Here we are at the 100th game played in the Statis Pro season! There will be thousands played when its all said and done, but that's no reason not to celebrate a nice, even, round number. The Rangers and Blue Jays made sure it would be an exciting game to boot.
Jim Clancy of the Jays and Danny Darwin of Texas were posting goose eggs until the bottom of the sixth. Larry Parrish knocked a double to bring in Gary Ward and Mickey Rivers followed that up with a sacrifice bunt to plate Pete O'Brien. The Rangers got two more runs in the eighth to make it 4-0 heading into the top of the ninth. That's when the wheels fell off.
Darwin was still pitching, trying for the shutout. Willie Upshaw and Willie Aikens had back to back singles. Rance Mulliniks was up and gapped a triple to score the Willies and make it a 4-2 game with no outs and a man on third. Darwin got yanked after that and close Dave Schmidt came in to close it out. But Ernie Whitt knocked in Mulliniks to make it 4-3, and Alfredo Griffin followed up with a nice hit-n-run single to move pinch runner Garth Iorg to third. Schmidt got Dave Collins to pop out to Ned Yost on the suicide squeeze attempt, but with one out Damaso Garcia hit a chopping ground out to second that was good enough to score Iorg and tie the game.
Ron Musselman came in for Toronto in the bottom of the ninth and retired the Rangers in order. Schmidt walked the lead off man in the tenth but escaped with three straight outs. With two outs in the bottom of the tenth Larry Parrish and Mickey Rivers reached third and first respectively, but Billy Sample grounded out to end the rally.
The top of the eleventh saw the winning run score. Buck Martinez singled, Griffin batted him to third, Dave Collins once again fouled out on a squeeze attempt, and Damaso grounded out to second again with Martinez scoring. Musselman had runners on the corners in the bottom of the eleventh but got Buddy Bell to ground out and end the game. Quite a comeback for Toronto! The Rangers have now lost four straight.
Winning Pitcher - Ron Musselman
Losing Pitcher - Dave Schmidt
Player of the Game - Musselman, 3IP, zero runs. The card above is the only image of Musselman I can find on the internet.
In honor of our 100th game and the extra-inning victory by Toronto, how about a song from my favorite Canadian band?
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