Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A great night to be a baseball fan in Victoria

Some of the 4,753 fans in attendance

Eri Yoshida's first road start in the GBL began well, but the wheels quickly fell off. After striking out Wilver Perez to start her night and then retiring the Seals 1-2-3 in the first inning, Yoshida's control completely escaped her. Although she only gave up one hit in her 2 1/3 innings of work, that hit was a monster shot over the scoreboard by Charlie Strandlund that cleared the bases. The majestic grand slam was also Charlie's first professional home run. Yoshida finished the night with seven walks and three hit batsmen in a 12-6 win for the Seals.

Although The Knuckle Princess had a bad night, the Victoria Seals Baseball Club had a great one. The game attracted the biggest crowd in the two-year history of the Seals: 4,753 fans. It was quite amazing to see approximately 1,000 fans packed into the football stadium and about one hundred of those were situated on the Cook Street side of the home run fence. I got the impression that many of those in attendance on Tuesday night were seeing their first Seals game of the season -- if not their first Seals game period. That can only bode well for a team that is turning out to be arguably the premiere franchise in the Golden Baseball League.

We'll let a few pictures tell the rest of the story...