BASE PATHS: Power trip was one wild ride

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June 14, 2009

By Doug Smith The Journal-Register Sun Jun 14, 2009, 11:38 PM EDT

The Southern Tier town of Alfred has a stairway to heaven, but it’s sorely in need of repair. That’s among the discoveries by the Niagara Power on its opening road trip, an odyssey worthy of Homer, James Joyce and Willie Nelson.

Word came shortly before departure that the game would be played not in Bolivar, but in Alfred, about 25 miles to the east, and at 5 p.m., not 7. Alfred has no lights, an omen of a journey into darkness. While the New York Collegiate League details directions to fields, the sudden change of venue left the Power groping the Garmin.

If the route to Alfred was a golf hole, the Power drove the green and then needed five putts to get down. An Alfred village police officer suggested that super chauffeur Cal Kern have the team set aside the huge “Road Closed, Violators Will Be Prosecuted” sign and replace it after his bus passed through.

Eventually, from the base of a hill, the outfield fence shimmered, a vision atop 71 rickety, weed-strewn stairs. An elderly scout climbed them while the team dressed in the parking lot.

As the scout reached the summit, Kern learned of a safer harbor. Unfortunately, this involved portage of a dry moat, which amputated the bus’ back bumper. Kern, bus, team, scout and the detached bumper all arrived at home plate simultaneously.

The game was the easy part.

For two seasons, Niagara Power has been an oxymoron, but Travis Latz drove the fifth pitch over the left field fence, gone from the crack of the bat. Three innings later, Marshall McDonald launched one to the 71 stairs, 10 feet fair, but the umpire called it foul. Manager Sam Kirby later said, “The way we did not get ‘down’ after that bad break testifies to this team’s character.”

The game lurched into the 12th inning, 2-2. Mark Donahue, running a loosening-up drill, heard his name called.

“Pinch-hit,” Kirby directed and so Donahue, who had red-shirted his freshman year, drilled a two-out go-ahead triple in his first at-bat as a collegian. “I wasn’t even expecting to play,” he would say.

And when R. J. Roller, subbing at second base, dove into the darkness to turn a would-be duck snort into the final out, the Power has prevailed 3-2. The Oilers left 19 on base and, even more astonishingly, piled up 27 assists.

Homeward-bound, the bumper slumbered in the aisle, requiring the old scout to change seats. When the bus recrossed the gulch, a helmet bounced out of the overhead rack and beaned him.

“That knock any sense into your head?” his wife asked shortly after midnight.

“Nah,” he said, “We’re still going to Brockport.”

Signal back to Base Paths at pollyndoug@hotmail.com

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