I deliberately started with this to put into context what a tremendous effort the club raised in their absence to win all four senior grades over our respected rivals for Malvern who were close to full strength. It is one thing for a club like ours to boast about the depth of quality players we might have, but on occasions like this it is important that you prove it with positive results. The fact that the boys achieved this is something we should all be very proud of this week… they were GREAT!

Of course, it was a bit of a surprise that we got the opportunity to play these games as both Waverley and Malvern venues were literally under water early on the Sunday morning. Thankfully the weather cleared and the windy conditions combined with a warming sun to help both diamonds be prepared for play in the afternoon. In fact, it was quite amazing to note how good the conditions were following the sort of two-day deluge that had Noah ordering the timber for his boat and the animals gathering two-by-two!

Our day would start in a very positive fashion with our young Reserves team holding on for a 2-1 win over the Braves’ Twos after what was a most enjoyable and keenly contested game. Then, a glance at the Waverley Firsts lineup would provide us with an immediate reminder about the depth of quality we are fortunate to have this season. To start with the most obvious, our battery would open with former Club Champions Adam Bonaddio and Dan Reeman who, thankfully, both returned to the club this summer after long absences… naturally, they were both OUTSTANDING performers in this game.

Adam ‘Beckett’ Bonaddio was the man to take the ball again for Waverley in the absence of our Claxton pitchers and, much as he did against Blackburn, he set the tone for a solid performance by our team. What ‘Bonnas’ might lack in sharpness after a few seasons away from the game he certainly makes up with his bulldog determination and his clever ability to work around the toughest hitters. Mind you, much of the credit for the location and pitch selection should go to catcher Danny ‘Rambo’ Reeman who rolled back the years with his trademark hard-edged leadership behind the plate.

After five innings of sterling work for the team, Bonaddio handed the reins over the newcomer Tom Shaw who consolidated the impressive form he showed in his cameo debut recently. On this occasion Shaw needed to be good to make sure that the game didn’t slip from our grasp during those important sixth and seventh innings. Tom allowed only the first batter to get a hit, while a couple of nervous wild pitches would cost him a run in an otherwise excellent effort by the youngster. I’m now going to leave any mention of our closer until the end of this report.

The healthy representation of the ‘Waverly Nation’ at the game could hardly have been more delighted to see our recent Premiership outfielder Ian ‘Ichiro’ Geduld finally getting some breaks with the stick as he was a standout in this game with his 3-5 that included three doubles, three RBIs, a stolen base and two runs scored. Not much behind him was established star Jarrod ‘Hammer’ Hodges who stroked the ball around the park like he had all the time in the world to pick where he was going to drive it. His sweetest of sweet strokes garnered 3-4 with a double, a RBI, a walk, two stolen bases and two runs.

The humble quiet achiever Kerry ‘Giambi’ Gassner continues to be a most productive designated hitter with his 2-5 that drove in a couple of runs, while Anthony ‘A-Rod’ Reinke couldn’t get through a game without supplying at least one “rib eye steak”. Finally, but not least, Dan Reeman wasn’t satisfied with catching the complete nine innings, so he added a terrific 2-3 with a double, a walk and two runs scored… what a job ‘Reemo’!

Once again I deliberately finished with Reemo because it would be hard to forget the gleam in his eye when he started catching the warm-up pitches of our “celebrity closer” Travis Blackley who took over for the bottom of the eighth. Most baseball fans should know that Travis, the older brother of Adam, comes with the considerable CV of having played in the US major leagues with both the Seattle Mariners and the San Francisco Giants… it just doesn’t get any bigger than that! Much of the audience, including the Malvern bench, watched in awe and admiration as a slightly rusty Blackley gave us quite a few glimpses of a rare pitching talent.

It would be a massive understatement to say that Travis “overmatched” the hitters he faced at the end of this game but, with due respect for the Malvern boys, I don’t think they should feel too bad about the fact that they couldn’t touch him… it will remain a vivid memory for those who faced him I can assure you. Blackley threw exactly 30 pitches, 18 for strikes, and struck out four to put a giant-sized exclamation mark on a fabulous day for the Wildcats. He slammed the door shut in both the eighth and ninth with two mesmerising strike outs.

