Saturday, November 19, 2011

Arizona Fall League Championship Game





























The Salt River Rafters and the Surprise Saguaros met for their championship game at Scottsdale Stadium today. It was a beautiful afternoon for a ballgame, with temperatures in the 70s.


We chose great seats right behind the Saguaros dugout--none of that assigned seating in Fall League! Batting practice was over by the time we entered the stadium but they had a little merchandise area set up so I could go shopping. I bought Arizona fall league card sets from 1999 and 2000, last year's model of their logo shirt for five dollars, and two mini bats for three dollars each. What a deal!


Several of the players had devised a totem, fashioned out of a broken bat, batting gloves, and other sundry items. We saw Tyler Bortnik putting on the finishing touches and he posed with his creation.


They even gave a couple of awards before the game. An MVP award went to Kevin Mattison, and the sportsmanship award to Rockies player Nolan Arenado. The Miami players were wearing the new style uniforms to go with their new stadium--nice! Jason Castro, the Astro from Castro Valley (try saying that three times fast) was playing catcher and had a single and a double.


The Surprise team had the better record, but the Rafters took the lead in the second inning and never lost it. The final score was 8 to 3 Rafters. Therewas much joy, jumping around, and eventually, water cooler dumping!

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