Baseball Overload

3 days, almost 16 hours of baseball (plus two hours of weather delays), 1 FSU win, 2 Georgia Tech losses, 2 wins for "the U" plus a conference championship that we did not stick around to witness first-hand.

My brother Rich ("the FSU guy") and I ("the Georgia Tech geek") headed up to Jacksonville to hang out for a few days and hopefully watch one or both of our teams play for all the marbles in the 2008 ACC Baseball Tournament Championship game yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, that reward fell to the aforementioned semi-university from down south and the preppy capital of the Old South - the University of Virginia, where skinny blue and orange ties and sportcoats are the attire de rigeur at football games.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon about 5 minutes before the start of Game 5 pitting the Yellow Jackets against the Convicts...I mean Canes. Good tickets were easy to come by, and we settled into our seats in the second row of section 101 as Miami batted in the 1st inning. We were directly behind "Afro Man", a die-hard Tech fan who apparently is pretty well known (we saw a few Afro wigs on Saturday at the Clemson-Tech game). As we approached our seats, he was really giving it to the 3rd base coach -- reaching back to football season and Miami's humiliating 48-0 loss in the final game at the Orange Bowl. (Afro-Man actually gave Miami a little more credit, stating the final score as 47-0. I didn't have the heart to correct him).

The game was exciting, with four lead changes and a lot of offense, but we ended up on the short end of a 15-12 score. 9 runs given up by our starter, and 4 by the closer. Not a good sign of things to come.

We didn't hang around for the nightcap, preferring to save our energy for the next two (or three days). Instead, we took advantage of the $4 Margaritas being offered by The American Cafe at Jacksonville Landing.

The next session started on Friday at 5 pm with FSU facing off against Virginia. If you're paying attention, you'll remember that Virginia played in the title game. That honor came courtesy of their 5-3 victory in this game. FSU, who has been known all year for their offensive firepower, couldn't get a timely hit all night and Virginia got just enough plus a couple of great defensive plays to secure the win.

Again, we did not stay for the final game -- preferring instead to drown our sorrows at Rich's friend's club, The Twisted Martini. After several rounds of adult beverages, we found out by text message that North Carolina had beaten Wake Forest thus securing a berth in Sunday's final for Virginia. (There's not enough space in this blog for me to explain why, just take my word for it).

We always planned for Saturday to be the longest baseball day, and the fact that we had not seen a positive result yet made us more committed to sticking it out for the whole day. The first game didn't do the trick as Clemson beat the Jackets 10-4 to ensure that we would not be hosting a College World Series regional this coming weekend. (We're playing in Athens at the regional hosted by the University of Georgia).

Next up was the Miami-NC State game to finish off Group A play. Even though Miami had already clinched the right to play on Sunday, we still hung around to root against them. I think that's an official sport at Florida, FSU, and just about every other school in the country. It didn't work though as the Canes topped the Wolfpack 5-2.

By the time the first evening game started, we were hungry for some kind of win...anything. Game 11 matched up the current #1 team in the country, North Carolina, and the Noles. In a testament to the power of ACC baseball, Carolina was only the #3 seed in the tournament. So this promised to be an interesting game, especially since nothing was really at stake since Virginia was already in Sunday's game.

The game lived up to expectations, with Carolina pitching keeping the FSU offense in check for 8+ innings. However, the Noles put a couple of runners on in the 9th and the game changed in an instant when All-Everything Buster Posey strode to the plate to pinch-hit with one out and the game on the line. Despite not having even picked up a bat until a few minutes earlier, Posey pulled a 2-2 pitch into left field to tie the game at 5 and send the FSU crowd into a frenzy.

Then the rain came. Play was suspended for a hour and 4 minutes as a thunderstorm cell passed over the stadium. When the game resumed the Noles picked up where they left off, scoring 4 more runs to take a comfortable lead into the bottom of the 9th. FSU tried to make it a little interesting by letting the tying run come to the plate, but they took care of business and the #1 team in the land, 9-6. As it was almost 10:00 when the game ended, we just grabbed something to eat and ended the night "early".

We headed back to Melbourne (and Rich on to Pembroke Pines) on Sunday morning, disappointed in the results of the tournament especially since Miami was playing for the title. But otherwise we had a great time hanging out together and catching up.

The 2009 ACC Baseball Tournament is heading north to Fenway Park, so we'll probably skip next year. But expect us back at the Baseball Grounds of Jacksonville in 2010!