When Frustration Boils Over

Baseball 2009, Game 84: Asheboro Copperheads 9, Columbia Blowfish 3

Asheboro Sloppiness: 9
Columbia Sloppiness: 7
Most batters in one inning: 8
Hitter of the Game: Eric Shoemaker, Asheboro (rating: 43)
Pitcher of the Game: Dan Weller, Asheboro (rating: 96)
Time of Play: 2:55
Mid-game temperature: 89 degrees
Attendance: 583 (Level IV sporting event)

The Columbia Blowfish are not a good team. They lose twice as many games as they win, and can not seem to capitalize on their chances.

That was the case Saturday night, when Blowfish starter Brandon Miller quickly fell apart to start the game. An error by Liberty shortstop Matt Williams gave the Copperheads runners on 1st and 2nd with no one out, and later Asheboro went up 2-0 when Catawba's Craige Lyerly scored on a sac fly even though it appeared Lyerly left third too early. TCU's Jimmie Pharr went far with a 3-run shot to left to knock Miller out of the game. With the Copperheads going on to lead 6-0 after 2 innings, that pretty much ended the game as the Blowfish offense is not capable of making up a huge deficit.

Although the Copperheads made two more sloppy plays than the Blowfish, the Blowfish made fundamental errors such as leadoff walks and errors in the first couple innings that led to the Copperheads taking over. Asheboro is also a bad team, near the bottom of the West Division while the Blowfish are at the bottom of the South. But Asheboro was a much better team Saturday night.

And it is quite obvious the most frustrated Blowfish member is manager Tim Medlin. Medlin struggled in his last job at Division II Newberry College, and has coached the Blowfish to what appears to be most likely their 4th straight losing season. Medlin has argued nearly nightly with the CPL's inexperienced umpires. While the CPL's umpires often do make worse calls than even college umpires, Medlin may spend too much of his time out on the field with them. On this Saturday night, Medlin went out to vent at the home plate umpire between the 8th and 9th innings, and was promptly ejected. If Medlin went on the field to intentionally get kicked out (which it appears he did), then he failed in his job. Managers need to argue with umpires, but persisting and coming out to argue about no particular call just isn't very good management. Medlin should have been more focused on preparing his team to finish the game strong, and play good fundamental baseball. But the CPL does not place a priority on winning like college teams do, and thus Medlin can get away with stuff here that he wouldn't at Newberry. The players' coaches in college do the actual coaching of them, and Medlin just needs to make sure each player gets the experience they need before they go back to college. But the game shouldn't be a sideshow either, as has been the case too often at Capital City Stadium.

Either due to the scorching heat that day or the lack of quality play, the fans did not show up this Saturday night like they normally do. The Blowfish only drew 583 fans, a far stretch from the 6K that showed up for Fort Jackson Night. But it must be remembered that this is far better than what the players from the smaller colleges are used to, which often draw less than 300 per game. For the players from small schools that don't make the pros, this is as big time as it will get for them.