Season Ends With CTL All-Star Game Win (CTL 6 – GHTBL 1 )

Huge thanks to the GHTBL for continuing our All-Star tradition, and hosting this year at the beautiful Palmer Field in Middletown. Its a tradtion 6 seasons in now.
Finally in 2021, after 4 close heartbreaking losses, and one extra inning tie, we finally got the win… CTL 6 – GHTBL 1.
Since the first interleague ASG was held in 2015 (in which the GHTBL won handily), every all star game since was a great game
In 2016 GHTBL won a masterful pitchers duel 1-0.
In 2017 GHTBL broke a 1-1 tie in the 9th to win 4-1.
in 2018 the back and forth game at New Britain Stadium ended in a 7-7 tie after 10 innings.
in 2019, after a 1-1 tie after nine innings, the GHTBL won 4-1 in the 10th.
in 2020, the GHTBL Board voted against having the All-Star game and the game was cancelled. Since the CTL still had Muzzy Field reserved, the Knights hosted the GHTBL Ulbrich Steel in an interleague exhibition, which the Knights won 6-1. Following the exhibition, the CTL held a for fun intraleague All-Star game.

That brings us to this year. The game was managed this year by Scott Dickens (Knights founder/CTL Board), and coached by Chris Barsa (Rockies Coach/CTL Board) and helped by Nico Spuches (Dodgers Coach & Co-Founder). With the exception of Nico, who was held out as an emergency pitcher/player in case of injury, everyone played significant time, and all pitchers attending threw at least one inning. The game was to be played American League (MLB) style rules… so with a DH, but not the rules we usually play with. Regardless, it was important to get all the guys attending time played, and we essentially did 2 lines of players for the fielders, switching around the midpoint of the game. The Pitching plan for the day was bounce back and forth with pitching styles, and use ALL pitchers. First we would use potential CY for the CTL in 2021, Brian Johnson (Brewers) to start for the first 2 (possibly 3 innings), then throw on the breaks with Howard Rebhun (Knights) and his deceptive pitching style (and sometimes ambidextrous pitching), then to the strength of Matt Allicki (Angels), then back to a pitcher great at keeping batters off balance with Phil Ledwith (Angels), then to the long lanky power delivery of Ryan Mostoller (Orioles), and finally to close out the final 2 innings with veteran Indians/Rockies dominant pitcher, Anthony Allicki. Fortunately we were able to stick with initial plan, and it worked as intended.

The CTL team started the action early as Luke Johnson started the game with a lead off double in the top of the first. After a Matt Spang strikeout, Johnson was then driven in on an RBI single by Kez Douglas. After a Will Ramos single, Kez was driven home on a Georgie Santiago sac fly, and the inning ended on a Mark Creamer ground out to the pitcher. In the second inning Kyle Lentini led off with a single. After two 4-3 ground outs by Ryan Cronin and John McNellis, and a Luke Johnson walk, Lentini scored on a Matt Spang ball fielded and thrown for an error in the infield. Then for the second straight inning Kez Douglas drove in another run with a single, and Spang ended the inning being thrown out at the plate (although we thought he might have gotten under the tag). Brian Johnson continued his twilight dominance in the All-Star game, giving up only 1 unearned run on an infield error in the first. Over his 3 innings Johnson allowed 3 walks, 1 hit, 1 batter on by error, but 6 strikeouts. Howard Rebhun came in the 4th and did what he does best, keeping the batters off balance, and swinging over his breaking pitches. Howard struck out the first 2 batters and getting the third batter he faced to ground out to himself and he made the throw to first for the putout. Matt Allicki continued our strong pitching in the 5th, striking out the first batter he faced, and getting a ground out to short and a pop fly to third. Our stopped after the second, until the 6th, when Kyle Lentini hit a leadoff HR to bring the score to 5-1. In the GHTBL 6th, Phil Ledwith came in to pitch, and had a strong inning. Phil induced a leadoff popup to second, a ground out to second, struck out the 3rd batter but on a passed ball the batter made it to first. Phil then struck out his 4th batter of the inning to end the 6th. In the top of the 7th Noah Plantamuro walked but got out on the Shane Fusco Fielders choice, before the next two batters struck out. In the bottom of the 7th, Ryan Mostoller came down after warming up and mentioned he didn’t have much today… and we said give it your best shot, we’ll have Anthony Allicki ready if in trouble. Ryan got the first 2 batters out via a fly out to center and a strikeout, but then he walked the next 2 batters, each in long at bats. Fortunately Ryan induced the inning ending popout to 3rd to end the 7th. After 3 up and down in our top of the 8th, Anthony Allicki came out in the bottom of the inning. Allicki struck out the first batter, gave up a long double, struck out the 3rd batter, and then got a popup to second base to end the 8th. In the top of the ninth, Rob Correia led off with a walk and then was driven in on a Carter Marshall RBI double. The next 3 batters came up with infield groundouts to end the top of the ninth. In the bottom of the ninth, Anthony Allicki went back to work, striking out the first batter, getting a flyout to right field, giving up a walk, and getting a grounder up the middle fielded by Noah Plantamuro to touch second and end the game. It was a true team effort in the win. CTL had won, 6-1. All the planned pitchers threw great and contributed. All the players in the field made great plays and showed why they were selected.

Photos of the game, can be seen here:
2021 CTL vs GHTBL Interleague All-Star Game Photos

Line Score:
CTL – 2 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 | 6 9 2
GHTBL – 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 | 1 2 1

Box Score:

Batting:

CTL All-Stars      ab r  h   rbi  bb so   
L. Johnson 2b      2  2  1   0    1  1   
  C. Marshall 2b   2  0  1   1    0  0   
M. Spang SS        3  0  0   0    0  1   
  N. Plantamuro SS 1  0  0   0    1  0   
K. Douglas RF      3  1  2   2    0  0   
  S. Fusco RF      2  0  0   0    0  0   
W. Ramos DH        2  0  2   0    1  0   
  R. St.Denis DH   2  0  0   0    0  1   
G. Santiago LF     1  0  0   1    1  0  
  D. Espinal LF    1  0  0   0    0  1   
M. Creamer 1B      3  0  0   0    0  1  
  N. Piscopo 1B    1  0  0   0    0  0
K. Lentini CF      3  2  2   1    0  0
  E. Sokolik CF    1  0  0   0    0  0 
R. Cronin C        2  0  1   0    0  0 
  J. Couture C     2  0  0   0    0  2
J. McNelis 3B      2  0  0   0    0  0
  R. Correia 3B    1  1  0   0    1  0

Totals             35 6  9   5    5  7

BATTING - CTL All-Stars 
2B: L.Johnson (1, 1st), C.Marshall (1, 9th)
3B: none
HR: K.Lentini (1, 6th)
SF: G.Santiago (1, 1st).
GDP: none
Team LOB: 7.

BASERUNNING - Minnesota 
SB: W.Ramos (1, 2nd base, 3rd inning)

Pitchers
CTL All-Stars      IP   H  R  ER  BB  SO HR BFP
B. Johnson (W)     3.0  1  1   0   3   6  0  14
H. Rebhun          1.0  0  0   0   0   2  0   3
M. Allicki         1.0  0  0   0   0   1  0   3
P. Ledwith         1.0  0  0   0   0   2  0   4
R. Mostoller       1.0  0  0   0   2   1  0   5
A. Allicki         1.0  1  0   0   1   3  0   8

TOTALS              9   2  1   0   6   15 0  37