Catcher Dan Reeman might have been excused for using the famous line attributed to Rod Marsh the first time he kept wicket to Jeff Thomson… “it hurts, but I love it”! Travis Blackley will bring a heap of excitement to Waverley games whenever he pitches, that is for sure! Sorry, no major league nickname for a major leaguer... I don't fancy trotting out Travis 'Blackley' Blackley!! 
PS: Travis also drove in our opening run while playing superbly at first base in the Reserves!

Just a quick word for a couple of “whiz kids” from the prolific Waverley farm system known as our Juniors. JJ. O’Connor shapes as a fine prospect with his third cameo appearance off the bench this season while he was joined in this game by a “nipper” with a very famous name at Waverley and in Australian baseball, Jacob Sheldon-Collins, who made a brief Firsts debut. I have a feeling that we will be seeing a lot of these guys in Waverley shirts long into the future.

With that meritorious and valuable win banked away, we must now look ahead to a pretty daunting fixture this coming Thursday, just before our Victorian boys head off to Mount Gambier for their away series against South Australia. This Thursday night we have another clash with the table-topping Essendon in the early game at Melbourne Ballpark (6:30pm). Then, within minutes of this concluding, we have been compelled to “finish” the Round 6 game against Geelong that ended in controversy with the scores tied 1-1 in the top half of the sixth inning. Apparently we will be required to play no more than 12 minutes, picking up the game where it left off with the Baycats having the bases loaded and two out. There is no need for me to explain how finely balanced that contest is, or to discuss the whys and wherefores of how we came to this decision.

Rounding off the pre-Christmas season, we will then host those same Baycats with all four grades playing our traditional “festive fixture” at Napier Park… sincere thanks again to Baseball Victoria! Thirds and Seconds starting 1:00pm, while Fourths and Firsts start at 3:30pm. Please make sure that the ‘Waverley Nation’ arrives in full force for the event, while fans from Geelong and anywhere else are invited to join us for the usual after-match conviviality.

GO WILDCATS!

It might be taking this job a bit (or a lot?) too seriously to think that I should have to declare any sponsorships or gifts received before making positive comment, but I will declare right now that Grant Karlsen did give me a lift home after the game last night… so, many thanks for that ‘GK’!
But then, as our dearly departed old chum Peter Wood used to say; “Grant is a typical Waverley person - a fine baseballer, a quality citizen and a nice kid”. I could never find any reason to disagree with him!

Having got that out of the way, Karlsen very nearly removed his Waverley shirt with a ‘W’ on the chest and replaced it by that well-known blue suit with a huge ‘S’ on it… he was SUPERMAN for the Wildcats at Sandringham last night! I’ve made a rough calculation that Grant has caught around 800 pitches in seven games over the past fortnight since our Thursday game at Bonbeach on 27 November. In between time he distinguished himself as Victoria’s No.1 catcher at the Claxton Shield Showcase Round in Blacktown where the Aces secured three wins from four games.

Hardly showing any of the fatigue or “let down” you might expect after such a schedule, Grant literally “did it all” for Waverley in a game that was almost a bit too close for comfort. Once again he caught 5.1 innings, before handing the gloves to Andrew Russell and taking the ball himself to pitch a mighty 1.2 innings save for his team. And, if that is not enough, he batted 2-4, drove in a run and threw out a would-be base thief with a cannonball throw to second base. If you happen to see Grant Karlsen today he is probably wearing glasses and going under the name of Clarke Kent!

With the heavy Claxton Shield schedule just behind us and more looming ahead this weekend, manager Phil Dale was obviously keen to spread the workload on our players who are top-heavily represented in the Victorian team. Pitching stars Donnie Hendricks and Adam Blackley were used for just one inning each to start the game and both put up a goose egg on the bottom line of the scorecard. In stark contrast, Donnie escaped from a three-hit inning via a big one out strike out, while ‘AB’ had to tip-toe around a couple of walks.

