Spiked

Pool Play Game 2
Beechmont Sno-Ball Classic
Louisville Longhorns 1, Cincinnati Spikes 8

Picture a team that shows up to the ball field wearing matching ThermaBase team warm-up jackets and provides custom game balls that are branded with their own, full-color logo. Then imagine that you later find out that this outfit is part of a youth baseball organization that has its own stadium, replete with press box, two clubhouses, telephone-equipped dugouts, state-of-the-art electronic scoreboard and video board, professional sound system and permanent, chair-back seating. This team is not an invention of our minds, but rather the Louisville Longhorns’ opponent in their second pool-play game of the Beechmont Sno-Ball Classic baseball tournament this past Saturday afternoon.

Going into the game, the Longhorns sported a perfect 5-0 record, had run-ruled the opposition in three of those five games and had only given up a total of 5 runs. But they had not yet faced an adversary cut from quite the same cloth as the Cincinnati Spikes, a team who finished the 2010 season with a 47-1 record and who calls home the aforementioned major league-quality baseball facility.

As his teammates bat, center fielder Andrew Littlefield

watches from the dugout, hanging on every pitch.

For a short time, the Longhorns would be ahead in the game. With two outs and no one on in the top of the first inning, Matthew Higgins reached base safely after the fly ball that he lofted to left field was misplayed, and Number 10 was subsequently brought home by Andrew Arnold’s clutch RBI single. Although the Spikes would ultimately erase that one-run deficit, the game went the distance and Ryan Hamilton, Casey Simon, Trey Sweeney, Noah Baugher and Andrew Arnold, the lone Longhorn to record two base knocks in the contest, saw to it that the ’Horns notched a hit in each of the six frames.

Trey Sweeney en route to twirling a scoreless second inning.

Credit the Spikes—Longhorns batters reached base 13 different times in the game, but the Queen City nine only allowed one of that baker’s dozen to realize the satisfaction of touching home plate before returning to the dugout. Case in point: with runners at first and second with no out and the game still within reach, Nicholas Parrish lashed an 0-2 offering up the middle. But the Spikes are not your typical 11U competitive baseball club, and their shortstop turned what in most other games would have been a clear-cut, run-scoring hit into a 6-4-3 double play. Nevertheless, the Longhorns were not ready to roll over and play dead, as Ryan Hamilton drew a 2-out walk and immediately stole second base. With runners now at second and third, perched in scoring position, Bryce Elmore ripped a shot to straightaway center field, only to witness the Cincinnati ball hawk manning the central pasture make an over-the-shoulder grab to negate what could have been a 2-run extra base hit that would have gotten the Longhorns back into the game.

Casey Simon shows the umpire the ball after tagging out the runner

on a steal attempt annulled by catcher Andrew Arnold’s perfect peg.

The Louisville Longhorns may not be able to claim a home ballpark that has, according to the stadium’s own, dedicated web site, “a sand substructure that allows for optimal water drainage and softness,” nor can they don outerwear that is quite as snappy as that worn by their counterparts from up the Ohio River. But what they do have is talent. Serious talent that wins ballgames and that will win many more contests throughout the spring and summer.

Hot and Cold

Pool Play Game 1
Beechmont Sno-Ball Classic
North Oldham Knights 1, Louisville Longhorns 8

Admittedly, it would be somewhat of an exaggeration to report that it was so cold this past weekend at the aptly-named Sno-Ball Classic baseball tournament in Beechmont that, during pre-game warm-ups, players were wearing earmuffs and even ushankas, the traditional, yet undeniably fashionable, fur winter caps famously worn by Russians, but also favored by various nomads of central Asia and sundry inhabitants of the Arctic region. In the spirit of full disclosure, it must be noted that Ryan Hamilton removed the ushanka that he had been wearing before he actually left the dugout and stepped onto the field to work the kinks out of his chilled soupbone.

Andrew Littlefield’s ears stay toasty during pre-game warm-ups

while teammate Matthew Higgins attempts to warm his paw.

Nevertheless, compared to the downright balmy 80+ degrees at game-time of the previous weekend’s Sunday afternoon affair in which the Louisville Longhorns played, the sub-40 degree temperatures and accompanying brisk winds that bit through the Longhorns’ summer-weight Under Armor jerseys felt like weather more suited to mushing Huskies in Alaska’s Iditarod sled dog race than swinging Louisville Slugger 3X Composite Technology bats in a frigid early-spring baseball tournament in the River City.

