Sticking Points 17.2035: Rockville Back In Cartwright

[aaronweiner]

The Rockville Pikemen defeated the New Orleans Crawdads in five wild games, are going to take on a very familiar foe in the 2035 Cartwright Cup: the Brooklyn Robins, their division rival. Rockville scored 34 runs in the five game series against New Orleans to move on, a series which featured an instant classic Game 1 and required a huge effort by the Pikemen to move on, despite the fact that they only lost one, one-run game.

"That was just crazy wild," said starting pitcher Arthur Dempster, who got the win in the deciding Game 5 and almost got it in a crazy Game 1 (more on this later). "You look back at my first inning in the series and that you're playing New Orleans, who won like every championship when I was younger, and you realize that you're at home and that the fans are just sitting there stunned and all of a sudden, you forget you're a 103-win team and just dig in as if you're in Little League."

It was unknown whether the Pikemen would throw a three or four man rotation at the Crawdads, but Andre Georges got the ball and the win in Game 2 at home, throwing over eight innings of stellar baseball before tiring in the ninth.

"I was excited because, you know, you deal for a guy like Dan Cannon, he's going to be the guy, but when they told me I was pitching Games 2 and 6, that's just the sort of thing that motivates me to do my best," said Georges. "There was no question I was going to go out there and pitch my heart out."

The Pikemen will now move on to face the Robins in the Cartwright Cup, their second consecutive appearance in the JL Finals. Every member of the Pikemen except Cannon was on the team when they made it here last year, and the team is hoping to take that experience and use it this season.

"We were here last year and we finished a game from the Landis," said Dempster. "I think there were a lot of us last year who didn't appreciate the position we were in, and now that we're all a year older and a year wiser, we're ready to see if we can take the next step. I think this year we get the gravity of the situation, that you don't get a shot at this every year, that you have to earn this and it's hard to get here."

The Cartwright will start October 21 in Rockville. Tickets are sold out.

[recte44]

Man did I underestimate Georges.

[usnspecialist]

from a sheer entertainment standpoint it is going to be very hard to top the classic we had last year in the cartwright. Should be an interesting series though.