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Council tops city staff in friendly softball game
By Scott Steinberg
Softball is a game of nano-inches. Teams negotiate this microscopic distance, for it amounts to the difference between winning the game or succumbing to unrestrained goofiness.
Just ask the Sunnyvale City Council and staff who battled each other Oct. 6 at Ortega Park for bragging rights, for the fifth annual council (and friends) versus staff softball game.
The council had taken three out of four games in the series and was expecting another win before star third baseman, Councilman Jack Roberts, dislocated his shoulder in a practice.
So Roberts took managerial reins Saturday and "talked" his players through a 21-10, come-from-behind win on an overcast morning.
"I'll be coaching third base, but I'm also loud enough to have first covered as well," Roberts said during the game.
Shortstop Jason Miller led a late defensive charge that shut out a puttering staff lineup. Councilwoman Julia Miller, Jason's mother, said of his play after the game, "That oughta help my re-election campaign."
An orally weary Roberts said after the victory, "As I predicted, the key to winning would be scoring more runs."
Staff's Susan Kitchen, city clerk, opened the game with a dribbler to pitcher Councilman Tim Risch, who in turn knocked the ball down and proceeded to throw the ball into right field.
The game went neck-and-neck for the first three innings, as Bob Roberts, school board member and Jack's father, swapped several triples with Kenny Blackman of the staff team.
Blackman, of the Chamber of Commerce, was traded to the staff before the game for two beers and a stick of gum. Rumor has it that it was Wrigley's. It proved to be a nearly equalizing trade as Blackman was the offensive output for the staff, knocking in four runs, scoring three times and running the bases like a hungry greyhound.
With the score 9-8 in favor of the staff in the bottom of the fourth inning, the council put its heart back into the game. Bases were loaded for Mayor Jack Walker, who was sporting a "Condit in 2004" T-shirt.
Walker slapped a shot in the right-field gap. Councilwoman Pat Vorreiter, trying to score from second base, slammed into staff newcomer Corrine Campbell of the city manager's office.
Both diminutive players tumbled to the dirt. Vorreiter scrambled for the plate, Campbell for the ball. The umpire's call was a defiant "safe."
Most people in their spare time read magazines, bowl or hit garage sales. But when Vorreiter is not attorneying or tending to city council business, she's a tri-athlete. So it was no surprise that Vorreiter bounded up from the dusty melee unscathed.
Suddenly nothing could get by the infield. Risch and Vorreiter, playing second base, were rock-solid defensively. And the game ended with the defensive star, shortstop Miller, catching police Chief Ernie Bakin's pop-up near the first baseline.
Council celebrated, staff grumbled, and everyone raced to the barbecue banquet in the picnic area.
Councilman Manuel Valerio, who thought up the idea for the softball game five years ago, said, "It's important to do something as a group. Softball is a good way to do that, and it's the only thing I can play decently well."
Staff members said they would dig deep into the ranks next year, looking for police, firefighters, staff wrestlers, dump trucks anything that can block Pat Vorreiter from scoring from second base off a single.
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Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