The man entrusted to do the bulk of the pitching work for Waverley was reliable ‘Tommy John’ Rynberk who sailed through the next two innings with just two base runners as he looked set to overshadow the efforts of our two Aces representatives. However, Tommy ran into a nasty speed-hump in the fifth when two doubles and a walk, with one out, would turn very pear shaped after an untimely error followed. A couple more hits would see five runs scored by the Royals in the frame, only two of which were earned against Tommy’s stats line. Sometimes you have to expect to leak some hits when you throw strikes and pitch to contact plus, to be fair, Sandringham are an underrated batting team.

Rynberk was relieved by the aforementioned Grant ‘Dr.K’ Karlsen after he issued a one out walk in the sixth. Like the man with the X-Ray vision, who can leap tall buildings in a single bound and who throws faster than a speeding bullet, Karlsen put a big dose of kryptonite on that threat with two strike outs. Then, he bounced out to slam the door shut in the seventh with another two Special Ks. Only a solitary walk would slightly blemish a near perfect pitching display that secured the game for the Wildcats from a precarious position.

Waverley jumped out of the blocks to score two runs in the first when “run machine” Anthony ‘A-Rod’ Reinke delivered again with two RBIs as the fourth successive hit to start the game. In fact we deserved to feel that two runs were a bit skinny after such a promising start. The man to get the ball rolling in the game was our Minnesota Marvel James ‘Jeter’ Beresford who, as I mentioned, is starting to roll back into form very nicely. Jimmy stroked his leadoff hit into left field and then produced two rifle shots straight up the middle in his next two at bats. His night finished with a walk that left him owning a terrific 3-3 game with four times on base and two runs scored.

Aces ace Danny ‘Bambino’ Berg smashed one of the longest home runs of the season… except that someone had obviously moved the outfield fence. I kid you not, with a hint of Wildcat licence, Danny crushed this line drive around 450ft only to see it caught just inside the low fence by the DEEP Royals’ outfielder. I reckon they measure their dimensions at Sandy in yards rather than feet… this hit would have landed on the Junior clubrooms at our Napier Park! Earlier, Josh ‘Big Papi’ Hendricks had launched a towering sacrifice fly around 350ft but it was well inside this yard.

Beresford’s 3-3 topped the offence in this game, while Bergie, Reinks and GK each batted 2-4 and drove in runs. Glenn Mascoll also continued his recent streak of underrated contributions with 1-3, plus a walk and another stolen base.

The ‘Waverley Nation’ survived a brief nervous moment in this game to take the one prize we covet… the invaluable two competition points. We never take anything for granted against the Sandringham Royals who often save some of their best efforts for contests against Waverley. Baseball, as we all know, is very much a team game and it takes more than one player or one facet of the game to win… but, on this occasion, I reckon Grant Karlsen deserves the MVP votes while Jim Beresford tried his best to take them from him.

If you want to see Grant at it again, along with Bergie, Donnie, Blackers, Jimmy and Rusty you might like to risk the weather by supporting the Victorian Aces in their home series against Queensland starting tonight at Melbourne Ballpark - first pitch 7:00pm. Unfortunately 'Wearney's' shoulder is not quite ready for him to join the Aces this weekend. You can even follow the Victorian team to Mildura if you are really keen for the games on Saturday and Sunday.

Then again, you might prefer to give the heavily depleted Waverley Wildcats your support when we take on a full-strength Malvern Braves at Toorak Park this Sunday at 3:30pm.

GO WILDCATS!

While the Victorian Aces were enjoying a very successful “Showcase Round” of the 2009 Claxton Shield at Blacktown in Sydney, the biggest baseball ticket in the nation was at Napier Park for the clash of Division One titans Waverley and Blackburn. In fact, I’d almost be prepared to bet that there were more spectators on hand for this game between the local eastern suburbs rivals than there would have been for the final game of the Blacktown event between NSW and Victoria. The sun was reasonably warm for the occasion, but there was a distinct chill in the regular wind gusts.

Our Wildcats would be missing our Aces' representatives Danny Berg, Adam Blackley, Donnie Hendricks, Grant Karlsen and Scott Wearne, while the Orioles would be without Hayden Dingle and Paul Weichard. Maybe most significantly both teams would be without their managers; Phil Dale of Waverley and Lee Hogan of Blackburn. It made for an enthralling contest where the depth and resilience of both teams would be tested. The ‘Waverley Nation’ would find themselves a bit restless on the eve of the game given recent Sunday losses to Bonbeach and Sunshine… there was a degree of pressure hinging on the result of this fixture even at this stage of the season.

