight runs or more, which we saw last week with the second game of the double header where the Gators defeated the Millers, but those games were seven innings because of the double header and this game was set for nine innings so they decided to continue and play two more innings, going a full seven.   The game started at 3:30 and by the time they had finished five innings it was only 5:00-ish.   The two innings to take them to the seventh made it about 5:30 but I was there, I wasn't as cold as I was earlier in the day and I didn't know if this field would ever exist again so it was worth the time to just enjoy the game.