It was a game that the Santa Barbara Foresters would just as soon forget, but one that the Coastal Cubs will long remember. The Foresters were ambushed last Friday night in their final appearance of the summer on their home diamond at Pershing Park. They lost 5-2 to the Cubs, a team of community college ballplayers, supposedly inferior to the Division 1 talent on the Foresters.
As the game progressed with the home team committing three errors, five wild pitches, and four passed balls, the fans decked out in Foresters caps and shirts became increasingly anxious. A man shouted, “Let’s get serious!” Tim Lane, an 83-year-old fan who came out for every game this year, asked, “Should I go to the Mission and light a candle?”
The loudest vocal reactions came from the visitors’ dugout, where nobody was sitting down. They’d cheer every time one of their own fouled off a two-strike pitch, and they went wild when Broc Mortensen tripled to dead center in the eighth inning and scored their final run on a passed ball.