SULLIVAN COLUMN: Scott Towers helped me make history

Seeing Scott Towers recently inducted into the Tiverton High School Athletics Hall of Fame brought back a vivid, painful memory to me.

And nothing against Scott ... well, actually a little something against Scott. But mostly the painful memory was my doing. Scott was a supporting actor.

A quick Sullivan-Towers background. We were teammates in 1983 on the cellar-dwelling South End baseball team in the Bristol County League at Chew Field here in The River. Scott probably doesn't even remember that. Though far from the most talented team in the league, South End was even less than the sum of its parts. We had some real good players like Towers, Cool Carl Desrochers (Try to sneak a fast ball by him.), John Silvia, Jimmy Miranda, Rick Berube. And then there was me.

Anyway in my roughly 50 years of watching/playing baseball (whether on the job or recreationally) I recall only one instance where a run scored on a play where the infield fly rule was in effect. You know infield fly ... runners at first and second or bases full;, less than two outs; fly ball which should be routinely handled by an infielder; batter automatically out; runners advance at own risk.)

One summer evening at Chew Field (now The Rev. Paul F. McCarrick Field), yours truly was playing second base and Mr. Towers was playing first base for South End. We were facing, I believe Maplewood, and the batter's name was (another I think) Arthur Pires. Arthur took a mighty cut and launched what was by far the highest fly ball I had ever had to deal with in my life. The instant it left his bat I knew the ball was headed in my general direction. And I knew I was in big trouble.

As I started my stagger and tried to gauge the fly ball, which was a little to my left (toward Towers), a reasonable thought came into my mind. My pal Scott.

The 6-foot-4 Scott was a fine teammate, a player with vastly more talent and baseball experience than I. Just a few years earlier, he had been one of the very best high school players in Rhode Island.

Scott's cool under pressure, I thought. Not as cool as Carl Desrochers, but still pretty cool. He might just slide over and take charge, I continued to think. Never mind the "might" he'll probably do it. Good ol' Scott.

Hopefully, I briefly took my eyes off the ball to glance in Scott's direction, hoping to see him trotting over to call me off.

But where was my lowercase savior? Nowhere near me. Heck, not only was Scott not coming to my rescue; he had retreated to the first base. He was "covering" the bag on a bases-loaded pop-up.

At this point, all was lost. I staggered around some more before the ball fell a foot or two behind me, near the edge of the outfield. The runner on third base, who saw this comedy in spikes unfolding, scored easily — on the freakin' infield fly rule.

Humiliated and cursing myself, I slinked back to my position, only to notice that Scott had finally seen fit to make his way over. Too late to help, he did share an observation.

"Boy, that was a high one," he said.

Yes, Scott, it was.

If bored, email Greg Sullivan at gsullivan@heraldnews.com. In Twitter Village, he hangs @GregSullivanHN. Please do not hit any obscenely high fly balls in his direction.