Weather map illustrating the expanse of the heat wave. (Accuweather.com)

As the country dealt with a nation-wide heat wave, so did the teams at the Dalton CRA. Sunday afternoon was a hazy, hot and humid, making game playing difficult. But as luck would have it, the Vets drew an 8pm start time and was able to dodge a hazy, hot, and humid afternoon game in favor of a mild but buggy mid-summer evening match-up.

Game 9 featured the first ever match-up between former A’s teammates, as A-WOL and Rick Palma of the Vets squared off against Jason “The Punisher” Bennnet and his newly former team, Tahiti Takeout. While the roster of T.T. included other former A’s players, including John, Dale and Kim, they were not available at game time. In fact, they were all out on vacation, making Jason the sole representative on his team from the old A’s franchise.

At game time, both teams only had 9 players which to field. In fact, start time was delayed as Jason waited on for reinforcements to fill-in the 6 players out on vacation.

Jon N. and Joelle look on as Devin flies out to second. (Wolan)

Taking the mound for the Vets was Rick Palma. Palma got off to a great start in the first, pitching a 5-pitch inning that netted a ground out and two infield fly outs. In the bottom half of the inning, the Vet’s offense got to work as well, netting 8 runs off of 8 hits. Every starting player earned either a hit or a sac from the inning. After one inning, the Vets had an 8-0 advantage and looked as if they were going to cruse through this game.

But the Vet’s could not hold to the lead. Tahiti’s offense came to life and never looked back, hammer together 24 runs over the next 5 innings. As for T.T.’s defense, which was spotty at best in the first, became razor sharp limiting the Vets to just one run for the remainder of the game. They even netted a double play in the second and third innings to erase any scoring attempts by the Vets. Of course, one could argue that the 10 fielders who showed up in the third inning only helped T.T. situation.

In the end, only the first inning was worth reporting for the Vets as they fell to T.T., 24-9.

Andy Wolan is a reporter for MLSB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Softball or its clubs.