Tampa General Hospital Organ Transplant Team Wins Late-inning Slugfest

The Kids and Kubs' first exhibition game of the season brought a talented team of medical practitioners to North Shore Park on November 19.

Resuming a ten-year tradition, the Transplant Team continued an event initiated by Kids and Kubs' player Cleo Stinyard. He challenged the Tampa General medical team to a softball game after living through a kidney transplant 10 years ago. Florida General is Florida's busiest transplant center, and Florida is performing an estimated 20,000 transplants over the past years.

Like Cleo in his recovery, the two teams on the field battled tenaciously throughout the nine-inning contest. Both teams found scoring runs difficult, as each team had five innings in which they did not score. When recording runs, they came in clusters. Kids and Kubs scored once in their half of the second inning; however, the Tampa General team quickly matched that single digit in their third inning,

Heavy hitting came to the forefront in the fourth inning, with a combined seven runs crossing the plate. The medical team plated three runs in their half of the inning, gaining a 4-1 lead. Kids and Kubs answered the call with four runs to regain the lead 5-4.

Innings 5,6,7 produced only "goose eggs" on the chalked scoreboard for both squads. The visiting hospitalist pinned a five-run limit, including bases loaded home run by pitcher Nate Rivera, on the Kids and Kubs to up their margin to 9-5. Again the Kids and Kubs answered, this time with four runs to knot the score at 9-9 after eight frames.

In the ninth, Brooks, Osborn, TGH shortstop, plated a runner from first base with an inside-the-park home run to move the score 11-9 with the Kids and Kubs holding last bat advantage, managing only one run, resulting in the visitors holding on for an 11-10 victory.

Team 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Runs

TGH 0 01 3 0 0 0 5 2 -11

K&K 0 01 4 0 0 0 4 1 -10