By Lance Jenkinson
It was a premature and shocking end to the Newport Rams dead rubber final round clash with Port Melbourne Mariners in the Baseball Victoria summer league division 2 at J.L. Murphy Reserve on Saturday.
The game had to be called off after four innings after the umpire collapsed due to dehydration.
An ambulance was called and the umpire was admitted to hospital.
“We had a paramedic on our side and the ambulance came pretty quickly,” Rams player-coach David Asp said. “It wasn’t as serious as it could’ve been, which is good.
“The game didn’t mean much for both teams, so we decided to call it early.”
It was a final dress rehearsal for Newport before the finals.
The Rams have been in finals preparation mode for about two weeks now, approaching each game with caution and using them to blood some of the keen youngsters.
“We’ve kind of known we were going to play finals for a while,” Asp said.
“To finally have it come around is good.
“We’ve just used the past few games to get people right and rest a few bodies.”
Even though it was restricted to a four-inning game, it was still a meaningful outing for some of the Rams.
Asp got three valuable innings of pitching under his belt before the finals, while youngster James Walshe threw the fourth.
“We were hoping to give some more of the younger ones some innings, but that’s unfortunately the only thing we missed out on,” Asp said.
The big development out of the day was a home run to Justin Gill.
It was Gill’s first homer of the season and it was more evidence of his improving form in recent weeks.
“It was hit to dead centre field and it was well hit,” Asp said.
“He’s been hot and cold this season, but the last four or five weeks he’s been really good with the bat.”
Newport will face Werribee Giants in an all-western suburbs best-of-three semi-final series starting on Thursday.
Riley Barr is scheduled to start on the mound for the Rams in the series opener.
Asp is expecting a fierce contest after the sides played three competitive games during the season.
“They won two out of the three games during the season, but we’re a better team than we were when we played them,” he said.
MORE BASEBALL NEWS
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