November 1961
Image from: Gary Danvers Collection on Flickr
Crystal clear water, a long beach with yellow sand and a cold beverage in your hand. That's probably a common sight in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, where 22 year old Wilfredo Flores was born. Baseball is popular in Puerto Rico, but professional opportunities in the sport are found far from this tropical paradise. At Scott Base we have quite the opposite of a tropical paradise in fact, Wilfredo Flores has 4 layers of clothing on and his 2 pairs of gloves give him an awkward grip of the bat. Standing on the mound is another 22 year old, Oscar Herrera. Herrera is from a place that's 5,000 kilometers closer to Antarctica than Vega Baja, but not any colder. Tucumán is the biggest city in the Argentinian north, with a metro population of 830 thousand people (which also makes it almost 10x bigger than Vega Baja). The city is the capital of a province with the same name, and its climate has been classified as humid subtropical, with daily averages around 23° C this time of year. Herrera is also clad in 4 layers of clothing, with a baseball glove on top of a mitten on his left hand. His right hand holds the bright orange baseball. Oscar chose to wear inner gloves and wool-lined outer gloves that allow him to have somewhat of a grip on the baseball. It's -17° C out here and the wind is blowing at 43 km/h, Herrera kicks back and deals, Flores swings as hard as he can and the crack of the bat makes the 45 people sitting around the field cheer. A flash of orange headed towards 3B Galtero Carta loses its speed as it bounces in the snow three times, Carta easily gets to it and slings it over to first base for the first out of the inaugural Antarctic Baseball League season!
(OOTP presents weather in Fahrenheit)
ABL "Firsts":
First hit: SS Walter Sanchez, double on a line drive to LF (Qinling, vs Scott)
First double: SS Walter Sanchez
First triple: RF Jun-young Kim, on a hit to left-center (Amundsen-Scott, vs SANAE IV)
First homer: 1B Gareth Ising, 413ft bomb to right-center off Hiroshi Takahashi (SANAE IV, vs Amundsen-Scott)
First stolen base: CF Matt Ferrante (Amundsen-Scott, vs SANAE IV)
First Win: Concordia Meteors 1-0 Rothera Orcas
First Winning Pitcher: RHP Marcel Dupont - 7 IP, 4 HA, 0 ER, 3 K (Concordia, vs Rothera)
First Losing Pitcher: LHP Ramil Safin - 7 IP, 9 HA, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K (Rothera, vs Concordia)
First Save: LHP Erik Johansen (Concordia, vs Rothera)
Standings
Remarkable Games
- 23 year old RHP Hiroshi Takahashi no-hits the Scott Kiwis in -30°C weather, his line: 9 IP, 0 HA, 0 ER, 1 BB, 6 K. It is the first no-hitter in ABL history!
- Between Opening Day and November 14th, Davis DH Ryan Black hits safely in 12 consecutive games. He is then sat in favor of Mike Fidler/Dwaine O'Rourke and goes hitless in his return on November 29.
- Escudero C Arnaldo Mariano was as hot as you can get from November 24 to the 27th, collecting hits in 7 consecutive at-bats. His streak began in the bottom of the 8th against the Auroras, when he hit a single (and was then caught stealing, Mariano went 3-4 that game). He then had a hit in all of 4 his at-bats against SANAE IV on the 26th, including his second homer of the season to lead off the 5th. On the 27th, Arnaldo singled in the 1st, had another RBI single in the 3rd and finally had his streak snapped in the 5th after flying out to center.
- Escudero CF Manuel Díaz steals 8 from 8 between November 10th and the 22nd before finally being caught by Novolazarevskaya's Ernesto Saavedra.
- In more unfortunate news, a pair of pitchers were forced to retire before their career even began. Novolazarevskaya's RHP Javier Dávalos and Qinling's LHP David Rodríguez were both forced to retire following rupturing their UCLs within 12 days of each other. Neither of them threw an official pitch, but they did participate in "Spring" training.
Award Races
Roald Amundsen Award (MVP - Named after the Norwegian explorer who led the first expedition to reach the south pole)
RHP Enrique Molina - Davis - 6-0, 47.1 IP, 0.76 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, 20 K, 13 BB
RHP Oscar Herrera - Scott - 2-2, 44 IP, 1.02 ERA, 0.70 WHIP, 23 K, 10 BB
LHP Mark DeVault - Esperanza - 3-0, 43 IP, 1.05 ERA, 0.58 WHIP, 17 K, 6 BB
RHP Yin-ti Weng - Dumont d'Urville - 3-1, 41 IP, 0.88 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 19 K, 16 BB
RHP Luis Rodríguez - Casey - 1-0, 32.2 IP, 0.00 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 19 K, 10 BB
Ernest Shackleton Award (Best Hitter - Named after the British explorer who led 3 expeditions to Antarctica and is a "role model for leadership in extreme circumstances" according to Wikipedia)
1B Adrisa Sasi - Escudero - .353/.461/.541, 7 2B, 3 HR, 12 RBI
RF Jun-young Kim - Amundsen-Scott - .228/.357/.557, 6 2B, 1 3B, 6 HR, 14 RBI
LF Håvard Abrahamsen - Amundsen-Scott - .230/.374/.527, 5 2B, 1 3B, 5 HR, 11 RBI
C Arnaldo Mariano - Escudero - .351/.393/.494, 5 2B, 2 HR, 9 RBI
CF Christian Alexandre - Troll - .284/.360/.473, 1 2B, 2 3B, 3 HR, 8 RBI