With both regular starters on Claxton duty it fell to Adam ‘Beckett’ Bonaddio to take the ball first for Waverley and, as we would expect, he certainly didn’t let anyone down on this big occasion. ‘Bonnas’, as we know, has been polishing his social skills while on a tour of Europe in recent years and he has just returned to Waverley this summer. After shaking off a thick coating of rust upon his return to baseball, Bonaddio was just about ready to remind all of us about the attributes that have made him a Junior and Senior Club Champion at Waverley. His splendid six innings, quality start was not without a few moments of concern, but with only the single scrambled run he allowed in the fifth frame Adam's effort was vital to the team cause.

Likewise reliever ‘Tommy John’ Rynberk who, most importantly, kept the Orioles off the board in the seventh and eighth innings while the Wildcats mounted a brilliant comeback. We have spoken often about Tommy’s clever variation, but by far the best component of his makeup is his ability to remain poised under pressure and to work his way out of tough situations. I don’t think that ‘TR’ was at his sharpest on this day, but he once again demonstrated his fighting qualities and determination to get the job done for his team.

By the time the ninth inning rolled around Waverley was suddenly enjoying the luxury of a 9-1 lead in the game and it was a perfect opportunity for assistant coach David Clarkson to give club newcomer Tom Shaw a debut outing for the Wildcats in a relatively low stress environment. Low stress or not, Shaw pitched to the top of the tough Blackburn lineup and he deserves to be very pleased with his confident 1-2-3 closure which did not allow a runner to reach base.

Opposing our Wildcats would be the ever competitive presence of Claxton Shield stalwart Cam Hardy who possibly should have been in Blacktown himself. Cameron must have been under serious consideration for a berth in the Aces bullpen and he certainly would have been there if the Provincials had not been sadly railroaded out of the competition this year. Hardy, as always, made life very tough for our hitters through five scoreless innings before an Evan Phillips home run indicated him starting to run short of gas. Hardy would never give up and he battled manfully to supply 122 pitches for his team in the absence of his usual backup guy, manager Lee Hogan.

Infielder Daniel Mack took over when Hardy was finally done and, although he was tagged for four add-on runs via Andrew Russell’s grand slam homer, none of those runs were earned. It could be said in the review of this result that Waverley’s pitching depth proved the decisive factor because Cam Hardy didn’t have the arms in reserve to take over while he still owned the lead.

Of course the reality is that you have to wrestle the ball away from Hardy as he doesn’t back away from a challenge. And, he is by no means the first pitcher this year to feel the unexpected brunt of Evan ‘Longoria’ Phillips bat this season. ‘Evo’ can look out of sorts at the plate with occasional ugly swings, but he does swing the bat hard and when he makes solid contact the ball tends to travel a long way. His go-ahead two run blast in this game sailed over the deep part of the Napier Park diamond in right field… it was not a cheap one! If anyone may be thinking that Phillips is riding a streak of luck, well, let me remind you that this is the SIXTH time he has found lightning in the bottle this season so far!

What puts this into context is the fact that our recent Triple Crown slugger Andrew ‘Rusty’ Russell has been hitting the ball solidly all season yet he was still to register his first homer of the 2008/09 season. In fact, Rusty was facing the rarely seen scenario of successive hitless games when he walked in the seventh inning. However, Russell gleefully grasped the opportunity for another plate appearance in the eighth when he “went yard” to centre-left with bases loaded for a game-breaking GRAND SLAM homer! Delighted father Jimmy was just about the shout the bar in the clubhouse until he realised that it could become a dangerous precedent if Rusty starts to run hot for the rest of the season!

In between the big bombs from Phillips (two RBIs) and Russell (five RBIs) was another most valuable two RBI single up the middle from Anthony ‘A-ROD’ Reinke that gave our Wildcats some welcome breathing space in the seventh inning. 'Reinks' collected two hits for the game.