Despite the Siberian conditions, Louisville Longhorns’ starting pitcher Noah Baugher came out smoking, striking out the first two North Oldham Knights batters he faced and retiring the side in order in the first inning. As searing as Mr. Baugher’s top-of-the-first horsehide-hurling performance was, the hitting prowess displayed by the Longhorns club-crew was perhaps 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius, for those scoring at home) hotter. Andrew Littlefield led off the ’Horns end of the initial frame with a base hit to left field and Casey Simon smote the first pitch he saw into deep right-center field for a double. Run-scoring base hits by Trey Sweeney, Nicholas Parrish and Bryce Elmore followed, and then Littlefield and Simon stepped up to the pentagonal platter and produced their second hits of the inning. When all was said and done, and the frost had cleared in chapter No. 1, the Longhorns had sent 13 young ’uns to the plate, seven of whom crossed the run-registering threshold, and the Horned-Ones were quickly in possession of a first-inning, 7-0 lead.

Starting pitcher Noah Baugher prevents frostbite

by covering his exposed epidermis, ninja-style.

In the top of the second inning, Noah Baugher once again set down the side in order, and did so in expeditious fashion, but the overall proceedings then followed the lead of the weather overlords and cooled off demonstrably. After collecting seven hits in the first frame alone, the Longhorns timber-toters would only add two more safeties, and one additional run, to their offensive totals in the next four innings combined, so it was up to their relief corps to curb any enthusiasm that the Knights’ offensive-assault-contingent might wish to muster.

In the dugout, Andrew Arnold stays warm in his official,

team-issued Longhorn hoodie while staying focused on the on-field proceedings.

And curb it they did. Relievers Andrew Arnold and Ryan Hamilton combined to limit the North Oldham wand-wielders to but two hits and only one unearned run over the final four innings, and when the game was officially in the books, the Longhorns found themselves standing warmly on the plus-side of an 8-1 final score.

Ryan Hamilton shut the door on the Knights,

holding them hitless over the final two innings.

Dozen-Egg

Tournament Championship Game

Pre-Season Baseball Classic

Louisville Legends 0, Louisville Longhorns 12

Pummel them with relentless hitting. Shut them down with dominant pitching. Odds are, if you do just one of those things in any particular game, you are going to earn a W. Do them both, and, as they say in the great state of New Jersey, home of Frank Sinatra, Southside Johnny and Tony Soprano, “You can just fuggedaboudit.” On Sunday night, in the Beechmont Pre-Season Baseball Classic championship game, the Louisville Longhorns delivered a memorable, dual-fisted performance that their crosstown rival opponents, the Louisville Legends, would most likely prefer to just forget.

With the game-time temperature hovering somewhere in the high-70s, it was unusually warm, even for the official first day of spring, but the real heat was coming from the starboard paw of fireballing flinger Matthew Higgins. Tabbed by Coach Rick Arnold to be the title game twirler, the powerful righthander quickly got down to business in the top of the first inning, striking out the Legend’s lead-off batter on three straight pitches. He would continue that level of sphere-serving efficiency throughout his entire outing, needing but 29 pitches to silence the Legends’ bats over three innings of one-hit, shutout ball.

Matthew Higgins flung three innings of 1-hit, shutout ball

to earn the victory in the championship game.

Even with apple-chucking like that, one still needs run support, and Higgins’s teammates would get him what he needed, with a little help from the Higster himself. The Longhorns would send 11 men to the plate in the bottom of the first, at one point lashing four hits in succession: a double down the left field line by Andrew Arnold and soundly-struck mono-pokes by Trey Sweeney, Nicholas Parrish and Ryan Hamilton.

Andrew Arnold was 2-for-2 in the game with 2 RBIs.

They topped that with five blows in a row in the second inning, sandwiching base knocks by Higgins, Arnold and Sweeney between twin-baggers by Casey Simon and Nicholas Parrish. That all accounted for nine runs, which certainly would have been enough, but after Andrew Littlefield and Casey Simon started off the bottom of the third with mirror-image, opposite-field base-bonks, young Mr. Higgins himself dealt the crowning blow: a three-run, four-ply, walk-off wallop over the right field fence.

Nicholas Parrish was 2-for-2 with a double and 2 RBIs.

