Qualifying Games. . . to be continued. . .

All Star Game one of the state qualifying tournament took place this morning at 11:45. Our team (Mill Creek Southern) against Auburn. At the beginning of game time, the umpires specified game time would be one hour forty-five minutes. First inning closed out 1-2, Auburn. Second inning . . . Griffin batted, hit a nice RBI, scored a run, and the whole team looked great. Score was 6-5 to close the 2nd inning. 3rd inning was a wash for both teams - no runs. 4th inning, Grif up again, scored another run, we were up 11-5 at the mid-way point. Let me give a little background info here - Peewee rules have always held a 5 run limit in innings 1-4. SO, no matter what, Auburn could only get to 10 runs. They had scored three, and had 2 guys on base, batter up - hit an over the fence homerun. The 2 runners on the bases scored the 4th and 5th runs of that inning - to bring it up to 11-10 Mill Creek. SIDENOTE: Jeff saw that the 2nd runner never touched the bag, but before he could notify our coaches, the umpires called the game for time. The boy that hit the homer, his run didn't count because they had scored their 5 runs for the inning. We won 11-10.

JUST KIDDING!!!

The Auburn coaches questioned the umpire saying- if the last batter hits a homerun, his run DOES score. In all the years Griffin has been playing ball, we've NEVER heard this. It has ALWAYS been a 5 run limit in innings 1 through 4. BUT, because this is a STATE QUALIFYING TOURNAMENT, the umpire checked with the officials at the park. They said game time was 1:45 and the game was over with the homerun batter NOT scoring. Mill Creek wins 11-10. Our coaches did not call attention to the fact that their 2nd runner never tagged the bag.

As we were sitting at lunch, Jeff got an email and it said, long story short, that the other team has escalated their questioning of the game really being over, to the STATE level.

IF the state says we should have played the 5th inning, there is NO time limit, we have to go to the ballpark at 1:30 tomorrow to play that inning. Who would think that 8 YEAR OLD BASEBALL could be so intense??? Our game ended at 1:35 and it is now 4:25 and we are still waiting to hear the ruling. We are wondering what this will mean for the OTHER games that occured today. If ALL the umpires were calling games at an hour forty-five, shouldn't ALL those games have to be finished out?

Either way, win or lose, we are suppose to have game 2 of the tournament tomorrow. Based on our current status of winning, we play at 3:30. IF we have to play the 5th inning at 1:30 and lose, our "losers bracket" game will begin as soon as the 5th inning from today's game is over. And let me say . . . it is HOT out there.

We don't often ask for prayer for baseball, but it sure would be nice if they could call this game our way . . . the way we've ALWAYS played . . . time limit on the game. There's no reason for us to play a 5th inning tomorrow. . . we played for an hour forty-five today and won fair and square! Go Hawks!