Young pro star James ‘Jeter’ Beresford is just starting to ease his way back to full throttle and he would have enjoyed starting in his familiar short stop position. To mark the occasion he stepped up to supply two hits for the game, including one of his trademark running bunts for a safe hit and a lashing line drive to left field. Defensively, he had five assists for the game. Of them one was a brilliant swooping pick-up and throw while another “hit-robber” was one right out of the Beresford box of special tricks. In this instance the Blackburn batter had been jammed inside and he floated a ball closer to third base than short stop. With not a second to spare on the slow-hit ball, ‘Jimbo’ launched himself to collect the ball, spin and throw in mid-air to make the spectacular force out at second! That’s why we are prepared to pay the big money to attend these games.

Jarrod ‘Hammer’ Hodges once again proved his ability to rise to the biggest occasions when he batted a terrific 3-5 with a spanking double to keep up the action on the Waverley base paths. Down the order you may be thinking that long time loyal Waverley team mates Glenn ‘Ferret’ Mascoll and Daniel ‘Rambo’ Reeman didn’t contribute much to the offence as they are not listed among the safe hitters. WRONG! Dan Reeman walked THREE times from his four plate appearances, while Glenn walked twice, stole a base and was also hit by a pitch… there is more than one way to get on base to help your team.

There were plenty of highlights to recount and plenty of good spirit among the ‘Waverley Nation’ after such a positive result, but we all recognise that the end scoreline did not accurately indicate the overall evenness of the contest. More importantly we cannot afford to let such a great result fade with lack lustre performances against what might be considered lower-ranked teams. This will first be tested at Sandringham in the midweek twilight game 6:00pm Thursday 11 December at Tulip Street. This is soon followed by our away trip to Malvern who have been lifting lately… be there at 3:30pm this Sunday 14 December.

PS: Congratulations to our Victorian representatives who helped the Aces take three wins from four games in the 2009 Claxton Shield Showcase Round at Blacktown. Pitchers Adam Blackley and Donavon Hendricks both pitched excellent winning starts for our State. Bergie showed glimpses of his hitting power and Grant Karlsen caught nearly every pitch for the team. Best news of all is that our new Wildcats' favourite Scotty Wearne is not as seriously injured as first thought... PHEW!

GO WILDCATS!

Now just wait a minute, before you start thinking that they have been adding something “funny” to the water in the Waverley area, NO we have not started to enjoy or embrace LOSING! It’s just that on occasions like this you can’t do much other than simply tip your caps to the opposing team… in this case the Sunshine Eagles. The underrated Eagles arrived at Napier Park like gunslingers ready to stare down the pride of the ‘Waverley Nation’ and by the time they had left they had shot some considerable holes in our finals prospects.

The weather was little short of magnificent for Sunday baseball at Napier Park and there would be no excuses for the players. A healthy but not huge contingent of the ‘Waverley Nation’ in the club house would be in high spirits after our Reserves hammered out a resounding win over their Sunshine counterparts. This mood, however, would not last for too long when the Eagles quite quickly grabbed an unexpected and rather fortunate lead in the Firsts game and there was every indication that we would be in for a serious struggle.

To cut to the chase, the chief reason for this was the impressive presence of Sunshine’s American pitcher Ryan Trytten dealing his quality stuff from the mound. And, as we were to discover later, at just the worst time, he could be equally as dangerous while swinging the lumber. For those who may not know, Trytten is a baseball professional who this season plied his trade with the American Association Independent League team the Lincoln Salt Dogs. In 2008 he owned a 5-5, 3.52ERA record with 81 strike outs from his 102.1 innings. He would arrive for this game with the big reputation of having struck out no less than 16 Doncaster Dragons in a seven inning mid-week game at Altona this year!

But, to be plainly honest, Trytten did not intimidate or even dominate our hitters on this day. Sure, he pitched extremely well overall and he did “whiff” eight strike outs for the game, but there was still plenty of solid contact made by our guys at regular times. The biggest problem for Waverley on this day was that some of our more impressive hits were to find the gloves of the fielders who were a combination of very good and trifle fortunate. Of those that spring to mind were rocket blasts delivered by Jarrod ‘Hammer’ Hodges TWICE and James ‘Jeter’ Beresford later in the game.