For the second time in the tournament, the Louisville Longhorns shut out the opposing team, and, for the third time in four games, they forced the premature denouement of the contest via the run rule. When the smoke had cleared in the championship game, one could see that the scoreboard read Longhorns 12, Legends 0—a memorable result that would not be forgotten by the Longhorns, and their fans, any time soon.

Longhorns’ Bats Have Birds Seeing Red

Bracket Play Semifinal
Pre-Season Baseball Classic
New Albany Redbirds 2, Louisville Longhorns 15

Surprise. Dismay. Shell shock. One could read the progression of emotions on the face of the New Albany Redbirds’ starting pitcher as the Louisville Longhorns batting order chewed up his hard cheese and spit out even harder base hits all over Field 2 at Beechmont on Sunday afternoon in the Pre-Season Baseball Classic semifinals.

As the Redbird righthander warmed up prior to the first inning, he popped one whistler after another into the glove of his battery-mate, displaying heat that clearly exceeded that of the pitchers the Longhorns faced in their previous two games of the tournament. The answer to the question of how Coach Rick Arnold’s bludgeon-wielders would fare against that type of velocity was quickly answered when Andrew Littlefield ripped the second pitch he saw deep to center field for a lead-off double. It was evident that the Redbird hurler was not expecting such a rude greeting, but he composed himself, retiring the next two batters, and seemed perhaps to be on his way to making it back to the safety of the third base dugout, unscathed. Clean-up hitter Andrew Arnold had other ideas, however, belting a double of his own to right-center field to bring Littlefield home, and Trey Sweeney immediately followed suit, larruping the third two-bagger of the inning into the left-center field gap to score another run.

Indeed, not a bad start, but when Ryan Hamilton welcomed the Redbird pitcher to the second inning with a line shot to right field, things really started to pick up offensively for the Longhorns. The base hits by Noah Baugher, Brendan Koester and Casey Simon that followed clearly rattled the New Albany hurler, prompting him to bestow upon Matthew Higgins and Andrew Arnold one free base-pass apiece. Trey Sweeney’s single to left finally brought the Redbird coach out with hook in hand, though irreparable damage had already been done, as the game was still in its infancy and the Longhorn run tally already stood at eight. Alas, they were not done yet.

Brendan Koester was perfect at the plate in the run-rule shortened affair,

with a second inning single and a base on balls.

In the third inning, it was once again Ryan Hamilton who kicked off the pill-pelting party, this time with a line shot down the left field line. One out later, Noah Baugher stroked his second safety of the contest, and next Brendan Koester worked the count full before taking ball four. Casey Simon stepped up to the plate with the bases fully saturated and lifted a fly ball over the left fielder’s head that hit off the distant fence, missing a grand slam by, well, that much. With the bases once again jam-packed with horned horsehiders, Matthew Higgins crushed a double-bagger to right, and after Andrew Arnold took one for the team and Trey Sweeney walked on four consecutive pitches, the bases were once again juiced. Nicholas Parrish sidled up to the dish and looked at two pitches before he saw one that he liked—liked so much, in fact, that he used it to personally put an end to the proceedings with a 2-run smash to right that prompted the men in blue to finally step in and halt the game on account of the run-rule.

Casey Simon blasts a ball off the left field fence,

barely missing a grand slam.

Matthew Higgins crushes a double in the third inning.

When a team places 15 big markers up on the board, good pitching performances can easily get overlooked, but the Longhorns’ offensive onslaught should not overshadow yet another efficient hilltop outing by Coach Arnold’s deep mound corps. The inseparable duo of Andrew Littlefield and Trey Sweeney combined to record five out of nine outs via the whiff route while limiting the Crimson Cardinals to but two harmless runs.

Andrew Littlefield and Trey Sweeney

held the Redbirds to 2 runs while striking out 5.

The Longhorns’ victory earned them a spot in the championship game to be played against the winner of the Champaign Dream-Louisville Legends affair that immediately followed their 15-2 romp.

Fire Extinguishers

Pool Play Game 2
Pre-Season Baseball Classic
Louisville Longhorns 6, Fern Creek Fire 0

“Pitching and defense wins championships.” Not exactly a phrase that rivals “The buck stops here,” “Remember the Alamo” or “Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” but, when it comes to baseball, few can argue with those five words.

This past Saturday morning, the Louisville Longhorns were not yet playing for a championship, but the game was important just the same. A win would give the team a 2-0 pool-play record and, by holding their Game 2 opponents, the Fern Creek Fire, to as few runs allowed as possible, they would increase the likelihood of a high seed going into Sunday’s bracket play phase of the tournament. If the pitching and defense were good enough, they might even be able to earn one of the bracket’s  two coveted first round byes.

