The Saginaw Old Gold’s Win their 2nd World Tournament of Historic Base Ball

Joyous Victory Over the Dog Days of August

    icon Aug 24, 2011
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Greenfield Village’s 16 Vintage Base Ball teams must have felt like the South when General William Tecumseh Sherman marched to Atlanta. The Saginaw Old Gold’s incredible defense again carried them to their 4th Tournament win of the season (season record 17-3). The bats did well also as they outscored 4 teams 78 to 17 (61 run differential).

 
GAME 1: Saginaw 26 Northville Eclipse 1. Four Golds’ picked up 4 hits each: John “Lumberjack” Piersall, Dennis “Vanilla Gorilla” a.k.a “Antler Spray” Konuszewski (triple), Toby “Scoops” Larkin (5 putouts-4 RBI’s-stolen base), & Sonny “Hustler” a.k.a Free Meals @ the Hyatt Guerra. Kevin “Big Wheel” Beemer added 5 RBI’s. Chuck “Ducky” Mahan & Matt “Rip” Shaner shared in pitching with all four wins.
 
GAME 2: Saginaw 14 Forest City/Cleveland 5. Konuszewski was 4 for 4 with a double & 2 triples and Guerra added 4 hits and 2 putouts. John “Booze” Hound” a.k.a. Crank Killer Smith smacked out two triples (he was the tournament’s fastest runner in a contest). John also had the distinction of driving a ball directly into a trash barrel (we then got a new ball-and hit the heck out of it). But the player of this game was Adam “Squints” a.k.a. just married McCauley. He had 3 hits (2 RBI’s) and made 6 putouts at catcher (3 straight with no outs and the bases loaded). Adam had a sensational 16 putouts behind the plate for the weekend. Adam was at Greenfield at 7:00 AM Saturday and put up a banner (Squints Island) over Oxbo Island, a handle the La-De-Dahs 3rd baseman uses for his nick name.
 
GAME 3: Saginaw 25-Columbus Capitals (2010 “Totally Shocked” World Champs) 6. Piersall made the play of the game when he threw out a runner from right/center, directly to McCauley on the fly to nip the runner. He also went 4 for 5 with 4 RBI’s. Larkin was 5 for 5(3 RBI’s), John Smith 5 for 5 (4 RBI’s), Konuszewski 4 for 5(3 RBI’s), Jason “Logger” Leppek 4 for 4 (played great l base all two days), & Nate “Bullfrog” Hall 4 for 5 (2 RBI’s). Chad ‘Shorty” Short made 3 Circus catches in left (7 in all), Richard “Dos Equis” Curry, “Chad is the best leftfielder in Vintage ball.
 
GAME 4: Saginaw 13 Bay City 5, it was the Golds 7th straight win over the Independents. Bay City got to the final by beating the La-De-Dahs. McCauley was 4 for 4 with 4 put/outs & 3 stolen bases, Matt Shaner was 4 for 4 with 2 RBI’s, and Guerra had 3 putouts in center. Piersall, Short, and Guerra played a great outfield all 4 games. The Gold’s lost Ryan “Britches” Dost for the season with a broken shoulder at 2nd base. Richard “we are going to miss the big fella-he is one awesome Vintage player.” Mahan almost joined him when a smash up the middle nearly tore his head off. “Ducky” after picking himself off the ground, came up laughing. Larkin was also injured-but finished all 4 games. Richard “this team played with courage and conviction all week-they were not going to be denied.”
 
Saginaw also won for the best new uniform (not winning: Forest City). Thanks to Toby Larkin for designing it and Pat Bruske for making them in time. The Gold’s went back to Heck’s Bar to celebrate till 11:00 Sunday night (it’s all good).

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