IRON MEN
Metallurgists Melt Down Cannons; Connecticut Sinks to CNMSBL Cellar

Bristol, CT (AP)—Iron Man, the iconic Marvel character, first appeared in Tales of Suspense some forty-five years ago and is still significant as the subject of this summer’s first $300 million Hollywood blockbuster. “Iron Man,” the signature song from rock legends Black Sabbath was released nearly forty years ago and was recently named one of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time as well as VH1’s Greatest Metal Song. Fifteen of the Cannons nineteen 2008 roster invitees were not even born—while several others were not even the proverbial twinkle in their father’s eye—as the early 1970s signaled the beginning of the “Me Decade” with Vietnam, Voyager, Vonnegut and Van McCoy still to follow. Many of the Metallurgists were indeed around when the Three Mile Island disaster and three disco-lightful brothers from Brisbane, Australia were just dreams in the distance of this decade of decadence. You can’t put a price on experience and Bristol has this particular commodity in spades, some may even go so far as to say they have the corner marketed. “Dominican Dreamboat” Leo Dionicio flashed more wit than leather when he stated: “I added up all the ages of their players (not that islanders are known for accuracy in terms of años) and subtracted from 2008. The difference took me all the way back to Jesus’s days and I’m not talking Jesus Colome but the real J.C., with the long hair, the robes and sandals. Striking.” Sage subdued stripling on Sunday as Bristol swept Connecticut by scores of 7-3 and 5-0 to once again bury the Cannons (3-9) in the basement of the CNMSBL A Division as Divisional play resumes with a pair against the seventh-place Eastern Connecticut Cubs (3-7) on the horizon for next weekend.

Game One pitted two of the league’s top arms against one another as right-hander Tom Clark and left-hander Giglielmo Arconii squared off for a seven innings slugfest. Bristol struck first in the home half of the opening frame allowed singles a single to Liogas Greenleaf who was erased on a fielder’s choice and replaced on base by Vladimir Bratina. Oliver Platt followed with a single while Nate “Tiny” Archibald and Oral “Sexy” Roberts were issued free passes to push the first run across in the form of the “Siberian Bull.” A wild pitch plated Platt and Clark walked Carmine Giovinazzo to re-load the bases but the righty battled out of the jam by getting Marco Rosano to fly out to Jack Vanasse in right. With his buggy whip arm Arconii was on, allowing just four singles through the first five innings while striking out seven. Bristol added single runs in the second and fourth innings on a RBI single by Wilkes Bahre and a passed ball that scored Giovinazzo who had walked with one out. Bahre came up big in the fifth, leading off with a single which was followed by a walk to Standish Klare. Both scored when “Death From Above” Bratina belted a double deep to the wall in left for a 7-0 that seemed to provide plenty of breathing room for Arconii. The Cannons offense came to life for an inning as the team scored three in the sixth on a lead-off double by Vanasse, the rookie’s first extra base hit as a Cannon, and an run-scoring single by Bill Balcerzak, his twelfth hit and ninth run batted in, good for the team lead in both categories. Clark was hit by pitch and Drew McDowell drove a double to center to score two and pull Connecticut within four. Clark (L, 6 IP, 6 H, 7 ER, 5 K, 9 BB) tossed a one-two-three sixth but the Cannons could only muster a Mike Weber single in the seventh before going quietly, dropping the opening decision by a final score of 7-3.

Though the team was immersed in a season-tying three game losing streak there was a quiet confidence on the Cannons bench as management shortened the line-up and put staff stalwart Mike Patenaude on the mound to silence the scrappy Metallurgists. However, Bristol was able to battle for a pair of first frame runs on a single to Klare, an error, and back-to-back doubles by Platt and Bratina and that proved to be all the Metal Men would need behind Platt and his plus stuff. Patenaude was touched for an unearned run in the second as Lord Farquarson doubled with one down, advanced on a ground ball to the right side and scored after an Adam Pallone error at third (Pallone and Dionicio were able to get Bahre in a run-down but the run scored before the out was recorded). Two more Metallurgist runs came across in the fourth as Giovinazzo led off with a base hit, Farquarson doubled for the second time in as many at-bats, a passed ball got away from catcher Steve Markie to score Bratina from third (in the form of a courtesy runner) and Bahre singled home the fifth and final run of the contest. Connecticut could only muster three hits (singles by Clark and Weber and a triple by Dionicio who initially opted out of the game because of back spasms and a groin pull) against Platt in this pluvial performance (rain threatened for much of the day with a brief downpour in the fifth…Manager Matt Celio said after the games: “The rain was more threatening than our offense today.” Weber labeled the bats “Fred Astaire-esque: one, two, three, then pitch.”). Patenaude (6 IP, 7 H, 5 R, 3 ER, 1 K, 3 BB) allowed two walks in the fifth and two more runners reached on infield errors—the Cannons had seven miscues in Game Two—while managing to keep the Cannons close but despite the Dionicio classic “I love coming from behind” call-to-arms a sixth-inning single by Clark followed by a McDowell hit-by-pitch was all Connecticut could muster and the team was shut out for the second time this month (a hard-luck 4-0 loss to John Skinner and the Glastonbury Marlins back on June 1) bowing out in the back end 5-0. “Two hard fought games on another Sunday that saw us shorthanded. Bristol got a pair of solid pitching performances, we made a few mistakes and those guys made them hurt,” Celio succinctly stated to the scores of reporters outside the Cannons locker room. “A pretty descent performance considering what we had to overcome (seven players were unavailable on Sunday, an unsettling trend in 2008) and I think we can take some positives away from these games that will go a long way toward determining what kind of team we will be in another month or so when it matters most.”

