The largest crowd at Reckling Park saw Rice beat Texas 6-3 Tuesday March 17, 2009. Texas used three freshman pitchers in the first six or seven innings. They closed with Austin Wood, one of their senior veterans and a lefthander. He has beaten Rice a few times in his career. I suspect none of these guys are front line starters. Wood might not be any more. But I'm not sure.

Rice started freshman pitcher Matt Reckling. He went into the fifth inning. Yes he is related, a grandson of the man the park is named after. He has good stuff but he is having trouble making the third strike. His control has to improve a bit. But he shows promise. He got into trouble in the first and third but only gave up one. He got a no decision, Rice scored 4 in the sixth to break it open. They were down 2-1 at the time and took it to 5-2. My guess is that Evers did not get the win as he did not pitch effectively. Jordan Rogers, the third pitcher, got the win. Abe Gonzales is the designated pitcher against a strong lefthanded hitter. So he pitched to one in the eighth. Then Mike Ojala finished for us. He pitched 1 2/3 innings and got four strike outs. He struck out the side in the ninth. He earned a save.

The sixth Rice run was pretty controversial. I always say every game you see something new. It is amazing how many times you see something you rarely or perhaps never have seen before. Last night that sixth insurance run scored on a two base sacrifice fly. The runner tagged up and scored from second base. At least officially that is what happened. A liner was hit to the right field wall. The rightfielder made an amazing diving attempt at the ball. Everything was behind the play and could not be seen well by the umpire who ran out. But after a second he called it safe. He called the ball was dropped. The man on second took off and slid into home. The hitter stayed on first. He was as confused as everyone. The Texas players threw the ball to second and someone tagged the base, thinking to get the double play. But the original call was RBI single despite the desperate attempt to catch it.

The Texas players were livid. Augie Garrido, the Texas coach came out and talked to the first umpire, then to a second umpire. Wayne Graham came out and got an explanation. He never did argue. The three umpires confided with each other and decided that the ball had been caught. Whoever the batter was, I cannot remember, walked off the base. We expected the man who had scored to go back out to second. They really could not call him out since the second base umpire had emphatically called the ball not caught. That would not be fair. All this time Garrido was still arguing. We really could not see what it was about. He did a lot of ejaculating and waving his arms. He marched back towards the dugout, then decided to talk to the home plate umpire. But then it dawned on the crowd. The sixth run was put on the scoreboard. The ball was given to the pitcher and the next batter approached. The umpires has decided to say the runner had scored! Wow. It still seemed like a compromise. The guys behind me were sure the runner had not tagged up. He may have been close to the bag, but he did not tag up.

They showed a replay which I saw the end of. It looked like the outfielder was picking up the ball. So I think maybe he did bobble it around and dropped it.

After the ball was put in play the pitcher toed the rubber then threw back to second to appeal whether the runner had tagged up. After a few seconds of the umpires looking at each other, the third ball umpire called safe. So it was so. Finally. The batter got credit for a sacrifice fly (right?). The runner scored from second on the wild catch in far right field. The Texas players had not really tried to catch him at home. They figured they had him at second for not tagging up.

I'm sure the Texas chat site lit up after that play. But it seems to me the alternative was to call the batter safe and the runner still would have scored.