Mound Ball Winner

Yesterday I was the lucky recipient of a Reds ticket for the Business Man's Special from J.Y. (and probably influenced by B.E.) and the folks at the Freestore/Foodbank.  The donated suite was a great place to watch the game with 95 degree sunshine.

Several years ago in the same suite J.Y. introduced me to the game of Mound Ball.  Each half inning a dollar is placed into the cup (by all participants) and the cup is rotated each half inning to one of the participants.  If the final out ball is thrown upon the dirt of the pitchers mound -the holder of the cup for that half inning wins the proceeds.  Otherwise a new contribution (ante up) is placed in the cup and passed to a next participant in line.

What fun - the technicalities are endless; the arguments are enjoyable  and it can make a boring game (or a game where one team has already blown it out) interesting.

What we discovered this year is that nearly all the balls were held by the player making the last  out and given to a lucky fan near the player as he walked to the dug out.   And since technically that  was the third out ball, we ignored the new ball thrown by the umpire to the mound awaiting the opposing pitcher's warmup. Bad choice of rules since by the ninth inning there was no winner.

But we drew straws for the final win.  Conditions were that the winner doubles the proceeds and donates it to the Freestore/Foodbank. 

I won this year!  So did Freestore/Foodbank with my $200 contribution.   And what about the Reds?  They lost 4 to 1 to the Chicago Cubs.    Thanks to J.Y. for the enjoyable afternoon.