As the visiting team, the Longhorns would come to bat first in the opening frame, but their first two hitters were set down without incident. Batting in the No. 3 hole, Matthew Higgins presented for the fans’ amusement a remarkable imitation of his second at bat from Game One, lofting a sky-high pop-up that eluded yet another befuddled shortstop. Not being a team to look a gift-run in the mouth, the Longhorns graciously accepted another two errors and the one passed ball that followed, allowing Higgins to cross home plate and giving them an early 1-0 lead.

After going 2-for-2 on Friday night,

Andrew Littlefield stroked another two hits in Saturday's Game 2.

Determined to hold that slim lead, starting pitcher Casey Simon retired the Fire’s lead-off hitter on a grounder to Higgins at third base, and subsequently punched out the numbers two and three hitters, both looking. The ’Horns opened the top of the second with consecutive hard-struck singles by Nicholas Parrish and Ryan Hamilton, and two outs later Andrew Littlefield delivered a clean, clutch safety up the middle, giving the Longhorns two more runs worth of breathing room.

Starting pitcher Casey Simon hurled three innings innings of 1-hit ball.

For the second inning in a row, Casey Simon would dispose of the Fire batters in order, this time on a comebacker to the mound sandwiched between twin grounders that were niftily handled by Trey Sweeney at shortstop. One inning later, after Brendan Koester and Andrew Littlefield tucked away fly balls to left field and center field, respectively, and second-sacker Ryan Hamilton gobbled up a grounder hit his way, Simon’s work atop the hill was done for the day, having allowed but one harmless single against nine outs recorded.

Not content with their three-run lead, the Longhorns manufactured another run in the top of the fourth inning. Ryan Hamilton led off with his second base hit of the game, and was sacrificed to second on a textbook bunt by Brendan Koester. On the play, Koester arrived safely at first on a throwing error by the pitcher, with Hamilton advancing to third on the miscue. Needing just to put the bat on the ball to get the all-important insurance run in from third base, Noah Baugher used the first pitch he saw to do just that, and, just like that, the Longhorns’ lead increased to 4-0.

Making his first mound appearance for his new team and facing the top of the order, Nicholas Parrish made a statement by striking out the Fire’s lead-off hitter. The next batter reached on a single to right field, but was summarily dismissed when Parrish picked him off first base. That was one of only two hitters who would reach base against the portpaw pitcher, who slammed the door on the Fire by fanning the final four Flames.

Nicholas Parrish fanned five in two innings.

With piquant pill-slinging like that, no more offense was needed, but the Longhorns were nevertheless hungry for more of the sweet taste that comes with crossing home plate. In their last turn at bat, Andrew Arnold’s lead-off solo clout over the right field fence and a double-helping of singles by Trey Sweeney and Nicholas Parrish added the last two layers of icing to the ’Horns run-total cake.

Their hitting provided ample run support, but it was the moundsmen’s three-hit shutout and the error-free play by the fielders behind them—pitching and defense—that were the true keys to the Longhorns’ 6-0 dousing of the Fire.

The Fruits of Their Labor

Pool Play Game 1
Pre-Season Baseball Classic
River City Renegades 2, Louisville Longhorns 13

Thousands of swings. Countless ground balls. Innumerable hitting, fielding and pitching repetitions. Starting back in early-December, Rick Arnold, homicide detective by day and head coach of the Louisville Longhorns 11U competitive baseball club by night, weekends and, well, a large part of the day for that matter, started planting the seeds of baseball fundamentals in the netted hitting cages, on the portable pitching mounds and atop the pristine turf of the new Louisville Baseball Center indoor training facility that had just been opened by Louisville Lightning 12U coach Mickey Wilbur.

The LBC provided Coach Arnold, and the other parents of the ten young men who would make up the 2011 Longhorns team, with the promise of fertile ground that was too rich to pass up. Only the most fortunate of other local teams is able to find any kind of significant practice time at a dedicated indoor baseball site over the winter, yet the ’Horns now had access to a veritable roofed field of dreams. But like those who for years farmed the soil on which many of our houses now sit can attest, it is not until harvest time that one truly knows what even the finest land, and the hardest work, will yield. On Friday night, March 18, at the Pre-Season Classic baseball tournament in Beechmont, it was time for the Longhorns to find out.