In the end Sunshine would narrowly win the game 4-3 and the hit-count 10-9, but I’m sure I’m not being too biased to report my impression that the Wildcats hit a lot more balls harder than their opponents. One classic example was the exquisitely lobbed “dumper” that bisected the converging infield and the outfield to drive in Sunshine’s game-opening run in the third inning. I’m not aiming to take anything away from the Sunshine crew… that’s baseball. It’s those same unpredictable things that make our game so absorbing that will often frustrate fans to death in games like this!

While Trytten was worthy of the complete game victory that he secured for his club, Waverley’s pitchers Donavon ‘Drysdale’ Hendricks and ‘Tommy John’ Rynberk had very little to be ashamed about as they both threw very well in a sad losing cause. Hendricks continued his marvellous trend this season by issuing just one walk and among the eight hits allocated against him were a few very “soft” ones. Donnie also matched Trytten’s eight KKKKKKKK’s from his seven innings of polished work.

Tommy was also very sharp in his usual canny manner to close out the last two frames for us but his day would be spoiled by the one pitch that found the sweet part of a Sunshine bat and next touched down beyond our left-centre field fence. That go-ahead, game-winning home run in the top of the ninth would be delivered by… yep, you guessed it… their Man of the Match starting pitcher Ryan Trytten who also batted in the #7 hole. What a day he enjoyed!

I’ve already mentioned that some of our hitters were almost literally “robbed” of hits in this game, but among those Scott Wearne, Grant Karlsen and Glenn Mascoll were still able to reap two hits each from the somewhat slim pickings. Evan Phillips once again demonstrated how dangerous he can be when, after appearing overmatched while striking out first time up, he crunched a two run ‘dinger’ in the fifth over left-centre. 'Ferret' Mascoll doesn't always get rave reviews for his offence, but he showed once again that he can bring his best against quality opposition with his 2-3 plus a walk and two stolen bases. Jarrod Hodges may have had three booming hits in this game, but in the end he had to settle for one ringing double in the eighth.

Just finally, the ‘Waverley Nation’ would be graced by the presence of one of our more illustrious fathers for the first time in many blue moons for this occasion. Our star outfielder Jarrod Hodges would finally convince his Helms Award winning baseball legend dad John ‘The Phantom’ Hodges to come along to a game. It is great to see John looking trim and healthy following his long sabbatical away from the game that made him famous. I’m sure ‘Hodgo Senior’ mentioned that he would be only to pleased to help out the club in any way he can… especially if we were to need anything relating to the timber industry… Good on you John, we just might take you up on that!

PS: For anyone that has ever had the pleasure of watching a baseball game with John Hodges you would not need me to tell you that he has a keen eye and he is an absolutely brilliant student of the game. Just about every prediction he makes seems to come to fruition. On this occasion John assured us that Sunshine’s pitcher was starting to run out of tricks after the fifth inning and that the Waverley bats would surely get on top of him before the end of the game… sadly, I’m still waiting for this to happen mate!!

Once again, caps off to the Sunshine club for taking the honours in this game. Our next assignment comes in the form of a visit from our most local rivals Blackburn at Napier Park next Sunday 7 December. Both teams will be without coaches and players who are on Claxton Shield duty in Sydney so it should be an engrossing contest. Good luck to the Victorian Aces and, especially to our boys in the team; Adam Blackley, Grant Karlsen, Donovon Hendricks, Danny Berg and Scott Wearne… and, of course, our manager Phil Dale.

GO WILDCATS!

Phew! For a while there I thought that I might end up having to eat my words from the previous report when I suggested that the weather couldn’t possibly get much worse than it was last Sunday. Far from the Alaskan wind-chill that we experienced last week, this Thursday evening would bring a quite balmy 28deg temperature but with the near-certain threat of a late thunderstorm. Sure enough, just as the afternoon hours faded, the dark clouds rolled across Melbourne from the west and it was dropping plenty of precipitation on the ‘Waverley Nation’ as we ventured south to Bonbeach for the second time in five days.

At first it seemed that we were actually driving out of the storm as we neared the Frankston Freeway and the clear blue skies over the Bonbeach area was a reassuring sight. Our confidence was high when Stu Hendricks phoned to see what we thought the weather was doing… no sooner had we told him that things were looking promising when rain drops the size of dinner plates fell upon our car windscreen!

