Tota’s Farms slugs Burford Slo-pitch

By Jesse Ferguson

As the summer finally rolls around, it feels more like baseball now. And even here in Burford, baseball is back! Co-ed leagues have sprung together and youth slo-pitch isn’t far behind. Also a mainstay in Burford is the Men’s League. On Wednesday, May 9, the League was back at it for their second week of play.

We had Ackland’s Insurance visting Tota’s Farms (not the same thing as Tota’s Ponds).

Ackland put the hurting all over Tota’s early with a 10-batter inning. Their first six batters all scored! It was rumoured throughout Optimist Fields that this horrendous start for Tota’s was all because Lowes wasn’t wearing his trademark lucky visor. Or any visor…
In this first, Gary Sparks scored one of his team-high in runs for Ackland’s.

But if that isn’t a sign of things to come (I used team-high rather than game-high for a reason…). And indeed, the tides changed the next few innings when Aiden Giles smacked an in the park homer cashing three.

Lowes appeared to like the wind in his hair as he hustled out an infield hit (I use the word “hit” loosely…). But maybe the wind in his hair was too much for him as he sadly requested a pinch runner soon thereafter upon reaching first.

Shay Tota then shocked the crowds– particularly the Ackland centerfielder– by putting a shot deep and over the fielder. All runners but two scored in Tota’s own 10-batter inning and we had a new game.

Dave Zylstra managed to answer with a deep homerun at B Diamond.

But it was Tota’s laughing last in this one. They blasted multiple runs inning after inning en route to a staggering count of 30 that included a nine-run open inning. Meanwhile Ackland’s failed to score in their last 3 2/3 innings, only managing three base-runners in that stretch. Hard to win like that!

Giles himself had a day for the ages. After recording an out as the first batter of the game, he reached base 6/6 times, scoring six runs. Now that’s a statline! Hell, Giles scored twice in the same inning– and he did it legally.

In other action, we may have experienced a changing of the guard!? The Crunchers– formerly known as ION Solutions and Enviro-Tec prior to that– passing the torch to Bon Lane? Perhaps it’s an overreaction, but Bon Lane are a team that’s been on the verge for a long time, and ION has been a top tier team for a longer time, but tonight anyway, it reversed itself. The Crunchers didn’t have it tonight and Bon Lane takes it, 23-10 to go 2-0.

Also we had the Cement Heads making a wreck of Burford Auto. This game was over quickly. And the Cement Heads join Bon Lane as undefeated.

And finally, Bre Haul and Davis Fuels were lights out! Literally. It was rumoured that an Ed Allgood homer off the lights knocked out one bank of lights. Then it was pointed out that the windstorm of last week wreaked havoc on the one light standard. Apparently this was the county’s doing– or not doing.

Play was suspended as it was too dangerous for the leftfielders in particular. This is probably a smart thing to do as it just sounds like a lawsuit. And no indication whether the Men’s League has Geico.

For more information about the Burford Men’s Slo-Pitch League,
follow this link Burford Men’s Slo-Pitch