2023 Father/Son American
Sacramento Dirt Bags 6, Charros 5
‘The Sacramento Dirt Bags Road to Their First Championship’
Submitted by Jeff Turner, manager
The journey started seven years ago after Todd Lewis asked me to take over the Sacramento Stars. We changed the name to the Capitals and promptly went 0-4 the first year. For the first time, and so far only time, there were no playoffs for our core group. We did rebound with two championship appearances, one for the Capitals and one for the Dirt bags, losing to the So Cal Quakes and KC A’s.
Then in 2022, we were crushed by a stacked team, TABU, in the Semifinals.
I believe those losses helped us, especially last year’s loss. I know for me personally as a manager I grew from those losses. I decided to hold a team meeting prior to the tournament. This was going to be about what the team wanted and not me.
I wanted to know if we could all get on the same page and what each member was willing to sacrifice to obtain our goals. We talked about what last year’s loss felt like. It was the very first time as a group we verbalized the desire to win a Championship and what that would mean to us. We came up with our rules of play and a motto.
ACE– Attitude, Commitment, Effort.
Our motto was:
We never give in, never, never, never, never in anything great or small…Winston Churchill
What made this special is we almost didn’t bring a team this year. In September we were down to 12 players. We lost several of our core players due to the circumstances of life and injuries. After a bunch of calls and last-minute adds, we were coming with our smallest roster ever. Thin on pitching and depth, I thought we just needed to win two games to get to the playoffs.
I really believe the smaller roster played a part in the success. Everyone played and in every game, we were able to get into a nice rhythm while scoring first in every game except one. Great pitching and good defense kept the opposition out of the big innings. We didn’t compound our mistakes and tightened up our resolve to minimize rallies.
I asked more of some of my key players. Two Dads, Mark Cole, and Jamas Wickes, never pitch but stepped up and held the line on Thursday. Of course, you can’t say enough about the tournament MVP, Riley Newman. He pitched and hit third. His stat line was 3-0 (Winning pitcher in the Championship game) and an 0.69 ERA and BA of .471.
I could easily pick several co-mvps. There were so many contributors.
The Nutters and Boyds were a last-minute add. Aston Boyd played at a gold glove level at third base and had two hits in the championship game. His Dad, after playing for a week already, was huge for us in the outfield. His other son Alex (speedy Gonzales) was a DH and runner for our son catcher Darke Crump. We logged 10 stolen bases combined, led by the speedy COLE, Balckwell, and Tatum family. There were so many contributions I can’t name them all.
The Championship Game had multiple key moments. There are several obvious ones. Clutch pitching by Jeff in the fifth, when he came in with a 3-2 count and bases loaded. Mark’s clutch hit with the bad wheel. Jullian’s hidden ball trick.
The Father-Son combo of Dave and Jon Nutter, a Father/Son pitching combo who were a late addition, provided a huge lift pitching in both games on Friday. We don’t get to Sunday without them.
Riley’s father, Jeff Newman, threw four innings of relief in the championship game. He had to come in with the bases loaded, two out, and a 3-2 count in the fifth inning. He joked, ‘thanks for the pressure moment.’ He also had a great tournament, playing shortstop, hitting .400, with seven walks and four RBI.
The Championship game was a test of our resolve, winning 6-5 in a close game with a very talented team and the former Champion Charros. The game could have easily gone their way if it weren’t for a few key moments. They played stellar defense as well. A deep fly ball by Drake Crump in the first inning with the bases loaded could have blown the game open for the Dirt Bags. But a great catch by the Charros left fielder deep in the corner kept us to one run.
The keys to the game for us were several. I’ll pick two. Mark Coles’ RBI single in the fifth inning. The Charros had just scored two runs to close the gap to 4-3. What made Mark’s single so incredible is he had just torn his Achilles heel in the top half of the inning coming off the mound on an attempted bunt. Mark is a father who hits fourth. When he came to the plate and knocked in the run, I thought to myself ‘we were going to win this game’.
The next one was in the top of the seventh inning. With two outs and a runner on first, the Charros number nine hitter hit a double down the third base line. Jamas was able to run the ball down and get it to our shortstop to prevent the runner from scoring. Now the Charros had the tying run on second base.
Unbeknownst to me, our shortstop Jullian Blackwell kept the ball. He communicated to Jeff on the mound not to step on the rubber. Sure enough, the Charros player stepped off the bag, Julian called to the umpire, and tagged the runner out. Inning and rally over.
Bob Crump, one of our core fathers, always likes to say sometimes you need some breaks. I like to think that the success of this year’s team is because we made our breaks and showed a lot of resilience.
Team Stats
5-0
.441 BA
.596 OBP
57 Runs
41 BB
16 SB
12 K’s
Pitching
19 runs allowed
ERA 2.86
21 K’s
5 Hbp
7 BB