2020 Cobras Fight Veterans and Mother Nature to Win ‘Silver Division’ Title of Cleveland MSBL

Cleveland MSBL, Silver division

Cleveland Cobras 16, Veterans 12

‘Rain Showers Dictate Fate of Title Game’

Submitted by Tony Martin, Cobras manager and League President

The Cobras defeated the Veterans by a final score of 16-12 to capture the Silver Division championship of the Cleveland MSBL.  This was not a football game or a metal bat game, even though the score indicated that may be the case.

The two teams were among the top ranked in ‘Fewest Runs Allowed’ all season, but the championship game was a little different. 

It was played in a non-stop steady rain.  Luckily the turf field allowed the game to continue, but the pitchers had a hard time gripping the baseball and this resulted in a total combined 30 walks/HBP by both teams.  It also resulted in throwing errors by the teams and a total of 10 pitchers used. This game was simply about survival, and that stays in line with the other challenges in 2020.  We already had three weeks of rainouts in a ten-week season and we didn’t want to wait another week for the last game, so we just fought it out.  The game lasted four hours and 20 minutes, and 25 new baseballs were used in the game!

The Cobras pounded out 19 hits.  Johnny Calvillo, Curt Tighe, Kyle Lautzenheimer, Alex Massaroni, Chris Elliot, Joe Hines, Rory Kummer and Dave Wolfinger all provided multi-hit games in the victory.  For the Veterans, Vinny Dimarco went 2-3 with four RBI and Jason Hillman had a key RBI single and two runs scored.

This will definitely be a game that both teams will remember as everyone was rain-soaked and depleted of energy once this battle was over.