Santa Fe hosted the Southwest Junior Little League Baseball Regional in fine style, with St. Michael’s taking good care of its ballpark and the volunteer umpires standing tall

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The City Different did its part over the five days that concluded with Texas West making the World Series

By ARNIE LESHIN, Santa Fe Today

It’s neat to give credit where credit is due. And this applies to those that kept St. Michael’s baseball field looking spic and span for the Southwest Junior Little League Baseball Regional that was played from Thursday morning to the early afternoon of Monday.

Not only did the ground crew do quite a job, but so did the volunteer umpires, so did the scorekeeper, Randy Schulz, so did John Sandoval, who handled the pitch counts, so did District 1 director Francisco Guerra, and so did his assistant, Paul Grace, and Francisco’s wife, Elena, who assisted those at the official table and sold the Regional T-shirts.

And none of this was easy. Each day found the ground crew keeping the outfield grass looking like it had the day before, trimmed just right, not too high and not too low. It actually had a shine to it when the sun broke through.

The dirt infield, too, looked good. No dirt was flying around, no pebbles, no rocks, nothing but a well attended infield. As was the outfield grass, it was just right, with no one complaining of it affecting ground balls.

Plenty of space in both dugouts and plenty of space for the fans from Texas West, Texas East, Louisiana, Colorado, the New Mexico state champions, and the host team from Santa Fe.

Thanks to the 9:30 a.m. starts each day, when it rained, it was around mid to late afternoon. And this is when the ground crew quickly covered home plate and the pitching mound. It didn’t matter how hard it rained, these guys were on the job.

There was the popular concession stand, there was the man up in the press box operating the centerfield scoreboard, there were high temperature days, there was welcoming breeze at times, and of course the heavy rain, at its worse in game three Sunday afternoon and caused a delay of almost two hours.

But the field remained just as it did in the morning. The rain came and the field held firm, from the outfield fences to home plate.

There were some good turnouts, with the host Santa Fe Monsters having many of their fans in the stands. Texas East also drew well, but its fans in green and white were loud and opinionated. One of its fans even spent two innings questioning a call at first base.

Shorthorn from Carlsbad had a good turnout, as did Texas West, whose fans were polite and let the umpires make the calls. Louisiana drove 20 hours in SUVs and vans, and despite not having its own fans, became popular enough to have many rooting for them. Colorado, too.

The usual post-game handshakes went well, with one exception. The kids from Carlsbad must have been so upset upon being upset by Santa Fe, they mouthed off enough for Guerra to send a memo to the Carlsbad district direction.

Yes, “You S – – K” didn’t belong, it was downright disrespectful, nasty and ugly. But the Santa Fe and Louisiana players had no such problem, even giving hugs to one another after an exciting 14-12 Santa Fe win. And if you expected Texas East to mouth off as Shorthorn did, it never happened. What did happen was handshake to handshake and even some hugs.

Of those who showed, there was St. Michael’s President Taylor Gantt with a brace on one leg after a knee injury playing basketball. There was Brother Martin, all of 90 years old and in retirement for 25 years.

He still resides at the brother’s residence on campus. He had a wonderful time sitting in back of the official’s table and picking up the action, even shouting out advice for some of the teams. He should be blessed for walking over to the field everyday with the help of his cane, and also getting a kick out of each game, especially for the team from Houston, where he grew up.

St. Michael’s head baseball coach Augustin Ruiz also helped out with whatever needed to be done. And Jo Jo Padilla, who is the Horsemen team manager in football and baseball, was on hand to do his usual chores, rushing over sometimes to assist someone.

Yes, let’s give the credit where it’s due. The Horsemen ballpark was awarded the Regional and handled it with class. And all the out-of-town teams spoke of the picturesque views, the many restaurants, the Santafeans who provided directions and the many places to dine at.

And can’t forget Trey Jackson and his wife, Theresa Jackson. He the quality photographer with the smile, she once again setting up her display table. If anyone was left out, they can join the many who made the City Different just a fine place to be through the Regional. Take the credit, people, you deserve it.

And finally those Santa Fe Monsters managed by Mark Quintana. They entered this Regional without playing a regular game since July 8th when it won twice over the Espanola All-Stars for the District 1 championship.

They played hard, they played well at, they competed behind the support of their fans, made errors and bad plays as the others did, but was able to boast about defeating the state champions, who did not show respect at all, and were judged sore losers.