Just when Lake County Fielders officials thought their troubled season couldn’t get any worse, they are left trying to explain the early-inning suspension of a home game over claims they provided inferior baseballs for the players.
Friday night’s suspended game against the Calgary Vipers prompted an angry response from Fielders owner Richard Ehrenreich.
Ehrenreich said Monday the baseball-quality gripe originated with the Vipers’ starting pitcher, and he called it “the most childish nonsense” he’s encountered in his independent baseball league ownership tenure dating to when he launched the Schaumburg Flyers in 1999.
The recreational baseballs purchased at a sporting goods store were not the ones officially manufactured by Rawlings for professional play, Ehrenreich said, but they weren’t so bad as to cause the sudden suspension of the game.
“They were brand new. These weren’t Little League balls,” he said.
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1. Hack Wilson Posted: August 09, 2011 at 12:09 PM (#3896128)It's never good when it goes bad. No one likes to feel like they've been had. And it may be okay, but they won't wear your t-shirts now.
Is that his version of "Won't someone please think of the children!"
I wouldn't fly over open water in whatever bargain basement cropduster is chartered for this trip.
Shouldn't it have been a forfeit?
If they can't afford to buy balls, they must be about to fold.
Welcome to the new normal; you cut expenses any way you can.
"And then they whined when we replaced the catcher and umpire with a brick wall with a strike zone spray-painted on it. And then they called me every name in the book when I suggested the game be played under a couple of minor rule changes -- pitcher's hand out and balls hit to right field are outs. And the Vipers bullpen refused to man the concession stands for the first five innings. How can they expect me to make money if they aren't willing to help?"
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