SALT LAKE CITY - GAME RECAP

The game promised to be a good one with Matt Wise starting for the Stingers against Memphis' Alan Benes. Both pitchers were doing well up to then, but unfortunately Benes was not at his best, to put it mildly. After Wise retired the Redbirds in order to start the game, the Stingers' Juan Tolentino led off the bottom of the first with a rocket over the left field fence.  The next three batters singled and after a line out by Scott Morgan, a double and a single made the score 5-0. Justin Baughmann grounded to short, a sure double play ball to end the inning, but it was bobbled by Luis Garcia. Benes seemed rattled by that and walked the next batter, which was the end of the line for him. Dave Zancanaro (who we saw in Tacoma) came in but another Garcia error and a walk made the score 8-0 after 1 inning.

Tolentino scores on his dinger

With Wise on the hill, the game was never in doubt after that. Although Memphis got a couple of runs in the 4th on Lou Lucca's home run, Baughmann replied with a 2-run shot of his own in the bottom half, making it 11-2. Both teams added meaningless runs in the last two innings, and the final was 15-5 Salt Lake.

Fortunately there were some interesting promotions to keep the fans interested, including the Survivor game, in which 5 contestants competed in 4 events, with the loser being eliminated after each event. One of the events was the cold hot-dog eating contest, which was very amusing.

Although the game was not that interesting, the stadium is great, and we each won something in a promotion, so this game gets a 5/10.

Nate Murphy connects for a double