Hewes On First

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A Star Is Born

June 9. 2002 - Game 1

One can only imagine the terror that kept the likes of Ian Leibowitz, Joe Gerber, Rich Nesin, David Summer, Richard Rowlands and Rick Tovar sheeted and blanketed in their beds on this beautiful Spring morning. There have been a number of complaints about the pitch of the infield at Heckscher. And we have noticed that fewer and fewer middle-infielders have been showing up. Whether it is fear of injury or just not wanting to embarrass themselves I will leave to the reader. Of all the shortstop-third basemen, only Gil Schmerler had the courage to confront the baseball gods.

In another bed Dan O'Donnell, the young Australian, woke up and tossed off his bedclothes and marched out to Central Park, unaware that he was to be fed to the wolves.

Jeff Appell, the pitcher and the manager of the away team, was pivotal in both roles. Opposing outfielder Joe Balento said that Appell's sinker was even better than usual. "Everything was low," reported Balento, "I couldn't lift the ball at all."

The away team got all the runs it would need off Hewes in the first inning, when Daniel Honigman walked, Glen Lawrence singled, Carl Weinberg and Phil Kotik doubled and Dan O'Donnell hit a homerun. The visitors won by a score of 12 - 1.

Perhaps as important to the victory as his pitching performance, was Appell's toying with his infield defense. Looking around at a group of infielders who made Marv Throneberry look graceful, Appell decided that, rather than let the likes of Mike Palma (the best infielder available) surely fail, he would hand the most important defensive responsibility, shortstop, to a neophyte Australian, Dan O'Donnell. It is reported that upon being told he would be playing shortstop, the six-foot-something young man responded, "don't you think I'm too tall?" Appell then showed O'Donnell the basics, using euphemisms such as "keep the drawbridge down." There are unconfirmed reports that on the first practice grounder, O'Donnell threw the ball to third base. Once these flaws were corrected, the experiment began in earnest.

As if guided by the hand of the baseball gods, O'Donnell took the bad hops, which had kept Tovar sleeping late, and fielded them with a grace not often seen on these diamonds. He retired batters on six out of seven of his chances. A shortstop was born! The team carried the young Adonis, Dan O'Donnell, off the field on their figurative shoulders. Chants of "Who needs Rowlands!," and "Ian Who?" swelled up. One grizzly vet commented, "Gerber better break out his outfielders glove." Amid this merriment, in the shadow of the festivities, walked a very human man, Jeff Appell, whose mortal story deserves just as much credit. For the record shows that he gave up only one run (unearned) on this day, and allowed only four harmless singles and had the courage to give the young Australian a chance.

In the second game Daniel Honigman, batting clean-up, showed that his season long slump was broken by belting two singles and plating a run. Still, Honigman's home team was down 9 - 4 when Honigman, with the help of Fred Lang, committed the most aggregious double-play in memory. Honigman and Kotik, the heart of the order were due to lead off the fifth. Instead, the sixth hitter, Lang, ambled to the plate and singled. Unfortunately, both Honigman and Kotik were called out for not hitting in order, squelching the hopes of the home team, who lost 13-5.

The home-team had another rally quashed by the brilliant play of second baseman Ben Indek. In the third inning Carl Weinberg sailed a ball into the small forest in rightfield. As the ball descended, Indek ran out from his second base position, quickly computing the arc of the ball, torques and angles, ratios and cosines, he menstrated and expectorated, finally settling in at the correct spot under the foliage and waited for the ball to plop right into his glove. The rightfielder, Joe Balento, standing bewildered only ten feet away knew that Indek plays this game on another level than the rest of us. This brilliant play seemed to lend an identity to the entire team as it committed only one error (that by Indek himself, just to prove he was human) in supporting pitcher Gil Schmerler.

In the second game, Marvin Cohen went 3-for-3 and Paul Brill drove in four runs in a losing effort.

Everyone said Schmerler looked fine after last week's line drive off his jaw incident. Unfortunately, we couldn't find out how Gil felt, as whenever we tried to talk to him he answered in unintelligible mumbles.

After a decade absence, Paula Gannon returned and went one-for-three, with a brilliant throw from right field to nail a runner at third base (unfortunately, the throw was so good that the umpire couldn't believe his eyes and called the runner safe).

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