Lyrical Baseball Tournament, Round of Frishberg, Game 7: An odyssey of Homers

The semifinals are at last complete.

Cashman League Semifinal (mgd.)

Paternal Cashmen 4
Filial Cashmen 7
FCM wins 4-3

Once again, a five-run second inning set the tone for the game. This time, Paternal fought back, but did not do enough to advance.

Stan Musial and George Brett hit homers in the second and Filial held on against a Paternal rally to win 7-4 and advance to the Harmonic Series.

The second inning started cleanly enough for Sal Maglie and Paternal, forcing two groundouts, but Jackie Robinson doubled and Musial lofted a pitch inside the left-field foul pole to give the home team a 2-0 lead. Willie Mays followed with a double, Ted Kluszewski singled, and Brett took a full-count pitch over the wall to make the score 5-0.

Paternal cut into the lead in the top of the fourth when with two on and two out, Steve Garvey doubled into the right-field corner; Yogi Berra scored, but Musial threw out Mickey Mantle at the plate to end the half-inning.

Three batters later, Filial’s lead went from four to six. Phil Rizzuto opened with a double, and after Rocky Bridges grounded out, Perry lined a Maglie offering over the wall for a two-run home run.

But Paternal battled back in Perry’s final two innings of work. Ted Williams launched a solo homer in the sixth; one inning later, Granny Hamner lined a one-out, two-run double to center. After Frank Robinson grounded out, Ken Heintzelman entered in relief and retired Rod Carew on a line drive to Ralph Kiner in left to end the inning.

Unsatisfied with one out, Heintzelman pitched two more hitless innings, only allowing one baserunner on a walk, to send Filial to the final, Kiner squeezing Hamner’s fly ball to end it.

Round of Frishberg, Game 6 | Round of Frishberg, Game 7 | Harmonic Series, Game 1