Five nights in August

Joel Norman​
Wenatchee AppleSox
Broadcaster/Communications Director

Jodi Colgan

“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart.” 

The beginning of Bart Giamatti’s “The Green Fields of the Mind” was all I could think of after the AppleSox came an out away from winning the West Coast League Championship last Friday. 

It was more than just the AppleSox snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. This summer represented the AppleSox’ first division championship since 2013. With two outs in the ninth, the return to glory had to seem so close. 

As the Portland Pickles rallied to tie and win the game, I began to realize how much heartache I’d witnessed in six seasons with the AppleSox. In 2019, with a dozen players making the trip north we’d come back from a 5-3 deficit by scoring four two-out runs in the top of the ninth… Only to surrender three runs and fail to get an out in the bottom of the inning. In 2022, a two-out RBI double to right field in the bottom of the eighth past our fastest player on the field broke a 2-2 tie and sent us home a win shy of winning the division. 

The 2024 postseason began with similar heartache. Victoria’s Kerim Orusevic broke a 2-2 tie with a two-out, two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to put Victoria up 1-0 in the Division Series and a win away from ending the AppleSox’ season. The game wasn’t even in Victoria; the HarbourCats were hosting at Serauxmen Stadium due to Royal Athletic Park being prepared to host a Canadian Football League game on August. 31. 

But this year was different. 

Quincy Vassar tossed a complete game in Game 2 the next day to keep the season alive before Cam Hoiland tossed 5.1 innings and hit a go-ahead home run to win the series decider. Evan Canfield fired seven shutout innings last Wednesday to shut out Bellingham and deliver a pennant-clinching moment so satisfying that no one at Paul Thomas Sr. Stadium on Aug. 14, 2024 will ever forget the roar of the 1,598 in attendance when Micah Bujacich struck out Conner Smith. 

Three returning starting pitchers took it personally. This season would end on their terms. 

Friday, Vassar was back on the mound for the ninth and the AppleSox led 5-4. Vassar, the AppleSox all-time leader in innings and strikeouts. Vassar, whose passion for the AppleSox was larger than the length of his red beard and flowing locks combined. Vassar, who had given his all with 118 pitches earlier in the week against Victoria and then 74 in 4.2 innings out of the bullpen five days later. 

This was the moment he’d dreamed of. He was exhausted, dropping his arm slot just to properly throw his off-speed pitches over the plate. Vassar did not throw any pitches over 80 miles per hour in his final three innings. He was fatigued, but it was clear he wasn’t coming out and that head coach Mitch Darlington would have had to peel the jersey off his back in order to bring him out of the game.

A strikeout opened the ninth before a line shot down the left field looked like a surefire double before Hoiland gobbled it up and held the runner to a single. This set up the chance for a season-ending double play and a dribbler to the right side looked like it had the chance but the only out was recorded at second. No matter. Two down in the ninth, tying run at first. Then a single to right moved him to scoring position. 

Suddenly both runners inexplicably took off on a double steal. Jonathan Fitz came out of the crouch behind home plate and fired to third… A moment too late. With a chance to potentially end its season on an out at third, Portland had instead allowed for doubt to creep into the mind of the Wenatchee faithful. 

An intentional walk followed before a 3-1 pitch was ruled too far inside for ball four to walk in the tying run. Vassar, palms extended and knelt in front of the mound, was in disagreement and disbelief. He and Wenatchee never recovered. One pitch later and a slow roller to short was bobbled and suddenly the 2024 summer was finished. 

As the Pickles and seemingly half of Portland stormed the field to celebrate the franchise’s well deserved first championship in an instant classic, there was Vassar bent down with his hands on knees next to the first-base line in disbelief and fighting back tears. 

I was crushed for our entire team but especially for Vassar and Darlington. Since the Darlington era began in 2022, there have been three constants: Darlington, Vassar and Evan Canfield. The two pitchers were the only two players who were part of all three of Darlington’s seasons. Canfield was not in Portland, he was shut down after seven shutout innings in the North Division Championship against Bellingham to get Wenatchee to this game. 

But here was Vassar. The man who grew up in Brewster and was the next Bear to achieve legendary status with the AppleSox joining the likes of Hawkins Gebbers and others before him. The southpaw who Darlington argued with seemingly during each mound visit because of their passion for the AppleSox. The teammate, who did everything asked of him, from starting on three days rest to throwing 192 pitches in the postseason. He deserved that moment of flipping his glove in the air and being mobbed by his teammates. 

Darlington has also chronicled his love of the AppleSox and stated from day one his desire to bring home a championship to the community that he loves. No one wears wins and losses more than he does. When he put his hands in the air and looked to the crowd in jubilation after defeating Bellingham, it was straight from the heart. No one feels more responsibility to put on a show for the hometown faithful each night at Paul Thomas Sr. Stadium than Mitch Darlington. 

In 2019, I wrote a book about the AppleSox’ history in time for the 20th season in franchise history. As I poured through old photographs and articles from the Wenatchee World, I wondered if I’d ever see that. I wanted to be part of a team that was a bookmarked chapter in the AppleSox history book.

As Darlington and I sat in the clubhouse after clinching the North Division Championship, we reveled in fulfilling a dream of delivering a pennant to AppleSox fans at Paul Thomas Sr. Stadium and how surreal the evening had been. Suddenly those old photos from the World came alive to me. Suddenly, I was seeing the fans and the players celebrating in the way that someone in my position 20 years from now would see them. 

From early June to mid-August, the AppleSox are all that matter to me. Ask my family and friends. “Sorry, I’ve got another game today. Can’t talk.” In the summer, people like Mitch Darlington, Quincy Vassar, Ryan Stahly, Creighton Wright, Allie Schank and others are my family and friends; the people I see at the ballpark each week. 

There are so many emotions that go into spending a summer with your baseball family. There are the good days after a walkoff win and the bad days when the heat hits a little too hot and the team is in a funk. The postseason triumphs over those five nights in August made up for any troubles of the summer but the finale to the tale left us all feeling shortchanged. 

Even if the AppleSox had won, summer would still pass. School would start again, rain would come and the sun would not warm the back of your neck forever. 

We just wanted this epic thriller, this romantic novel, this magnificent memoir, to have a happy ending. 

No one prepares you for the end of the season. There’s no warning for when the summer concludes. The final game of the summer may be certain, whether it is in the regular season or the championship game, but they don’t prepare you for what comes after that. 

This offseason, I’ll miss watching Quincy Vassar pitch every night like it is the West Coast League Championship Game. I’ll miss stepping into the clubhouse and chatting with Mitch Darlington before and after each game. I’ll miss the connections with players and fans over a two-and-a-half month season that make it seem like we’ve known each other our whole lives. I’ll miss the inside jokes with my scorekeeper, public address announcer and others in the press box during home games. I’ll even miss the 4 a.m. wakeup call after getting walked off the night before and having an eight-hour travel day ahead. I’ll miss the whole journey that a summer in Wenatchee with the AppleSox entails.