I just did a story for the MBA webpage. It was about Terry Helget, from Sleepy Eye. He will play his 25th season this year for the Essig Bluejays. While we were talking, he mentioned playing Monicello in the 2003 State Tournament in Dundas.
It was the first State Tournament that Essig had played in and they were playing the last game of the night in Dundas. If you have ever run a tournament, you know how much work it is and the State Tournament is even more work. We would usually finish the last game of the night around 10:30 or 11:00 P.M. Then it would be cleanup and getting ready for the next day until midnight or so and home to bed. We would be back at the park the next day by 7:30 and start it all over again.
Anyway, Terry talked about that game and he mentioned how they won it. Essig was behind 1-0 and they had runners on second and third. He was the runner on second. Essig executed a suicide squeeze play and the first runner scored easily. Terry rounded third and saw that he had a chance to score so he motored in and was safe. Two runs on a bunt. Not bad! It was Essig 2, Monticello 1. That's how the game ended. Terry was also the pitcher for Essig. He told me he liked to "work fast and throw strikes." That he did as the game only took an hour and a half.
The game ended about 9:30 P.M. and the work was all done by 10:15. If you have ever seen Cool Hand Luke (this is a movie I would recommend) you would know how we felt. In Cool Hand Luke, Luke (Paul Newman) was on a chain gang and his group was working on a local road for the day. Big dump trucks were bringing in loads of sand and the prisoners were throwing the sand on the tar which had just been applied on the road. The job usually took all day. Well Luke got all worked up and started throwing the sand like crazy. All the inmates picked up on his lead and did it too. Pretty soon the road was done and there was nothing else to do. Everyone just looked around and saw there was nothing left to do so they just sat on their shovels and grinned at each other. That is just how I felt when we were done so early that night thanks to Terry and his Essig buddies.
