HEAVY ARTILLERY IN THE UNIVERSE OF BATTLE
Short-Handed Cannons Out-Caliber Rifles in Game Two, Gain Playoff Momentum

Newington, CT (AP)—“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some military giant to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies combined, with all the treasure of the earth…could not by force take a drink [from our waters], or make a track [upon our land], in a trial of a thousand years…If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.” These words were spoken by Abraham Lincoln as the states spiraled inexorably toward Civil War (what Louisiana native Drew McDowell’s favorite tome, James and Walter Kennedy’s The South Was Right!, refers to as the “War for Southern Independence”). Essentially Lincoln claimed the fate of the nation rested solely in the hands of her citizens: what God had joined together only they could put asunder. The citizenry of Cannon Nation enjoyed an off-season in which management assemble a veritable who’s who of talent to take the diamond in the Connecticut North Men’s Senior Baseball League’s A Division. Yet if destruction be this team’s lot the well-documented and oft-lamented commitment concerns could be to blame. Sunday saw the Connecticut Cannons sink to a season lowlight—beginning game one with just eight players, this from a ball club with a massive nineteen-man roster—only to resuscitate, rebound and rally for a game two victory against the second-place Winsted Rifles, a season highpoint and the defining on-field moment of 2008…for the time being. “We can field the league’s deepest, most versatile and overall best team when we have all of the puzzle pieces to play with but instead we’ve been putting things together piecemeal for most of the season,” intoned Manager Matt Celio in his post-game press conference. “Simply stated, I was embarrassed to begin a game with only eight players yet we’ve been fortunate enough to overcome adversity and win two of our last four with a smoke-and-mirrors line-up. When you have two of the league’s elite pitchers [righty Tom Clark and lefty Mike Patenaude] anything is possible. Those guys are more likely than not going to keep us in games and give us a chance to win. To battle back and come up with a win against a good Winsted ball club is something we can hang our hat on as we head toward August. I couldn’t be more proud of our effort when we easily could have folded up the tents. This was the truest testament to what we are trying to accomplish here in Newington. This was Cannons Baseball.”

The Cannons attempted to delay the inevitable 10:00 a.m. start as long as possible but eventually trotted out just a pair of outfielders behind Patenaude and the solid slugging top of the Rifles offense went to work, peppering fly balls and line drives all over the outfield on their way to three first-inning runs. Walter “Chekov” Koenig, William DeVanney and Danny DiVita led off with consecutive doubles and Billy Dee Williams followed with a RBI single to fire the Rifles to the fast start. That proved to be more than enough for DiVita who scattered five hits over seven innings, even after reinforcements arrived in the forms of Steve Markie, Adam Pallone and Kevin Quinn. Patenaude (7 IP, 12 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 6 K, 3 BB) allowed additional runs in the second and the sixth and although the patchwork Cannons defense played exceptionally well behind him it was the inability of the offense to come up with the big hit that ended up carrying the day for Winsted (Connecticut put runners in scoring position in the first, second, fourth, sixth and seventh innings only to come away empty at each turn). “Tough spot for the team in general,” Celio coolly and curtly stated between ball games. “We didn’t have the bodies to begin and we didn’t have the testicular fortitude to follow through after the opening frame. We needed to work together, rise to the occasion and make a stand and we simply didn’t get it done. A disappointing defeat but I am confident enough in the character of this ball club to guarantee a win in game two.”

