Yours truly traveled to Chicago's Sears Stadium to watch game 1 of the SJL Championship Series and was treated to a great pitching duel, with the home club Chicago Fire and their starter Bill Johnson eking out a win over the Jacksonville Wolf Pack and their great young starter Casey Van Fossen. The only run scored came in the bottom of the 8th when Chicago third baseman Chris Martin, who hit just 8 regular season homers, led off the inning by hitting the second pitch he saw on a line into the right field seats.
Chicago closer Tyler Criss got himself into a bit of jam in the 9th but his defense helped him out by turning a double play after he allowed the lead-off single, and then after he walked a batter, he got power-hitting Paul Lewis to hit a fly out to right- a hit that looked a bit scary off the bat but fell well short of the wall, into the glove of George Brown, for the final out of the game.
Meanwhile, over in the MGL, a very different kind of game was playing out. Not surprisingly, particularly given that this one was transpiring in Phoenix, it was a slugfest, which the visiting Falcons won 10-8. Former Brewer minor leaguer Victor Oseguera, who has become a mainstay of the Phoenix offense over the past four seasons, hit a pair of home runs and three other Phoenix players also homered in the game, including rookie sensation Hyeong-uk Chun. But Detroit hit 4 homers of their own and scored 4 runs in the 7th inning which put them on top and then added 1 more in the 8th for good measure, holding on to win on the road in their first post-season game in franchise history.
EDIT: Clearly I was a bit tired when I posted this earlier and referred to Phoenix as the victor in this game. That has been changed above now.