A Game One For The Ages

In what will surely go down as one of the best postseason games in Sharkey's World history, the upstart Norfolk Nomads got every bit of magic they needed against divisional rival Pawtucket.

Midseason acquisition Bernard Jamison pitched a better than good game, going 7 innings and striking out 7 while allowing only 5 hits & 3 runs.

Lockerroom leader Corey Franco hit a 2-run, inside-the-park home run in the top of the 4th to give his team a 2-1 lead over Cy Young candidate Chris Ramirez.

Trailing by 1 in the bottom of the 8th, young star Wes Robertson belted a solo home run off Joe Smith, the highest paid setupman in the league.

And in between the 8th & 13th innings, Norfolk's shaky bullpen allowed 3 hits, 2 walks & no runs in 6 innings, while striking out 7.

All in all, the Nomads did everything they needed to do to beat Pawtucket. And they had the Polythene on the ropes, in danger of falling behind 0-1 with playoff disaster Stan Jenner set to take the mound in game 2.

The only thing Norfolk couldn't account for was Pawtucket's depth. In a game that saw the Polythene collect only 10 hits over 14 innings, 5 were by bench players, including the game winning double in the bottom of the 14th, on a pinch hit by Parker MacPherson. The previous batter, defensive replacement Otis Cash, collected his second hit of the game with a double of his own.

And the epic was complete.

In a game that had it all, and could have easily gone either way, the Norfolk Nomads set the tone for an entire series, by controlling almost 14 innings of baseball, and failing to win.