September 24, 2009

Softball at the (New) Stadium

The bottom of the seventh was about to begin, and the Nets’ coaches and basketball operations staff were anticipating their turn at the plate in the team’s annual softball game against the players. After an 8-2 defeat last season, they had cranked out 11 runs to tie the score, and the top of the order was up with one chance to win.

Assistant coach Doug Overton grounded out to the pitcher, bringing up athletic trainer Tim Walsh, who was 2-for-2 with a pair of home runs. Walsh rapped a single to left-center, and Basketball Operations Assistant John Zisa took off running for him, advancing another two bases as centerfielder Yi Jianlian chased down the ball. Swingman Jarvis Hayes, possibly playing the deepest shortstop in history, also went after it, retrieving the ball and gunning a throw to catcher Bobby Simmons, who applied the tag to prevent the winning run from crossing the plate.

That left a single out for YES Network tape AD Lee Lipschutz, who stepped in and blasted a home run to left, winning the game in dramatic fashion with his only hit.

“I had Coach Lawrence Frank in my ear and Tom Barrise in my ear, because apparently Frank (DiGraci, YES producer) was hyping me up, saying how good I was,” Lipschutz said. “Then I popped up in my first two at-bats and Coach was making fun of me, so in my head I heard Coach Barrise saying, ‘You better get a hit this at-bat.’ The home run felt good. I felt like I got a little redemption.”

It was a crushing defeat for the players, who led by 7-0 and 10-4 before allowing the coaches back in the game by giving up four runs in the fifth. Hayes, who captained the players team along with Trenton Hassell, wanted the coaches to know one thing:

“We’ll be back,” Hayes said. “They stunned us this year. We got up to a big lead and couldn’t hold it. Baby Ortiz – Timmy Walsh – came to the plate and rocked us a little bit, but it was fun.”

Before the game started, Hayes and Hassell huddled on the warning track to sort out the lineup. After slotting themselves third and fourth, they bounced names back and forth, sometimes operating off knowledge (Bobby Simmons' complete lack of baseball experience) and sometimes guessing: “Put T-Will No. 2 – he’s real athletic.”

The agreed-upon order left Chris Douglas-Roberts leading off, and the second-year swingman roped a ball between the outfielders in left-center, scoring on a throwing error to post a run. Terrence Williams followed with a single, Hayes and Hassell each doubled, and the players led 3-0. They stretched the score to 7-0 by inning’s end.

Athletic trainer Tim Walsh answered with a home run, and the coaches added three more in the second after putting the players down in order. (Video Coordinator Pete Williams and Senior Director of Public Relations Aaron Harris hit back-to-back inside-the-park home runs.) With two outs in the top of the third, Hassell singled and Sean Williams hit a ball to right field that was ruled a ground-rule double when it couldn’t be determined whether the ball had cleared the fence on the fly. Offseason addition Courtney Lee stepped up and lasered a double to score both runners, before a lineout ended the inning.

The players tacked on another run in the fourth, pushing the lead to 10-4 when Brook Lopez scored after reaching on an error. But in the bottom of the inning Walsh came up with two outs and a man on, and the burly trainer tucked a home run just inside the leftfield foul line to close the gap to 10-6 before a popup sent the staff back to the field. Back-to-back-to-back one-out singles by Hayes, Hassell and Sean Williams pushed the players’ lead to 11-6, but a pair of groundouts limited the damage to a single run.

The coaches manufactured four runs in the fifth, between three singles, a sacrifice fly, two fielder’s choices and an error. That brought them within one run, and after quickly dispatching the players in the top of the sixth, the coaches tied the game up when Zisa and Frank singled, with Zisa tagging up to score on Public Relations Coordinator Patrick Rees’ flyout to left.

“I think they’re going to have a hard time sleeping tonight, because of what they could have had and how they let it slip through their fingers,” Frank said. “But I thnk it’s a great lesson for them, because hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”

Quotes from the Coach
Coach Frank, on how he motivated his team to come back:
“There was no talk. There was just a connection, a bond. If you were there on that sideline, you’d have felt the electricity, that connection, that never-say-die attitude. One hit at a time.”

And on playing at the New Yankee Stadium:
“I’ve been to a game once. I was a guest of Barclays and they have an unbelievable suite, great location. But it’s really special to be on the field. It’s majestic.”

T-Will Says What?
During dinner, Terrence Williams shrugged off a compliment about a few nifty plays at first base, saying he’d never played baseball before.

Wait, really? Get outta here.

“Yup. That was the first time I ever touched a bat.”

Williams went 1-for-3, singling and scoring a run in the first. Some guys just got it, ha.