They took the field as home team in the top of the first inning for the opening game of the 2011 season in new uniforms: black, full-button jerseys; crisp, white pants with black out-seam piping; and white caps with contrasting black visors, buttons and eyelets. The new-look steer-head logos sewn on the left-chest of the jerseys and emblazoned on the front of the caps were emblematic of a roster that featured four new players joining the six returning Longhorn veterans. One of those fresh faces was Trey Sweeney, late of the Fern Creek Fire, who was handed the horsehide and given the honor of being the Game One starter. Fittingly, Number Seven’s initial offering to the River City Renegades’ lead-off batter was a strike, and he proceeded to set down the side in order, aided by some fine glovework by Matthew Higgins on a bounder to third and on a challenging pop-up over the head of Noah Baugher that was put away by the sure-handed second baseman.

Leading off for the Longhorns was Sweeney’s former Fire-mate, Andrew Littlefield, and the lefty got things off on the right foot by drawing a base on balls. One out later, Matthew Higgins, also batting from the port side, stroked a single to right field, and after clean-up hitter Andrew Arnold was issued the second walk of the inning, Sweeney drew a bases-loaded freebie to plate the first run of the contest and put the Longhorns up 1-0.

Some early-season rust was evident in the top of the second, resulting in the Renegades scoring two unearned runs, but the damage was mitigated as Sweeney set three batters down swinging in the inning. The Longhorns saw to it that the ’Gades lead would be short-lived, as Sweeney’s battery-mate, Bryce Elmore, drew a one-out walk in the bottom of the second and came around to knot the score at 2-2 on a single by Andrew Littlefield.


Matthew Higgins gobbled up another grounder in the top of the third and the last batter in the order was struck out looking. But with two outs, the Renegades looked to break the tie when their lead-off hitter delivered a two-out single through the hole, just beyond the diving reach of shortstop Casey Simon. The runner then stole both second and third base, and boldly attempted to continue home when the throw on the latter steal attempt got away. But Andrew Arnold, who had just replaced starting left fielder Brendan Koester, alertly backed up the errant peg and fired the ball to the plate, where Elmore slapped the tag on the runner to squelch the scoring threat and end the inning.


Two and a half innings had now been played. The Longhorns batters had two base hits, their base runners had scored a pair of runs, their defense had made plays in the field and their pitcher had not given up an earned run—indeed, all positive signs. But, starting at this point, the benefits of the hours the team put in over the long, cold winter would truly start to show.


Casey Simon, the erstwhile Lyndon Lightning shortstop who was making his full-time Longhorn debut after a one-tournament audition late last summer, led off, worked the count full and drew an inning-opening walk. Matthew Higgins lifted a rainmaker beyond shortstop that was simply too high to handle, and Andrew Arnold followed with another full-count free-pass. Trey Sweeney then stepped up to the plate and promptly roped a bases-loaded double to right-center, bringing home both Simon and Higgins. After Ryan Hamilton reached on an error that scored Arnold, the newest of the Longhorns, Simon’s former Lightning teammate Nicholas Parrish, drove in two more runs with a two-bagger of his own. When all was said and done, five runners had toed the dish and the Longhorns were on the smile-side of a 7-2 score.


Any chance of a Renegade comeback was rendered moot, first when Matthew Higgins came in to pitch the fourth inning and the hard-throwing righthander struck out the side—the numbers two, three and four hitters—looking, and then when the Burnt-Orange-and-Black piled on six more runs in the bottom half of the frame. Back-to-back singles by Andrew Littlefield and Casey Simon started off the flogging festivities, and Higgins then launched the first pitch he saw for a three-run round-tripper over the right field fence, adding yet another in an already long line of dents to the roofs of cars inadvisably parked within reach of his Ruthian blasts. Consecutive base knocks by Andrew Arnold, Trey Sweeney and Ryan Hamilton, and Bryce Elmore’s second four-ball handout of the game, followed before Noah Baugher sent a resounding double to the opposite field, capping off the scoring surge and ending the game early on account of the run-rule.


Carefully cultivated two nights a week over the frigid winter, the hardball seeds that were initially planted on that first night of off-season workouts in the late fall, and the others that were sown on the evenings that followed, indeed took root, and the resulting bumper crop of hard hitting, fine fielding and prime pitching was on full display last Friday night in the Longhorns season opener.