Clark had the ball in his hands for the nightcap and, after allowing a single to second batter DeVanney, was able to keep the Rifles off the board in the first as he induced ground ball outs from DiVita and Williams. In the second the right-hander wasn’t as fortunate as walks and errors conspired to put the Cannons in a 2-0 hole. Paul “Digger” Graves led off with a single but was caught leaning toward second by Clark’s “A+” pick-off move (“good for one out a game” promised Chris Barsa earlier in the season). Don Armatino followed with a walk and Pat O’Brien reached on an error by Patenaude, playing third for the first time since a game versus Glastonbury back in the team’s inaugural A Division campaign in July of 2006. A passed ball moved the runners to second and third and Armatino eventually scored as Markie threw errantly into the outfield on a failed pick-off play. O’Brien crossed the plate after Howie Longhi’s well-placed ground out to Weber at second and the Rifles shot out to a 2-0 advantage. The Cannons immediately fired back as Weber led off with a double to the left field fence, Andy Borst was hit by pitcher Artie Lange and Pallone dropped a run-scoring double into right field. Jack Vanasse grounded to third—popping his hamstring in the process in what team physicians called a “McGann-esque” injury…he joins several of his teammates in “day-to-day” status with an out-of-whack wheel—and Patenaude followed with a whiff to end the threat with Connecticut trailing 2-1. Clark kept Winsted in check in the third and the Cannons tied the score in the home half as McDowell reached on an error and scored from first on Markie’s RBI two-bagger. Rifles Manager Graves doubled to lead off the fourth, moved to third on an error and scored the go-ahead run as the Cannons converted a double play, Quinn to Weber to McDowell (almost as memorable as Tinkers to Evers to Chance). Yet Connecticut again responded quickly as Weber doubled and Borst drove him home with a single to left-center field, knotting the score at 3 where the game would remain deadlocked until the fateful sixth frame. After recording two easy outs on pop-ups to Borst in left and “Remember the Alomar” Weber at second, the Rifles were able to touch the visibly tiring Clark (6 IP, 6 H, 6 R, 2 ER, 2 K, 3 BB) for a trio of tallies as Graves singled, Armatino got aboard on an error, O’Brien reached on a run-scoring fielder’s choice (all runners were safe as Clark and Quinn converged on the ball but could not get Armatino at second), Meister Burger worked a walk and Longhi drove in two—and what appeared to be the final nail in the Cannons coffin—with a seeing-eye single to push the Rifles in front by a score of 6-3 before Clark struck out his final batter Garrett Leifert to escape any additional damage. The Cannons, uncharacteristically cool in the face of calamity, immediately went to work against the hard-throwing Lange as Quinn singled and scored on Weber’s third consecutive double. Celio—physically the “heaviest” of the Cannons “artillery”—came up with a big two-out single down the left field line as Weber wheeled around the bases, cutting Winsted’s lead to just one as the game moved to the seventh. Controversy ensued as “K-Dog” Quinn took the mound to face the top of the Winsted line-up. The Rifles, in an effort to defuse a Cannons team burning close to the explosion point, protested against the pitcher’s sunglasses forcing the righty reliever to shelve his shades. Quinn (1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 K, 0 BB) climbed the mound and proceeded to pop up each of the three batters he faced keeping things close for the top of the Cannons order. Mike McGann battled and eventually earned a base on balls and McDowell followed with a hard hit grounder to the drawn-in third baseman and Jeff Weber look-alike Dane Cook who attempted to cut down the lead runner at second instead pulling Graves off with a floating flip toward left field. Clark then hit a grounder up the middle that was gloved by Longhi at short but he bobbled and eventually botched the possible double play ball loading the bases for Quinn who ended the game with a single sweetly stroked to right scoring McGann and McDowell easily with the tying and winning runs (as Quinn headed back to the dugout he couldn’t resist a dig, saying “It must have been the glasses” leading to a war of words with 6’ 4” catcher DeVanney before the teams stiffly offered post-game congratulations). “Impressive victory, hard-fought and fairly won,” said Celio. “Although we booted the ball around a bit more than we would like, this was really the antithesis of everything bad about game one. We willed this one out and I think we will be able to use this as a springboard for the second season (the quickly approaching 2008 CNMSBL Playoffs). I know our eleven guys gutted things out today, gave everything they had and it was just extremely exciting to be a part of this comeback.” Guarantees are glorious things when they work out.