It was still very murky when Stu and I arrived before the game and, shortly after, we saw a massive thunderbolt touch down just a few feet away from us (OK, it might have been a bit further than that!), quickly followed by a clap of thunder louder than anything either of us young fellows had heard before in our lives!! We scurried for the shelter of the Waverley dugout as a brief rain storm descended upon us. Thankfully, most of this had passed by almost perfectly in time for the pre-game infield warm-ups and, with the light improving as the clouds passed overhead, the game was never seriously threatened after that.

First things first… we had heard a whisper that one of our young pros James ‘Jeter’ Beresford would be playing his first game for the club this season and, while we knew that Danny ‘Bambino’ Berg was back in town, it was a pleasant surprise to see him in uniform too… even if he was travelling incognito in an unfamiliar No.21 shirt! Both Jimmy and Danny are coming off very positive seasons with the Minnesota Twins organisation in the US professional minor leagues and it is always great to see them back representing the Wildcats as they have done so superbly over their many years at the club. Coach Dale chose not to disrupt the lineup when he simply substituted the pair of ‘Twinkies’ into left and centre field in place of the unavailable Joshua Hendricks and Jarrod Hodges.

Providing another Minnesota Twins “connection” was the appearance of the Hendriks family from Perth as they have recently moved to Melbourne. For those who may not follow the Claxton Shield competition their son, Liam Hendriks, is a team mate of James Beresford with the Twins and he was a genuine superstar of the 2008 Claxton Shield as WA's No.1 starting pitcher on a Championship winning team. If you had attended the second day of the 2008 Claxton Shield versus WA at Melbourne Ballpark, Liam Hendriks was the young right-hander that bamboozled our Victorian Aces as the Game 2 winning pitcher. We can’t guarantee that we’ll ever see Liam playing in Victoria, but we are hoping to hook his parents and family into joining the ‘Waverley Nation’?

The game started positively for the Wildcats when back-to-back doubles from ‘Rusty’ Russell and Danny Berg (welcome home!) scored our first run with one out in the opening frame and a subsequent Kerry Gassner RBI single plated Bergie for our second. In the second inning a Scott Wearne RBI double drove in Evan Phillips' leadoff single and… you’ve done the mathematics... we were leading 3-0 and in the same position as we were twice at the same venue last weekend!

However, one major difference was the presence of a more usual standard Adam ‘Blyleven’ Blackley on the hill for our team. ‘AB’ might have struggled for location in the wind last Sunday, but he was all business here as he went about his job like a man who felt that he had something to prove. He didn’t have anything to prove to the ‘Waverley Nation’ but he certainly made sure of a vital win for the club.

In fact, it was a bit of surprise to see Adam back on the mound mid-week with Tommy Rynberk and Adam Bonaddio named as our likely pitchers but, apparently, it was part of the pitching rotation strategy for the upcoming Claxton Shield games next week in Sydney. Blackley faced just five batters more than the minimum in this game, while striking out five in a most effective six inning “complete game” victory and the only run allowed by him was unearned. It was a terrific confidence booster for him to take into his Claxton Shield campaign this season.

Waverley tacked on a couple more runs in the fourth when our leadoff whiz Scotty ‘Pedroia’ Wearne milked a leadoff walk and then stole his way to third base before crossing the plate via Kerry Gassner’s bases loaded walk. Catcher Grant Karlsen, who was enjoying a terrific game, then did likewise with his bases loaded walk pushing Danny Berg across for our fifth run of the game. To round off the scoring Andrew Russell’s second double of the game drove in Scott Wearne in the fifth inning.

It was a fairly comprehensive victory for our team in this game. What didn’t escape my attention was the fact that we scored an identical six runs from an identical ten hits to the tallies from our miserable losing cause against the Blue Jays just five days ago. The difference was, guess what?... brilliant pitching, avoiding walks and very solid defence… funny about how that often works in baseball!

Scotty Wearne continues to set the tone for the Wildcats as a prototypal leadoff batter… his 2-3 with three stolen bags and two runs scored was just further evidence of this. He was joined in the “two for three gang” in this game by (YAWN!) Andrew Russell, along with Grant ‘Maurer’ Karl