June 7 2014 rockets split with taylor university twin city bankers 3-2 8 innings and 3-1 loss

Good morning baseball fans, it’s a beautiful day in Portland.  Retrospect:  back in the day, the 60 s and 70s it was always a fierce rivalry ,  the Portland rockets those days of takats medler chittum gray koegel engle vs daily Atkinson mccollum of the gas city bankers,.

Now the twin city bankers are the taylor u. summer team, managed by former rocket taylor luna and that legendary rick Atkinson of gas city fame,

May I recommend the book “my mothers dream” the gas city baseball semi pro story written by bill lightle.

The rockets played at taylor university sat and split winning the opener 3-2 in 8 innings, then losing the night cap 3-1. 

What a pleasure to play on an all turf infield, even the home plate was just painted on the turf.

Big dan bollenbacher went 6 innings striking out 13 hitters and the rockets went into extras with the game tied 2-2.  dan worked thru 97 pitches to his old friend and personal catcher Jordan steiner and they starfire connection  makes a great storyline on this day in upland in.  in fact with Jordan steiner and colin affolder contributing hits and a sac fly, the boys from berne accounted for 2 of the rocket runs.

Note steiner was a rocket about 5 or 6 years ago. A 3 sport star at south adams he is now older of course but still an athelete.

Now with the game going into the last innings, pitcher mitch waters came in assuming the closer role,  mitch was lights out---this after last tues breaking his index finger on his glove hand,,,,mitch gets the win and heres how!!!!

An infield single by a speedy justin miller, a stolen base then mitch pinch hits and drives a run scoring single thru the middle of the infield to put the rocks up 3-2.. as axel bowers said afterward,  just like uptown at the local little league,  the guy gets the clutch hit, then strikes em out on the mound. 

Great win,,,,,

Rockets then squander the chance to sweep, geoff bowers 2 hits, drives in miller to put Portland up 1-0,,tyler Reynolds of Muncie is dealing –its his birthday—family and friends on hand, and I messed it up,,,I didn’t get a picture of them all on his 23^rd birthday---one tough inning –we had 3 misplays and they get 3 runs, 3 manage 3 hits the whole game rockets lose 3-1,  tyler pitched well enough to win, then travis gray gassed em with his heater,  he was sizzling

Rockets record 3-4

June is heating up and so is the action,,,,,tues the rockets will be home at 7 pm vs. the ft. wayne panthers,  thurs in ft. wayne , sat in Portland sun in ft. wayne

Mitch waters the starter tues. nite

Congratulations to a great Portland family,  happy wedding day heath Williams and pazia speed, of course the Williams family and baseball are decades of success and just wanna say,,,,love ya in Portland---a lot of beautiful people on board sat. nite

Rockets split at taylor, We wont win em all but we will win the next one

See ya tues nite first nite game of the year. 

Randy miller pg 14