Story Photos
 Thurston County players mob Ande Grantham after he scored what they believed was the winning run Saturday. The umpire disagreed, and Thurston County had to wait two more innings to celebrate their berth to the World Series. Bill Wagner / The Daily News
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Thurston County wins Babe Ruth 13s Northwest Region title
Sunday, August 3, 2008 12:03 PM PDT
By Ben Zimmerman
Printable version
E-mail this articleDown to their final three outs and staring at a three-run deficit, the occupants of the Thurston County dugout were nearly in mourning as the bottom of the seventh inning of the Babe Ruth 13-year-old Pacific Northwest Regional championship game began.
“Definitely down,” said TC player Ande Grantham. “We didn’t have much faith left.”
But as everyone at Stan Rister Stadium was about to learn — and frankly, will never forget — not much faith is different than no faith at all.
A triple by TC leadoff batter Jake Biscay turned that iota of faith into a kernel of hope.
A bloop single by Cobi Beal stoked hope into belief.
And in the madness that followed, stretching into the eighth inning and then the ninth, belief finally morphed into jubilation for Thurston County, when Grantham scored from second base on a Derrick Wells single and a Josephine County throwing error to clinch a 7-6 victory and send TC to the BR World Series in Jamestown, N.Y.
If Thurston County hurries, it might even catch its flight. The World Series starts on Aug. 15.
“I feel unbelievable,” said Beal.
“I feel exhausted,” added Thurston County manager Keith Stottlemyre. “I feel overwhelmed. The innings tonight just, they just ... it’s never over until it’s over. I also feel fortunate, because that game could have gone either way.”
Prior to the seventh inning, the game lacked for drama. Josephine County starter Greggory Hurd surrendered three runs due to control problems in the first inning, but settled down and pinned zeroes on TC until the seventh.
His teammates rallied for six runs in the top of the second. It stayed 6-3 for the next four innings.
“There were a lot of zeroes,” Beal said. “It was a pretty low intensity game until that last inning.”
The game went nine innings, but by “last,” Beal clearly meant the seventh.
Biscay’s triple was a jolt of lightning for the moribund TC dugout. Even after Max Stottlemyre hit a grounder to third for the first out, TC players were jumping and howling.
Beal’s ensuing base hit to short right-center field set in motion a sequence that will forever be infamous in Josephine County circles. Biscay had to tag at third, waiting to see if the ball would find grass.
The second base umpire in the six-man crew raced toward the outfield as JC players converged on the dying pop-up.
The ball was fielded and thrown home. Beal rounded first and dashed toward second and the throw from JC catcher Marco Garmendia beat Beal to the bag.
But because none of the other umpires had rotated to second in lieu of the crew member who’d dashed into the outfield, no one was there to make a call.
That mechanical oversight resulted in a “safe” call, essentially by default.
So instead of having two outs and no one on, Thurston County had one out, Beal at second, and a 6-4 deficit.
“We caught a break,” said Coach Stottlemyre. “But they caught a break, too.”
But before Josephine County caught their “break,” Cameron Frost ripped a double to left to score Beal, and Grantham singled to left to score Frost with the tying run.
A walk and stolen base put runners at first and second.
Sam Meyer laid down a perfect suicide squeeze bunt up the first base line, which appeared to score Grantham from third base with the winning run. But while Thurston County dogpiled in joy along the third base line, the umpires conferred and ruled that the ball had struck Meyer’s foot.
So he was out No. 2 and Grantham was sent back to third. When Josh Valdez grounded out, it was on to the eighth.
In the end, the outcome was not about the umpires, who donated their game pay to Southern Washington Cal Ripken in the memory of Bill Daniels.
“A very close game. A fantastic game,” said JC manager Marco Garmendia. “It was played hard on both sides, but it just went (Thurston County’s) way. The umpires said they missed the play (at second), but that happens in baseball. That’s how it goes. The game went on.”
Beal was 3-for-5 with two runs scored for the winners, and Nathaniel Wise had four hits and two stolen bases for JC.
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