Hounds baseball returned to Winnemac on Tuesday night with a herald: Joe Clark, of local Jazz group Arcana, led the game off with a fantastic rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. However, a somewhat more necessary crew member, the umpire, did not make an appearance for the game requiring quick improvisation. The teams reached an agreement to have an out-of-the-lineup team member arbitrate the game from behind the mound during their team’s offensive half of the inning, and arbitrate first base calls during their defensive half of the inning.

And at the end of daylight, the Hounds escaped with a win, supported by an excellent pitching outing by Alec Reinke (#14). All 9 of Alec’s pitches (requiring an intricate system of signs from catcher Tony Correa (#13)) seemed to be working for him, culminating in only 1 hit and no runs. The offense was lead by the returning-after-a-Boston-sabbatical pair of Aidan French (SS, #12) and Max Kiefer (1B, #99) and returning-after-an-MVP Brian Lehman (LF, #2) all with a hit a piece. The offense was certainly helped by the Aviators issuing 10 free bases between walks and HBPs. Defensively, Nick “Gumby” Schmidt (#23, CF) made 3 putouts, including a nice over the shoulder catch, making up for a rare first-mistep in on a fly ball. In the last frame, the Hounds up by 3-0, Lehman was forced to run to Foster Avenue on a cranked change-up, the double cut-off executed almost perfectly but still late about half a second for a play at home, breaking the shut-out for the night. After one more run on a perfectly umpired out-of-play call, Mike “Mike 2” DiCola (#28) silenced the Aviator’s bats (but neither their mouths nor his) to finish the game with 2 strike-outs.

Extra props to our stand-in umpires Hans Hetrick (#18) and Tim Riggenbach (#8). Your work was underappreciated.

The Hounds look to extend the year’s first win streak to 2 on Wednesday vs. the Pirates at Maywood Park.