WHAT DID WE LEARN FRIDAY NIGHT?
Kentucky literally gave a game to the Razorbacks with 6 runs on 2 hits and 1 error in the ninth.
Lessons?:
"Never give up"
About 4000 (give or take a HogPen full) learned the hard way that leaving in the 7th or 8th may leave you shaking your head as to how you could go to the trouble, time and expense to watch a ballgame only to miss the best part. I have to admit - so often I see folks leave early and say "How...why...?"; then, 5 pitching changes later, I wonder "why" I didn't go with them. Last night was enough reward for nearly half of those.
"Homers don't always win ballgames"
The stouthearted ("real fans" as my colleague behind me stated) could see the ninth inning shaping up with the homering hammer of Hamblin looming, then sauntering to the plate. The air in that balloon seriously deflated when he made the second out of the inning down on strikes. Don't get me wrong - that swing is what Danny does, it is what he's supposed to do. A couple of Tuesday nights ago we watched Southwest Missouri State score 6 runs in the first - 3 of those hits were 2-strike just-stick-out-the-bat-and-bloop-it-over-the-infield cheapies. 'Chicks do dig the longball', we all do. But there are more ways to win, and some of them might even be more fun. Three and four run homers are just as much the result of the guys who got on base as the big bat.
"Friday nights are worth the admission"
I said several times Friday night, "If it weren't for seeing Nick pitch, I don't know why I need to come on Friday night - we don't HIT the ball. We don't even seem to CARE TO!" Along the lines of the previous paragraph: Get on base. Bunt the ball (good grief, talk about a 'lost art'). Make an out that moves a runner (like Walker did late). Take the dang walk! If this team learned a lesson, the remaining Friday nights will make me eat my words.
"Them SEC teams are really good"
All of them. I'm not sure that the SEC West and the SEC East are not the top 2 conferences - BY THEMSELVES! It is easy to see how Kentucky has won all but one of its conference series. The middle infield made stellar plays, and made them look routine. Good hitting. Good pitching. Oh, exclude the 9th on that last one...
"Hey, Wildcats! Just because you have won more than in the last 108 years, that doesn't mean you get to score from third when the catcher goes to the mound. That doesn't mean you can call time during a pitch and actually be granted it. That doen't mean we won't force 3 errors in the 5th to tie the game. That doesn't mean that rowdy, hardcore fans can't get right into the pitcher's noggin. This is baseball... and YOU ARE STILL KENTUCKY!"
hognoxious@yahoo.com
