14 runs in seventh inning leads Kernels to victory

Happy 59th, Blade.

“This is the best birthday present I've ever had,” Jack Roeder beamed Sunday after the Cedar Rapids Kernels delivered him an 18-11 win over Lake County on Sunday afternoon at Veterans Memorial Stadium.

What a gift for the retiring Kernels general manager, whose nickname back in the day in his hometown of Clinton was Blade. It's because he was - and still is - as thin as a blade of grass.

Cedar Rapids rallied from a nine-run deficit twice, putting together a one-for-the-ages seventh inning of 14 runs, coming right after Roeder's birthday was announced to the crowd. They say one of baseball's best qualities is the ability to see something on a particular day that you've never seen before.

May we present Exhibit A.

“This is a game a lot of us are going to remember for a long time,” said outfielder Kevin Bass.

“That was unbelievable,” said Manager Bill Mosiello.

A whopping 20 men came to the plate in a half-inning that lasted 40 minutes. Jon Karcich led it all off with a single, slicing an opposite-field home run down the right-field line in his second at-bat to put the Kernels up, 12-11.

He actually batted a third time, walking. Jose Jimenez also got three ABs in, making two of the three outs.

It took a diving stop of a hard grounder to shortstop off his bat with the bases loaded to finally end the carnage.

“That reminded me of the last game of the first half where we put up 10 runs in the first inning,” Bass said. “Everybody had a hit but somebody. Yeah, me … Hats off to Jimenez. He made two outs, but he managed to do it after he got a hit his first time up in the inning. They say hitting is contagious.”

“A lot of good at-bats,” said Karcich. “We were squaring up the ball, finding holes, hitting gappers, infield hits, errors. We took advantage of everything. Walks, hit by pitches, all that stuff. We just kept hitting.”

And hitting. And hitting.

Cedar Rapids had 11 hits in the inning: a homer, two triples, two doubles and six singles. There also were two walks, a hit batter and an error.

“We get something going, we can get three, four, five runs at a time,” Mosiello said. “But nothing like that.”

There's nothing in the Kernels' media guide indicating whether the 14 runs are a club record, though you'd have to think they are. This also might be the biggest deficit overcome, reminding Roeder and others of that 1997 playoff game against Burlington at the old Memorial Stadium in which the Kernels scored nine ninth-inning runs to win, 14-12.

“I've never seen a guy come to the plate three times in an inning. Ever,” Mosiello said. “And this was two guys that did it. We actually had a guy in position to have three hits. Karcich has two hits and a walk. It was unchartered water there.”

Official scorer Al Gruwell brought Mosiello a boxscore after the game, pointing out the Kernels nearly hit .500 in the game. They had 21 hits in 43 official at-bats.

“Wow,” Mosiello replied.

Yeah, wow.