[chucksabr]

Astounding 14 Innings Win for Millers.

A “crowd” of fewer than four hundred supporters showed up Saturday at Millmoor, a venue that can seat as many as 12,500, to watch as the local Rotherham United club, having a bit of a fair season to date, took on a struggling Barrow club that did not figure to provide much in the way of resistance. To the surprise of all, the Bluebirds plated five in the very first innings, on a 3B, three singles and three walks, and held on for dear life whilst United chipped away with two scores in the second, one in the sixth and two more in the seventh to carry a five-all draw forward, beyond the ninth, all the way to the fourteenth innings.

By that time perhaps one hundred had cared enough to stay, but fortunately baseball does not always reserve its most interesting and thrilling matches for the massive throngs of Saltergate, Old Trafford, or Burnden Park. After beginning the frame with a strike out, Barrow awoke from their twelve innings slumber with a single by Aylward, and despite that Bluebirds pitcher Blackman attempted to make out to move the runner to the second base, he made it to first himself by beating the throw. Galbraith also tried to make out, but United short stop Jarvis, having none of that, booted the sharp ground ball and the bases were then full. Cooper followed with a twobee that cleared the bases for three runs. Siane could have made a fourth out by grounding out to third base man MacWilliams, but first base man MacLennan dropped his throw. Barrow batsman Jarvis then struck out, and Theo Maher was hit by a pitched ball, but Kerrin Maher flew out to the left field, and Barrow felt safe in their three runs advantage.

Not that they should have been, of course. For United’s MacWilliams started the bottom of the innings reaching base on an error of his own. Three base hits followed, a threebee and two singles, and after ten pitches the Millers had scored two. Cooper worked at getting eight pitches out of Blackman before reaching on his own error, filling the bases for the Rotherham side. MacLennan lined a single to draw United level, and Blackman, who was clearly spent after having run bases at the top of the innings and then pitching many balls at the bottom, walked Duncan on five pitches to concede the fourth run of the innings, and the game, to the home side. Cheering could be heard, and it was rumoured to be coming from within the ground itself, although it might have also been an errant wireless radio signal playing from the window of one of the neighbour’s houses, as well. For since the eighth innings and up to the final frame you could hear a pin drop on the grass in the middle of the pitch, so lifeless and empty it seemed. But the United club is in such dire straits, and the town has so abandoned baseball, that it feels unlikely that even a winning team will save the club in the end.