Bunt Instruments

“I want to kill that coach!” That’s what the normally good natured Bob Lott, father of this diarist and a life-long baseball/softball coach, growled near the end of last night’s Bellingham Bells game.

The boiling point was bunts. The Bells, our local West Coast League baseball team, are obsessive about bunting to advance the runner. They’re actually very good at it but a) bunts are extremely risky; b) you’re effectively trading the other team an out for a base; and c) drilling to get them right comes at the expense of other vital things.

Twice last night, the Bells loaded the bases versus the Corvalis Knights and came back to the field with nothing to show for it. A couple 2-run early innings proved vital. They finally won the game 6-5 in the bottom of the 10th, proving, once again, that it’s good to be home.

Here’s the official write-up of the game. It does not mention the between-innings entertainments: the antics of team mascot Dinger the Bellinghamster; the running of the children; or that high school girl’s unique interpretation of the Star Spangled banner.

And then: fireworks. Our crowd got the show that had been scheduled for the July 3rd game that got rained out. When the rockets went up a little after 10, it was a little bit chilly — high ’50s, low ’60s — but we surely didn’t mind that.