By Matt Sieger
It’s fun to watch baseball at any level.
I live in Martinez, California, a town of 38,000 about an hour north of San Francisco and
the birthplace of Joe DiMaggio, whom I once interviewed.
The Martinez Sturgeon, a team in the independent professional baseball Pecos League,
have been here since 2019. Prior to the Sturgeon, we had a team called the Clippers
(named for the Yankee Clipper, DiMaggio). The Clippers played one season in 2018 in
the Pacific Association but folded after that year as their owner was indicted for a
running a solar Ponzi scheme!
The Sturgeon used to be the Mackerel. A fish by any other name . . .
I attended my first Sturgeon game the other night. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The Sturgeon
play at Joe DiMaggio Field in Waterfront Park, near the marina. The team has a
mascot, Sturgill the Sturgeon. (I happen to know the woman who was inside the
costume), an announcer, streaming broadcast, raffle, refreshment stand, and great
fans, many of whom don Sturgeon caps and jerseys. One of the fans had a cowbell,
another a horn, and the locals love their Sturgeon.
My friend Pam is a Sturgeon host. That means she has taken two Sturgeons into her
home for the summer, shortstop Tanner Graham of Fennimore, Wisconsin, and
centerfielder Mike Kelly of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For both, this is their first year on
the team. As a host, Pam gets choice seats right behind home plate, and I was her
guest.
The players are mostly college ballplayers who are looking to advance up the baseball
ladder, some, like Kelly, with Major League aspirations. Several players in the Pecos
League have gone on to the play in the Majors.
Kelly plays a very smooth center field and is the fastest man on the team. A left-handed
batter, he pushed a beautiful bunt down the third base line and beat it out for a hit. Then
he stole second base.
The teams play a full nine innings, with Major League rules, including the pitch clock.
The Sturgeon faced off against the San Rafael Pacifics, who were in first place, just a
half game ahead of the Sturgeon prior to the game.
The Pacifics carved out an early 3-0 lead against aptly named left-handed starter Elijah
Pacheco-Martinez, and the Sturgeon were not having much success at the plate.
As at any level, good defense is the key to winning baseball. And the Pacifics’ defense
abandoned them, as they committed two costly errors. The Sturgeon took advantage,
scoring two runs in the fifth inning, one in the sixth, and four in the seventh to take a 7-3
lead. They eventually won 8-4 to take over first place.
The key hit for the Sturgeon was a long line-drive double to center field by first baseman
Andrew Curran, a bruiser who is batting .516 with four home runs in 64 at-bats this
season.
Curran is less adept defensively. At one point a San Rafael batter bounced the ball
between first and second base. Curran, who appeared to have a good chance of
snagging it, didn’t go after it, leaving his second baseman to scramble and lunge for it
as the ball rolled into the outfield.
There were other mental errors. As the Sturgeon were mounting a comeback, they had
scored twice to cut the lead to 3-2 in the fifth inning. They had the bases loaded with
one out. The batter hit a ground ball between third and shortstop. The third baseman
ranged to his left, gloved the ball, tagged the runner from second who was trying to
advance to third base, and fired to first base for the inning-ending double play.
The mental error was on the part of the runner on second. In that situation, he needed
to stop before the third baseman could tag him, which would have prevented the double
play.
The next inning, with the Sturgeon still down 3-2 with a runner on second base, the
batter scorched a hard ground ball down the third base line, past the third baseman into
left field. The runner scooted around third base, and, realizing there would be no play on
him at home, slowed down and jogged the last 30 feet toward the plate. The problem
was that he was unaware that the batter was trying to stretch his hit into a double. If the
batter was tagged out at second base before the runner reached home plate, the run
would not count! Fortunately, the batter slid in safely to second base, but just barely.
Had he been out, it looked to me like the runner from second had not quite crossed
home plate when the tag was made at second base, which would have cost the
Sturgeon a run.
The other thing I noticed is that, as in the Majors, a lot of these players hold the bat all
the way down the end and are invested in launch angle, upper cutting their swing, trying
to hit the ball out of the park, and, as a result, hitting a lot of lazy fly balls and pop-ups
for outs. I still believe in level swings to make contact to put pressure on the defense.
Oh well.
But overall, it was good baseball. I liked that the Martinez manager played some small
ball, looking to advance the base runner with a bunt at one point. And there were a lot of stolen bases by both teams, a reflection in part because neither catcher had a Major
League arm. But even the speedy Mike Kelly did get thrown out trying to steal second
base.
As a traditionalist, I was also pleased to find that the Pecos League does not employ the
designated hitter – the only professional league in the world that does not!
The enthusiasm of the fans is contagious. Many are regulars. A The nd, as at Major
League stadiums, I found that hot dogs do indeed taste better at the ballpark.
Go fish!
Martinez resident Matt Sieger, now retired, is a former sportswriter for The Vacaville
Reporter. He writes for The Sports Column website and is the author of “The God
Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978.”
