S-CRAPPY
Bristol Quiets Cannons, Scrapes Out Opening Sunday Sweep

Bristol, CT (AP)—Following a respectable third-place finish in their first season as members of the CNMSBL A Division in 2006, the Connecticut Cannons along with every card-carrying citizen of the frenzied fan base known as Cannon Nation had a galvanizing goal for 2007: League Champs. Simply stated, nothing less would suffice. Off-season upgrades both on and off the diamond—from fantastic free agent signings to a much-ballyhooed field change—elicited expectations of dizzying degrees and the experience garnered from the grueling regular season and glorious post-season performance in ’06 were supposed to be the first steps toward solidifying the Cannons as kings of the proverbial CNMSBL mountain. Unfortunately fate can be a fickle mistress and the heavy metal members of the defending champion Bristol Continental Metal Company scratched by Connecticut 4-0 and 2-1 in Opening Day action at Bristol, instead leaving the league up-starts staring up from the bottom of the scrap heap that is the current CNMSBL league standings and the would-be-king Cannons paraphrasing Shakespeare and imploring, A win! A win! Our kingdom for a win!

Ageless pitcher Mike Patenaude took the mound in an opener for the fifth time in his storied seven-year career with the team and Ponce de Cannon once again proved that he has tapped some mythical fountain of youth, tossing six innings while scattering just seven hits against a Bristol team that for most of the game was lullabyed by the cagey left-hander. The fifty-one year old Patenaude allowed a run in the first on a Bunty Ray triple followed by a ball in the dirt that got away from catcher Steve Markie but was able to settle in and face just sixteen batters over the first four frames. The notoriously slow-starting Cannons offense went hitless until the fourth when Ed Poland had a single but otherwise the line-up had little success against sidewinder Kent Tekulve and his buggy-whip arm. In the home half of the fifth, walks and an uncharacteristic pair of errors by rightfielder Mike McGann, a past Cannons Defensive Player of the Year recipient, and free agent acquisition Drew McDowell at second led to three insurance runs and the Cannons were incapable of mounting an offensive threat of any significance until the top of the seventh when Tom Luby and McDowell led off the inning with back-to-back singles. Yet Tekulve was able to use solid defense behind him to deny Connecticut in its comeback attempt. Patenaude (L, 6 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 1 K, 3 BB) pitched well enough to win Game One but on this day Tekulve had the number of the Cannons’ hitters.

Easy—like Sunday morning—Ed Poland climbed the hill for the Cannons in the second game and looked to provide Connecticut with the spark they needed to tally their first victory against Bristol (the only prior meeting between the teams was last season’s Winner’s Bracket match-up won 5-4 by Metallica, propelling them to the post-season title). The thirty-two year old right-hander was more than up to the task and resoundingly displayed why he was the Patenaude Pitching Award winner in 2006, allowing only three hits in six innings of work while battling league legend Dave Bidwell throw for throw. Reigning Most Valuable Cannon Jason Maule led off Game Two with a blast that hit high off the centerfield fence for a stand-up double, moved to third on a well-placed Poland ground out to second and scored on a passed ball to give the Cannons their first run and first lead of the 2007 campaign. Poland got the top three batters in order—two on strike outs—but was touched for the tying run in the following frame on a walk, balk, passed ball and two-out error by third baseman Mike Calabrese. The Cannons had a scoring opportunity in the third when Calabrese reached on an error and Maule walked with just one down but Bidwell managed to escape the jam with a strike out and a pop up to third to end the inning. Poland then allowed a lead-off single to Oliver Platt in the home half of the third, followed by a Dick Sanford sacrifice, but was able to erase the lead runner on a pitcher-to-third fielder’s choice. Trouble ensued when two pop-ups, one foul and one fair, dropped to the ground continuing Bristol’s at-bat. The additional opportunities came back to haunt Connecticut as a bases-loaded walk to Lord Farquarson pushed across the go-ahead run, one the Cannons would chase over the remaining course of the game. In the top half of the fourth, Leo Dionicio, the Gringo from Santo Domingo, led off with a single and moved to third on a Markie base hit and advance. However a strike out and two come-backers followed and Bidwell again battled out of an inning unscathed and the Cannons would only manage two more hits over the remainder of the contest on singles by Luby and newcomer Craig Perrier in the sixth and seventh innings respectively. Poland (L, 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 6 K, 6 BB) was equally impressive over the final three frames, allowing just two bases on balls but clearly Connecticut’s comeback bid did not go well and the Cannons now are the only A Division team without a win following the first weekend of play.

