My double actually pushed the lead to 11-1 and the Bats were out of arms so El Duque pitched the last three innings. What a treat.
El Duque, a 90 game winner in the big leagues with the Yankees, Mets, Diamondbacks and White Sox has 1086 career strikeouts and a 4.13 era. He has an amazing 9-3 post season record and four World Series championship rings with the Yankees in 1998-99-2000 and the White Sox in 2005.
I saw one pitch against him in my first at-bat as I got drilled by an 70 mph fastball in the right calf. It’s 10 hours later and it still hurts.~ Ouch. My second time up I got the bat on the ball and hit a nubber down third base that the third baseman couldn’t rumble over to get and somehow I got to first safely. It will look much better in the boxscore tomorrow. Not bad. 1-1 and HBP against El Duque.
Barry’s one at-bat against El Duque was hysterical. Bases loaded, two out in the top of the ninth. Barry somehow stands there and works the count to 3-2. El Duque on the next pitch just rears back and 90 mph later neither BarryO or anybody else knew what happen. Talk about heat. BarryO stood there and took his punishment.
El Duque, after getting the called third strike, runs off the mound and gives Barry a big hug. In his broken English he apologized and said “I had to do it the bases were loaded.”
My fantasy day was topped off by another real good game in the field that had me challenged and made my uniform very dirty. As you see in the picture, the game ended with a shot down the first base line that somehow I stopped and crawled to the bag before the runner got there.
A win in Steinbrenner Stadium, in a major league setting, facing El Duque twice, the long awaited extra base hit and my wife to memorialize it. It doesn’t get much better than this morning!