No score and eight years ago our founding fathers brought forth upon the CNMSBL a new team, conceived in search of championships, and dedicated to the proposition that no team would be its equal. Now we are engaged in the 2008 season, testing whether the latest incarnation of that team, can long endure into August. We meet each Sunday on a great field. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they do on the diamond. It is for us the citizens of Cannon Nation, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work which those who play here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored few we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave their full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these players have not played in vain—that this team, under God, shall have an A Division Championship—and that a team of Cannons, by Cannons, and for Cannons, shall not perish from this earth. This is the Newington Address. It has been said that history is written by the victors. It is the sincere hope of the citizenry of Cannon Nation on these sultry summer days that the history of the ’08 CNMSBL campaign will be written by cerise-clad scholars and long-remembered throughout the Connecticut North Men’s Senior Baseball League and central Connecticut as a whole. The decision to oppose the Cannons will hopefully be one its rivals will regret but once...and that will be continuously. Next up for Connecticut is a visit to the far east and a double dip date with the Cubs at Eastern Connecticut State University (that of the unusual 9:00 a.m. first pitch). Tickets for the July 20 match-up against the seventh-place Baby Bears (4-8 at press time) are available at 1 800 CANNONS or on-line at ctcannons.blogspot.net (Standing Room Only seats remain for the twin bill and its plethora of post-season implications). Gear up for the stretch run and get your RED on!

Cannons News and Notes: Weber’s second double on Sunday was the twentieth of his illustrious CNMSBL career (his twenty-one total two-baggers ranks behind only Celio and Luby all-time and his six since joining the A Division are tied for second on the team’s career list with Leo Dionicio trailing just Jason Maule); since the start of the 2006 season McGann leads the team with nineteen A Division walks; Clark’s final run surrendered was the hundredth allowed by Cannons pitchers this season; incredibly, Quinn’s second A Division win in his career ties him for second place (Mike Calabrese) on the staff in A Division play (Patenaude’s seven victories are tops on the team); the team’s ’08 batting average of .287 is twenty-three points higher than the overall average from the ’06-’07 campaigns; every Cannon with ten or more at-bats on the season has at least one extra base hit; McDowell will miss this weekend’s match-up at Eastern bringing to a close his consecutive games streak to start his career at thirty-eight (Celio and Weber are the only two Cannons of the original nineteen roster invitees to attend each game…Celio has not missed a game since the 2002 season at Manchester); in the fifth inning of game one Patenaude pitched the hundredth inning of the ’08 season for Connecticut; Patenaude became the thirteenth member of the Cannons to earn his playoff eligibility this season (Mancini [3], Markie [2] and Pallone [2] can still make the playoff roster by participating in the team’s final four regular season contests); in the middle of game one Patenaude asked left fielder Borst if he could see the ball leaving the bat to which AB replied, “Yeah…I think so.”; Celio announced his intentions to “go under the knife” this off-season (a possible medial meniscus tear in his right knee has been diagnosed by team doctor and former Cannon Dan Krenk)…when he mentioned the ailment might require surgery in the clubhouse the “Teutonic Ideal” Weber replied with the rollicking, “For what? Liposuction?” (is that covered by insurance?); the Cannons finished their ten-game home schedule at 3-7 with wins against the Cubs, Nationals and Rifles (the team finished both the ’06 and ’07 season at 1-9 at home against A Division foes...only one win, the 9-8 victory over Hartford in mid-May, came at New Cannon Yards); Sacco Stadium at Alumni Field was the fourth and final home field for the Cannons in ’08 joining New Cannon Yards at the Clem Lemire Complex and Mill Pond Park in Newington and Smith School in Glastonbury; this was Connecticut’s first win against Winsted in A Division play (Bristol is the only team the Cannons have failed to defeat since moving up from the B Division after the '05 Championship); with a fifth win the team-best regular season mark of 6-14 since joining the A Division is still attainable; the team’s vision for a return to navy blue jerseys was on display as several Cannon Kids wore the prototype model, receiving rave reviews across the board; ballots for the 2008 Cannons Awards will be issued to players on Monday, July 28 (if the final mandatory rain date is not required…if necessary the ballots will be issued on Monday, August 4); the CNMSBL postseason is scheduled for August 9, 10, 16 and 17; former Cannon Craig Perrier is enjoying a solid season in the Boston Baseball League, going 3 for 3 with a run scored and a RBI in a loss on Sunday (he is batting .364 for the year); Celio’s wife, Audra, and her Lady Cannons won the politically incorrectly-named West Hartford Girls Softball League crown, going 4 for 5 in the title tilt (as is the case with the Red Sox following World Series wins, the Cannons have never failed to win a championship in the same season the Lady Cannons have taken the trophy).