'Robbo's Rants' - Cal Ripken Tour Diary

The Aroo’s on Tour

Arriving in Aberdeen -:

Well we arrived at Ripken Stadium, Aberdeen at about 9.00pm Friday night after our (20) hours of plane travel! It was an adventure on it’s own for the boy’s with numerous flight delays and various other joys of international travel, but was all forgotten once we were with the open and welcoming arms of our wonderful host families.

For the staff it was like we had never left, and for the boys it was the start of two weeks of wonderful life experience. The boys met their host families and off they went - and the staff walked ten metres to our home for the next (17) days.

Due to a last minute schedule change, today saw us play our first pre-tournament game against the “Doghouse Demolition”.

The boy’s did their best considering it was their first game on American soil less than 24hrs after arriving – but we ultimately went down 7-3.

The highlights for us during this game were the first two Aussie home-runs (hopefully of many!) hit by Todd McDonald and Cale Wood.

Zac Shepherd racked up two hits with a single and a double; while Sean Pengelly, Jalen McGee and Mick Young all got hits (with Young’s shot coming of the top of the giant right field fence).

While the Doghouse scored seven runs, our pitchers Lewis Thorpe, Jason Warburton, Pengelly and McDonald all did well for their first outings.

Today we went to the suburbs for our next game against the Forest Hill Storm which is a local team representing the area in which the host families reside.

While the result on the scoreboard was not pretty, the positive thing was that the boys were put under some serious pressure - exactly what the coaches were looking for to give the team some insight of what to expect during the World Series.

Offensively our standouts were Pengelly who came up a triple short of the cycle – just missing on his last at bat belting a deep sac fly. Thorpe had a HR & a single; McDonald & Wakefield had a double and single each; Ellis a double; while McGee, Kennelly & Warburton all chimed in with singles.

Snelgrove, Young, Bray and Kennelly all had stints on the mount. Final result was a 20-11 loss.

After yesterday’s disappointing loss Zac Shepherd came out firing on all cylinders to steady the ship with four scoreless innings, giving up just one hit against the Bel Air Braves from Harford County (an American team competing in the world series).

After battling hard for two early runs the bats really came to life, ignited by Snelgrove’s mammoth grand slam last seen sailing into the leftfield trees at “Wrigley field”.

The Snelgrove blast sparked a 12-run inning with plenty of offensive support from Glendinning, Dale, Wood, Young, Shepherd (2B) and Ellis (all with 2 hits apiece) – while both McDonald & Warburton each had singles.

The Aberdeen Arsenal were our opposition for today’s game.

The Arsenal is a team that plays out of the Ripken complex and not unlike last years encounter; the result went down to the wire with us coming out victorious in the last inning with a 7-4.

Our pitchers again setting the ground work with good efforts by Thorpe, Snelgrove and Dale on the bump.

Our hitters were lead by Wakefield, Ellis and McGee who all chimed in with two hits apiece. Shepherd & Glendinning both doubled while Bray and Pengelly both singled to keep the offence rolling along.

Today was a much needed rest day for all.

It was an early rise for the boy’s today as we traveled to Fawn Grove about 45mins across the border into Pennsylvania.

This small community that opens its arms and hearts to us each year and once again provided the boys with a day to remember both on the diamond and at the pool.

The local Mayor and Brett Pickett from the ABF got the game underway by sharing the ceremonial “first pitch” duties and After a very sleepy start for the first three innings or so and down 7-1 in a true Aussie spirit began to show its head.

We managed to fight back and take the lead in the top of the last inning only to the see the winning run cross the plate for the Riverdogs in the bottom half to see us go down 9-8.

The pitchers for the day were Warburton, Dale and McGee all of which gave solid efforts. Our hitters for the day were Shepherd with (3), Snelgrove with a double and Glendinning, McGee, McDonald, Pengelly, Ellis and Young all getting singles.