Community Players Shines At Cornbelters Game As Some Guy Hits Walk-Off HR

Community Players Theatre poses after its historic performance. (courtesy Cottone Photography)

NORMAL — Community Players Theatre representatives moved a frenzied crowd to tears with a joyfully stirring rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner prior to Saturday night's Normal Cornbelters baseball game at the Corn Crib.

"We are blessed to have them in this community," said a Cornbelters official between blows into a Kleenex and prolonged stretches of sobbing. "Words can't express how lucky we... we..." he continued before falling to his knees and burrowing his face in his hands while trembling.

Wendy Baugh facilitated the tailgating/singing event on an idyllic summer's eve with the help of Brett Cottone, loading the participants with fried chicken and sugar for two hours prior to the pre-game ceremonies. Jon Lieder provided the pitch note, at which point 20 actors and family rocked the rafters with their unprecedented rendition.

CPT also led the fans in raucous cheers when the carrot won a between-innings race of random vegetables.

There was also baseball, but the melodious stars were mostly long-gone by the time anything meaningful happened.

The little shortstop with the .234 batting average hit an opposite field home run to right field with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning for a walk-off 4-3 victory over whoever the other team was.

"That's one of the better feelings you can have, walk 'em off after we were trailing a lot of the game," the guy with some kind of Irish name said of his third home run of the season.

A right-handed hitter facing a pitcher with a weird right-handed side-army style, lofted a towering blast that cleared the fence by a few feet to bring a previously bored dugout of celebrating teammates onto the field.

"That (opposite field) is kind of my approach with a lot of pitchers, especially side-armers," he said, droning on as this reporter tried to get home after an overly long night of soul-sucking minor-league baseball as part of a dead-end job. "I was just trying to let the ball get as deep as possible. You have the mentality to go the other way or you're going to be out in front of everything."

The blast upped Normal's record to 32-34.

"At any point in time, that kid with the hair can hurt you," said someone old who must have been a coach. "He's a hard out every single time. He gets some big hits for us."

The Belters tied it in the eighth with a rally against the visiting team's second pitcher, who had a beard that was slightly less fuzzy than the first one's.

The third baseman, I think, singled and took second on a wild pitch before the shortstop's liner to left field barely eluded the dive of the Hawaiian with the silly long name like Kahoohalahala for a double as a run scored. Then the Belters' center fielder who dropped an easy fly ball earlier in the game singled up the middle to chase home the tying run.

Normal rapped into double plays in each of the first four innings and had a runner thrown out at the plate to considerably boost the cause of the visiting pitcher, who was walking like just about everyone, seriously.

Sir Walksalot gave up five hits, walked seven and hit two batters over five innings. But the only run scored against him came on a single in the fourth.

"We left some guys on, but we keep putting out quality at bats," Old Man Coach said."It was just a matter of time before we started finding some holes. Fortunately Community Players was here tonight," he said, suddenly getting watery-eyed like senior citizens tend to do, "so that something exciting happened before 10 o'clock."