Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (April 20, 2005)
ports Print LACK AM AS April 20, 2005 *9 Cougars split two, remain in third Michael McCormack Sports Editor April showers hit the Cougar base ball players right out of their park last week, by postponing two of die four Clackamas home games. Saturday’s doubleheader against Lane CC was called because of the torrential downpour the night before. Thursday, the team was able to make up the two cancelled games versus Southwestern Oregon CC. In the first game of the double header Clackamas got on the board first with an RBI single by Zach Reinhardt. Sophomore Travis Galbraith started on the mound for the Cougars and looked strong through the first three innings before getting into trouble in the fourth. “I pitched well, but I didn’t clutch up when I needed too,” Galbraith said. “SWOCC was talking trash; it got me pissed off so I tried to do it myself.” In the fourth, Galbraith let the first three batters on, by way of a walk, hit batsman and a single. The fourth batter knocked in the visitor’s first run on a fielder’s choice. SWOCC would score again in the inning on another fielder’s choice. In the bottom half of the inning with one out, Mike Veselik hit a dou ble to left-center followed by a single from Robert Badilla. Clackamas wasn’t able to nod up the game at two, leaving Veselik and Badilla stranded at first and third. ‘We need to start scoring. We’re leaving too many guys on base and not getting the hits we need,” center fielder Josh Breslaw said hi the bottom of the sixth the Cougars let another golden opportuni ty slip away. Catcher Mike McNally doubled down the leftfield line and Veselik followed that up with a walk. A sacrifice bunt moved the runners up one base, and left the Cougar men at second and third with one out, but the following two batters popped out leaving the score at 2-1. Galbraith got back in a groove after the fourth, striking out nine for the game, in 7-1/3 innings pitched Jason Hart relieved him with one out in the eighth, and let up one hit and one run, which was charged to Galbraith. Clackamas wasn’t able to score in the bottom half of the eighth or the ninth and lost the game 3-1. Reinhart went one for two with two walks and the only Cougar RBI, as Breslaw and Veselik both had extra-base hits for theCougs. “The track we’re .on is going in the right direction, we just freed to execute better on offense,” Breslaw said In game two, the Cougars found those lost bats in the early going, jumping on top of SWOCC 3-0 in the first. The next inning Lucas Pfaller kept the run parade going with a three-run bomb. Pfaller went two for four on the day and drove in four runs. With the score being 6-0, starting pitcher Brian Goff had some real estate to work with, and as time would tell he was going to need every run the offense could get Goff gave up four earned runs in the fourth, and was later relieved by Joe Cole. “I’m not feeling it; I need to get into a groove. I’ll find it though,” Goff said After Goff left the game, Cole and Howard “Hap” Purden were able to hold off SWOCC a little. But by the end of the fifth inning the game was tied at six. Purden would pitch the rest of the way, and held the visiting team to only one more run while earning the win. The Clackamas offense “cluthed up” as well and scored twice more, giving them the 8-7 win. Back-up catcher Miles Johnson scored two runs in the victory. “We need to stay consistent, with the defense making the easy plays and the offense hitting the ball,” Purden said “This week is big for us, and we are goipg to need the freshman pitchers to step up; we’ve done this before.” The Cougars are scheduled to play six games this week beginning Tuesday when the team travelled to Mt Hood CC to play a double-dip. Cory Price Clackamas Print HOVE: Clackamas starting pitcher, Travis Galbraith, itched into the eighth innning on Thursday afternoon, ■plunked three SWOCC players, but struck out nine plosing effort. RIGHT: DJ Johnson waits for the k-off, as a SWOCC player dives back into first safely. teroid accusations make MLB look like ‘juicy’ soap opera Ichael McCormack oris Editor Whatever happened to the id old game of baseball, ere guys like Ted Williams, ckey Mantle and Willie ys played purely on natural [ity, without speculation? America’s game has been iished by accusations of roid use, and is making yers named Bonds, Giambi ¡McGwire look like the bad 'S in this fiasco of “juicing Former Oakland Athletics I St. Louis Cardinals slug- Mark McGwire was recent- ordered to testify in a House imittee testimonial about use of steroids in base- 1. McGwire, who retired in 01, refused to answer ques ts about his history of using roids, saying that he wasn’t re to talk about the past. Sammy Sosa and Rafael Imeiro were also in atten dee at the House meeting and th denied that they had ever ed the drug. Former Major aguer Jose Canseco pub- hed a book called “Juiced” February and said in the pk that he injected Palmeiro, well as Juan Gonzalez and In Rodriguez, when the four them were teammates with e Texas Rangers in the early b Two of the main targets r steroid use in baseball b Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi. Earlier this year both players were ordered to tes tify in front of a Grand Jury in California. Bonds denied that he never knowingly took steroids. Giambi on the other hand admitted that he used the drug earlier in his career and had attained the testos terone from Bonds’ trainer, Greg Anderson, who presided over the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative at which Bonds trained. Whether or not Bonds and others used steroids is still up in the air, but even if players have used them, should they be the ones to blame? MLB has been bashed in the past for not having a strict steroid policy in the league and not until this season has a firm strategy been applied. The new rule states that there will be random tests throughout the off-season, and for the first offense, a player will be suspended for 10 days. The second offense takes away 30 days, the third suspends the player for 60 days, and the fourth occurrence will sus pend the player for a year. All suspensions will be without pay. So what will happen if it comes about that Bonds used steroids; will his home run record be tarnished with an asterisk? What about the reputations of future Hall of Fame players like Palmeiro and Rodriguez? There is no proof of them using the drug, but speculation has made them look like they flawed and dis respected the game that has treated them so well. I am a baseball purist and love the game for what it is. The speculation that players have used steroids is making baseball fans focus on some thing other than the game. Let’s say Bonds did use ste roids. Did that help him hit .362 last season or that .370 average he put up in 2002? I doubt it. The point I am trying to make is that no matter how much juice went into Bonds, he was already a great ball player despite the unnatural help. People in general have many skeletons in their own closets, so how can we judge these players when nothing has been proved? Are we going to listen to Canseco, a person who has had numerous run-ins with the law over cocaine and assault charges? How do we know that he is telling the truth? He might have thrown those names out there to sell more books; who knows? Canseco isn’t the most credible person to be name-dropping in a scan dal this big. In the meantime, I encourage fans of all ages to put the ste roid controversy behind them, and start watching Bonds, Palmeiro and Rodriguez play a game that they have mastered so well with their own natural ability. Steroids didn’t make these guys the players they are today; it was their hard work and dedication that gave them a chance to entertain you. Internet Photo courtesy of FreeRepublic.com San Francisco Giants slugger, Barry Bonds (above), has been a main focal point in the investigation of steroid abuse in Major League Baseball. Bonds has repeatedly denied charges of using the testoterone drug, despite his increase of muscle mass in the past decade.
