HOUSTON BABIES DROP OPENER TO MONTGOMERY COUNTY SAW DOGS, 9-6!

Posted by Bill McCurdy

The Houston Babies have risen from the grave of lost history!

Yesterday morning, March 1, 2008, our small band of Houstonians traveled to the Highway 242 campus of Lone Star College to play the local Montgomery County Saw Dogs in a game of Vintage 1860s rules base ball. Our group arrived there as the resurrected version of the original Houston Babies, the city's first professional base ball club, the one that made their first appearance in behalf of the city back on March 6, 1888 in a downtown Houston game against the even then fabled Cincinnati Red Stockings. More on that inauspicious beginning later.

Our 2008 version of the Houston Babies included Matt Miggins LF, Jimmy Disch SS, Larry Joe Miggins, 1B, Tom Crosier CF, Virgil Ray 3B, Robert Blair P, Bob Dorrill C, Robert Musick, C, Jim Foor 2B-RF, Sandy Foor RF-Scorekeeper, Matt Frazier 2B-3B, and yours truly, Bill McCurdy, General Manager and Acting Manager today. Former Houston Astros skipper Larry Dierker is our official manager, but Larry was tied up with obligations to the club's FanFest at Minute Maid Park yesterday and could not join us.

Our hospitable opposition, the Saw Dogs, were managed by the most gracious Michael Hickey. Regrettably, the full names of the Saw Dog club members are unavailable, so we'll just have to say thank you and congratulations to Christian, Kevin, Coasza, Rosita, Krall, Newton, Tom, Brent, Fran, and Paul for a game well played.

The Babies played well in their first outing, but still lost to the more experienced Saw Dogs by a score of 9-6. Our Jim Foor summed up the reason for our loss in his own way. "If we had just scored more runs than they did," Foor opined, "this game could've turned out differently. As is, I guess we'll just have to take consolation in finishing 2nd. - 2nd place is a far cry better than last place, isn't it?"

Jim's good attitude typified the spirit of our to teams yesterday. We just had fun.it

That being said, our Babies did learn a trick or two from the crafty veteran Saw Dogs club. Their know and experience with the 1860s rules made a big difference. By the rules of yesterday's game, we played without gloves, but even more importantly, we played by the one-bounce-out rule.

By the one-bounce-out rule, any ball caught on in the air or on the first bounce was an out. Because our guys were swinging from the heels at the slow pitch offerings of the Saw Dogs hurler, we hit a lot of balls in the air that could've been extra base hits in regular baseball, but just rang up as outs in this brand of "base ball." The Saw Dogs, on the other hand were masterfully placing liners and worm-burning grounders all through our defensive lines, producing the final outcome of our 7 inning game: Saw Dogs 9 - Babies 6.

Babies          101 013 0 - 6

Saw Dogs     250 011 x - 9

Our Babies suffered one game injury when 3rd baseman Virgil Ray pulled a hamstring in about the 3rd inning and had to leave the game. Ray hobbled away with a stiff upper lip and in total true dedication to our club motto: "Even though we're the Babies, we never cry over loss or pain."

We came to close to making another kind of base ball history yesterday when we were short a player at game time. We were going to insert the Chick fil-A bovine mascot into the game for starters, but that plan was aborted when a 9th man showed up in time. Had we started old "Chicky Boy/Girl," we would've put him or her in right field. - HOLY COW! Where else are you going to play a cow, but out in the pasture?