The Connecticut Cannons are unaccustomed to starting a season 0-2 having walked away with opening weekend victories in each of the past three seasons. However, the team remains upbeat—as always—having hung with a battle-tested Bristol ball club that showed no ill effects of a championship hangover. “We faced two seasoned starters right out of the box and we competed,” stated Manager Matt Celio in his post-game press conference. “This is the best product we’ve put out there, our pitchers were in mid-season form and as our bats heat up we will make all members of Cannon Nation forget the sting of April come the end of August. We played a couple of close games that just didn’t go our way today, made a few mistakes and Bristol made them hurt. These guys are the reigning champs and they played like it. But it’s not ’06 any more. When all is said and done we’ll be there when it really counts in ’07, guaranteed.” Mark Lynch added, “It’s great to be back for another season of Cannons Baseball. MP was solid and EP was throwing hard out there. As a matter of fact I’ve got a little swelling of the index finger from Poland's pop. We’ll remember to take the bats out of the truck next week and we’ll be right where we want to be. No worries.” McDowell echoed these sentiments: “Good team, played hard. We’re coming together, getting better and though we still have a little way to go we’re going to win when it matters most.” The Cannons (0-2) have a climb ahead starting with two next Sunday against the Glastonbury Marlins (1-1) in the home opener at New Cannons Yards in Newington. It is said that the journey is half the fun and the Cannons are ready to face any and all challengers as the Sir Edmund Hillary’s of the hard ball world. Get climbing, Cannon Nation…and hang on tight because you won’t want to miss this trek to the top!

Cannons News and Notes: Both Bristol and Connecticut had ten hits on the day (the Cannons’ average ended at .196 while Continental’s was .222); the one run scored by the team was its lowest output ever in a twin bill; Cannons’ batters stuck out sixteen times during the two games; Luby’s two hits on Sunday give him 95 for his illustrious Cannons career…a media circus will surely follow as Mike Weber (97) and Lubes both approach the century plateau with memorabilia hounds undoubtedly looking to get their hands on a piece of history, hanging on every single swing of the bat; Markie was the only other Cannon with two hits on the day; Lynch doubled in Game One giving him his first extra base hit as a Cannon; following his usual pre-game ritual, Dionicio connected with thirty-seven of fifty popcorn kernels (74%)…the Latin Lothario was also overheard in the locker room saying, “Craig [Perrier] is going to become my new girlfriend. I love the new guy at first. [Chris] Barsa sucks…and sometimes swallows.”; Perrier, when asked by reporters how hard it was to find Bristol Central, replied in return, “What’s more difficult to find, the Lost Ark or this place?”; in the fifth inning of the first game McDowell attempted to toss a ball back to Patenaude from second that struck field umpire Jason Rentas squarely in the back; when members of the press asked John Mancini how it felt to face A Division pitching after taking a year off from the league he provided a one-word answer: “Foreign.”; Mancini, Markie, McDowell and McGann shared a Hall High School Homeroom in 1989…there are now seven former Hall Warriors (Celio, Luby and Weber) and one Conard Chieftain (Calabrese) on the active roster; Celio and Weber are the only Cannons to attend all seven of the team’s Opening Day double dips; Calabrese, when begged for a sound byte about why he was so “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” for the games, quipped, “Because I actually went to bed last night.”; Cal, to the surprise of team doctors and teammates alike, announced after last weekend’s missed practices that he has been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes (his absence was blamed on what team officials explained cryptically as the “heavy sugar content in red wine”); the team dedicated this season to the memory or Rick Weber, retiring a crimson Cannons #0 jersey before the first game; standing room only tickets will be made available to the public two hours before game time (a 10:05 a.m. TBS start) and the New Cannon Yards box office.