Back Outta Town for more Baseball...

It was right around a year ago that I was shooting Stamford beating Forsan for the chance to make its first trip to the state tournament in baseball. On that night I shot probably my favorite baseball photo of the year. Well, this year Stamford was playing again, in the regional finals, this time against Hamlin, and the situation was a little different. They lost the first game of the series so they were going to have to win two. I found myself racing up there since I had a couple other assignments that needed to be done and it was a 5pm game in Graham.

By the time I got there, it was the fourth inning and Stamford was winning a close game. That's ok, while I was afraid I'd missed a lot there was plenty to come. In the bottom of the seventh inning, down by two, Hamlin tied the game up with a homerun. Then in the top of the eighth Stamford's Hagen Hutchinson scored on a great dive into home plate. Thank god for the LCD screen on my camera. I thought I had it but just had to check to be sure. I did, crossing my fingers I zoomed in to be sure it was sharp. Big sigh of relief, it was.

So, now that Stamford had won the first game and I had a great shot of Stamford I needed one of two things to happen. Either, Stamford wins the second game or Hamlin gives me something better if they won. It's tough enough getting one shot I love during a game, so getting two was completely implausible. The other impending problem I was seeing was time. It was nearly 8:30pm when the second game started. And the way the first inning was starting, this game looked like it may last four hours! Stamford scored in the top of the first, then Hamlin scored three, but the inning ended with a great play at the plate. After that it seemed like the wheels just completely fell off for Hamlin. Stamford came out and scored tight runs in the top of the second. Hamlin got back up and couldn't answer. Stamford came out the next inning and put up more. Stamford ended up winning the game in a blow out with a mercy rule win. It was really kind of a sad ending for such a great series and close rivalry between two evenly matched teams. Plus it made Stamford's celebration a little anti-climactic. That's ok, I got to run the shot of Hutchinson diving across the plate. The top photo is actually my favorite, however, I ended up going with the one of him with his hand on the plate (below), I think it did a little better job of telling the story.