Will Fame And Love Return

The Long Road Back

Baltimore, Maryland

Chesapeake Harbor Stadium

Friday August 10, 2007

Rick Randolph walked out of the Baltimore Clippers clubhouse and out into the team dugout. He paused for a few moments just to gazing around. He then walked out on the field where some of his teammates were gathered for pre game practice. But Rick’s mind was on seeking out his father and mother in the stands behind the Clippers dugout.

Spotting his parents, Rick went over to talk to them. When his parents spotted Rick, they approached him and both gave him a great big hug. Rick spoke to them, “That’s great, glad that you guys made it here despite all of the heavy traffic volume that you experienced along the way here.

Later on, both teams were getting ready to start the game. The starting pitchers, Joshua Nielson of the Indianapolis Racers and Charles Hartley of the Baltimore Clippers had finished their warm up tosses and the two standout pitchers were ready for a pitchers duel.

After the pre game ceremonies and the playing of the National Anthem, the home plate umpire, Dwayne Garrett hollered play ball.

In the top half of the 1st inning, except for Herman Folger’s single up the middle, all was quiet, but that would not last too long for the Clippers.

In the bottom half of the first inning, Rick Randolph lead off and hit an uncharacteristic weak grounder back to Joshua Nielson, who threw the ball to 1st baseman Alexi Waisai, and except for an infield single by Alex Ayers, the Clippers were unable to muster up anything of significance. 

In the top half of the 2nd inning, Felipe Diaze hit a sharp grounder to Rick Randolph who mishandled it and was charged with an error. Both Frank Maas and Juan Orlando hit successive sacrifice flies to deep Centerfield to Sam Columbo to advance the Racers runner Felipe Diaze to 2nd base and then to 3rd base. Dominic Massimo then came to bat and immediately hit a sharp grounder to Rick Randolph, who again mishandled another play, which allowed Massimo to reach 1st base and Diaze to score the 1st run of the game. Afterwards Clippers pitcher Hartley struckout Racers pitcher Nielson, to end the inning with the Racers leading 1 to 0.

In the bottom half of the 2nd inning Nielson was hitting the strike zone. Hartley struck out, then Rick Randolph came to bat and whiffed uncharacteristically on 3 straight pitches and concern began to grow and the realization that the best best in baseball was totally out of sync, but unfortunately the rest of the team had been out of sync for most of the season. As for Eric Ayers grounding out to end the inning, the situation was not looking good for the Clippers.

In the top half of the 3rd inning, Nick Delfera singled up the middle, with Rick Randolph and Eric Ayers getting tangled up trying to reach for the ball, then Sal Canistia hit a liner to sure handed Phil Terrent who dropped the ball and ended up over throwing it to Tick Randolph who had to leap to at least knocking it down, with the runner going to 3rd. Terrent was charged . with the infields 2nd error of the game. With Felipe Diaze legging out an infield single, he drove in the 2nd run of the game for the Racers. After that, they eased out of their half of the inning ahead 2 to 0.

The bottom half of the 3rd inning did not look any better for the surprisingly weak hitting Clippers and they remained trailing 2 to 0.

In the top half of the 4th inning it was much of the same. This time 1st baseman Joe Locke committed a throwing error, attempting to shovel off a dribbler to pitcher Hartley covering 1st base, the 3rd error committed in the 

game. The “Ace Glove Award” winning Clipper infielders had apparently 

lost their luster, but they were fortunate that no runs were scored in that half 

of the inning.

In the bottom half of the 4th inning even with a single by Joe Locke and a walk by Herman Goyle was not enough to produce and runs.

The top half of the 5th inning started with a hopping grounder hit by Alexi Waisai, that again Rick Randolph could not get a good handle on, but that was the only damage done that half of the inning and the Clippers remained behind 2 to 0. 

The bottom half of the 5th inning started promising with Sam Columbo hitting a double, followed by Charles Hartley, launching a sacrifice fly to deep right field to move Columbo over to 3rd base. Then something happened next that would have never occurred before. Rick Randolph, weakly skied an infield pop up, something that he had rarely done during his playing career. Eric Ayers the came to bat and saved the inning for the Clippers by connecting with a single, allowing Columbo to score. With the bottom half of the inning coming to an end, the Clippers were now only behind 2 to 1.

In the top half of the 6th inning, Charles Hartley had finally found his rhythm and was settling down, keeping the Racers off the bases.

In the bottom half of the 6th inning the Racers Joshua Nielson was still continuing to make the Clippers hitters look weak and was recording a strikeout per inning.

In the top half of the 7th inning, Charles Hartley continued to get hitters out now that he had found his rhythm and also no infield miscues.

In the bottom half of the 7th inning Joshua Nielson was continuing his excellent control and continued to strikeout Clippers hitters. Rick Randolph 

ended the inning by striking out for the 2nd time in the game and the 8th time in the game for the Clippers.

In the top half of the 8th inning the poor fielding resumed when sure handed Eric Ayers committed the 4th error by the Clippers infield in the game, but Charles Hartley’s excellent pitching kept the score at 2 to 1, and had kept the Racers scoreless for the last 5 innings.

In the bottom half of the 8th inning the Clippers were trying to stage a rally.

 Joe Locke singled up the middle, then Paul West hit a sacrifice fly to deep centerfield to move Locke up to 2nd base. Then Phil Terrent came to bat and reached 1st base on a throwing error by Waisai. Herman Goyle then came to bat getting a single just past Waisai, enabling Joe Locke to score. With the inning coming to an end the score was now tied 2 to 2.

In the top of the 9th inning Herman Folger stroked a single past Rick Randolph. With an infield pop up by Waisai and a shallow outfield fly by Diaze, Frank Maas came up and hit a scorcher to Rick Randolph who could not handle it and let the ball roll away, committing his 2nd error and the 5th error of the game and allowing Folger to score. The inning then came to and end and the Racers were now ahead 3 to 2.

In the bottom of the 9th inning, Sam Columbo came to bat and blooped a single to shallow right field. Jerry Cast was sent to pinch hit for Charles Hartley. But he struck out on 3 pitches, being the 9th strikeout of the game for Nielson. Rick Randolph came to bat with a chance to atone for all of his miscues during the game. That would not come to passas Rick hit a very weak grounder to Nielson who flipped the ball to Delfera and he threw to Waisai completing a game ending double play.

The Clippers fans were sadly leaving the stadium. Rick’s mother Wanda had tears in her eyes, his father Gerald was visibly upset and was saying that none of this would be happening if Bill Falstaf was still here as the manager of this team. 

This was by far the worst game of Rick’s major league baseball career and hopefully it could only improve and get better, but at this point in time that was very debatable. 

As for Rick, once he got to the clubhouse, he quickly undressed, showered and got dressed, not wanting to hang around. Rick quickly returned to his hotel suite and just chilled out, wanting to wipe the memory of this game out of his mind.