On Friday of last week the Summer Solstice quietly came and went. Days are once again getting ever-so-slightly shorter as we head toward the bottom of the year and a long, lifeless off-season in Connecticut. Things are growing increasingly short for the Connecticut Cannons in regular season play as the team is once again on the bottom of the scrap heap looking up at the third-place Metallurgists (9-5) and the rest of the CNMSBL A Division. On Sunday the die was cast and the iron men of Bristol wrought two wins against a Cannons club that simply couldn’t “steel” one on the road. The Metal Heads have to this point been the anvil dropped time and time again on the Big Guns unsuspecting Wile E. Coyote: humorous if you are the “dropper,” less so if you are the “droppee.” The defending champion Baby Bears come to Newington for two and Manager Bill Lageman wonders how and why the mighty have fallen, saying after Sunday’s split with the Capitals, “It’s hard to explain. As far as our team is concerned things are not going all that great and the old saying ‘What a difference a year makes’ is quite appropriate here.” The last time these teams met the Cannons emerged with a pair of convincing victories and Cannon Nation will breathe a bit easier if the crimson-clad club can stage a repeat performance in the unfriendly openness of Mill Pond Park. Is Connecticut the baseball equivalent of iron pyrite—commonly referred to as “fool’s gold”—or does the team have some true worth with golden days lying directly ahead? This Sunday, Cannons/Cubs in a classic CNMSBL confrontation that reverberates with significant post-season ramifications (Loge Box, Outfield Grandstand and Standing Room Only seats are available at 1 800 CANNONS or on-line at ctcannons.blogspot.net). It’s been said before but it bears repeating: it’s time to Get Your RED On Cannon Nation!

Cannons News and Notes: Balcerzak returned after being enshrined in the Medina High School Hall of fame in upstate New York…his induction speech has been rumored to rival Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” and John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not you’re your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country” as one of the most influential orations of the last fifty years; John Mancini played six innings in center in the absence of Jason Maule (dental surgery)…new nicknames for “Blue Fire” include “Boom Boom” and Dionicio’s favorite, “Johnny Mnemonic;” Balcerzak, Clark, Dionicio and Maule all have ten or more hits on the season; Dionicio’s three-bagger was the team’s first since the “Gringo From Santo Domingo” hit one against Marlborough in the 2006 postseason; despite being three-hit in Game Two Connecticut still hold a hitting advantage over its opponents, .274 to .261; Cannons batters have struck out seventy-three times while opposing hitters have only gone down swinging twenty-nine times…in eerily similar statistics, Connecticut has only worked twenty-eight walks while the opposition has received seventy-seven free passes; Clark and Patenaude have hurled sixty + of Connecticut’s 80 + innings in ’08; McDowell has requested a more active role in the pitching rotation…management will look to get “Louisiana Lightnin’” some additional innings in the second half of the season; the Cannons team WHIP is 2.06…opposing pitchers have a WHIP of 1.57; Weber made his first appearance as an infielder this season, logging five innings at second in Game One before re-aggravating a quad injury legging out a fielder’s choice (Dionicio replaced him for the remainder of the day); Bristol improved to 7-0 against the Cannons since Connecticut joined the A Division in 2006 (6-0 regular season; 1-0 postseason); Weber and Vanasse became the tenth and eleventh Cannons respectively to earn their ’08 playoff eligibility; OF Mike McGann is expected to return after completing two weekends worth of teaching degree course work; Steve “Lil’ Unit” Celio, older brother of the Cannons Manager, was waiting in the wings if the team could not put nine bodies on the diamond; Weber’s brother, Jeff, is getting married later this summer…the bachelor party will be held this Friday (June 27, 7:00 p.m.) at the New Britain Elks Club…donations are $20 and several Cannons have expressed interest in attending what will undoubtedly be a media circus; McDowell’s oldest son and Fan of the Year candidate, Jake, brought his Webkinz leopard lizard into the dugout…the lizard’s name: Mr. Cool.