Coral Gables A's Stories: 2025 Florida Invitational, Pt. 1

Your Coral Gables A's took no prisoners on Day 1 of the Florida Invitational.

The Coral Gables A’s, America’s funniest men’s league baseball team, love themselves a good tourney. We generally try to do one or two national tournaments per year, and these weekends lead to a million stupid stories we will retell for years to come. It also gives the A’s who have moved out of South Florida a chance to come ball out with the boys again, just like old times. Tournaments are fun, and the most recent one we attended, the Florida Invitational, was no different.

The games took place across three days, with double-headers on Friday and Saturday to determine seeding, and the playoffs for the top four teams taking place Sunday (1 versus 4, 2 versus 3, the winner of each game plays for the championship). You’ll play six games in three days if you make it all the way; it’s a grind. We participated in this same tournament last year and lost the title game in heartbreaking fashion. This year, with a loaded squad of A’s legends new and old, we set out to redeem ourselves.

I’ll be writing three articles on the 2025 Florida Invitational, one for each day. Here’s how things played out on Friday in Games 1 and 2.

Angel

On the bump for us in Game 1 was Angel, a hard-throwing lefty who’s pitched in countless big games for us. We were playing a team from New York called the Brooklyn Dodgers. We’ve never played them in a tournament, so we didn’t know if this was a game where we’d want to use Angel or save him, in case we mollywopped them. Regardless, every game is a must-win. No use taking any chances.

Despite a double by Nick, our manager and usual three-hole hitter, in the top of the 1st, we went scoreless. Angel countered by striking out the side, throwing absolute BBs.

Joe (catcher and outfielder), Juany, (centerfielder), and G2 (utility guy and younger brother of a guy we call Gomez. Hence, G2) all walked to start the 2^nd inning. Alex (catcher) grounded into a fielder’s choice, which brought Joe in to score. 1-0. Their pitcher, who threw incredibly slow with loopy poopy off-speed pitches, did a good job spotting his pitches, limiting the damage to just the one run.

Angel struck out two more and gave up a weak grounder to G2 at second. I’m not sure if you’ve ever experienced getting dominated in sports by your uncle on Thanksgiving or Christmas or something, but this is what it looked like watching Angel face these guys. Ruthless.

1-0, good guys, after the 2^nd.

Opening It Up

Yuca, our elder statesman and culture-setter, reached base in the top of the 3^rd on a line drive to centerfield that the centerfielder couldn’t corral. Xavier, who goes by X and is our leadoff hitter and shortstop, followed him with a walk, after which I laced a ball through the right side, which brought a run in. 2-0.

Then the flood gates opened.

Nick scorched his second hit of the day, bringing in two more runs. Gomez, the older one (pictured above showing off the quads), hit a double to bring Nick home. Joe walked, then Juany reached on an error. G2 hit into a fielder’s choice, bringing in one more run. 6-0 now.

Angel might as well have been Steve Carlton on this overcast afternoon. He went 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 3^rd, punching out his sixth hitter.

Luis, who goes by Peewee and is our second oldest statesman and one of the most reliable bats we’ve ever had, led off the fourth with a ringing double down the right field line. Yuca followed him with a single. Despite living through the Great Depression, Peewee and Yuca can still swing it. Peewee is doing his best Uncle Sam impression below. I believe they were friends.

X lofted a fly ball that scored the runner from third. 7-0. I then walked. Nick followed me with his third hit of the day, another double, that brought Peewee around to score. Gomez tattooed a ball right to the left fielder, though it was deep enough for me to score from third. 8-0. Joe walked yet again, his third on the day, and Juany reached base on a dropped third strike. G2 then crushed a ball into the gap and motored all the way around to third, bringing in two more runs and making it 10-zip.

The A’s were cooking.

Mother Nature

Angel retired the side in order in the bottom of the 4^th. No walks, no hits, seven strikeouts. One ball left the infield, a lazy flyball to Joe in RF.

The top of the 5^th brought with it a short, but intense, storm. The game was called. Although it technically shouldn’t have been an official game yet, since we didn’t complete five innings, the commissioner used his better judgment and made the 10-0 game official. Chalk up a four-inning perfect game for Angel!

Game 2

After an hour or so of just sitting around, waiting for the rain to die down, Game 2 got underway. These are all-turf fields, so you really just need there to be no lightning in order to get a game in; nothing’s flooding.

We would be facing US Elite, a team we’ve played many times. They don’t have the top-end talent we have, but they can hit and have some good-enough arms.

On the mound for us would be Amed, a utility player who can give you quality innings on the bump. He would not be relied on for much, as our plan was to use him as an “opener,” i.e. a guy who starts the game but only goes one or two innings, before handing the ball to the real starter. The idea is to make their best hitters, typically 1-4 in their lineup, face a new pitcher between their first and second at bats. MLB teams like the Rays and Dodgers have done this from time to time.

Amed worked around a single and struck a guy out in a scoreless top of the 1^st.

On the mound for them was a tricky righty who threw cutters and sliders. He kinda had a funky, loose delivery and mixed those two pitches very well; they look the same out of his hand, but the slider has a big break and the cutter has a small one. With two strikes he’d try to surprise you with a straight four-seam fastball.

I worked a one-out walk and stole second. Gomez walked with two outs, then Joe hit a laser beam at the third baseman, who leapt up and snagged it to end the inning. 0-0 after one.

Willy

Willy came in to relieve Amed. Willy is a ground ball machine who throws sidearm and drives hitters insane with a mix of sinkers, changeups, and big, sweeping sliders. He worked around an error we made in the field to throw a scoreless top of the 2^nd.

Juany walked to lead off the bottom of the 2^nd and G2 followed with a single. Amed got hit by a pitch two batters later to load the bases, bringing Peewee to the plate with bases loaded. Ol’ Reliable did what he does best, come up with a big knock when you need him. Peewee hit another double, bringing in Juany and G2. Yuca then hit into a fielder’s choice, bringing Amed in to make it 3-0. The ageless wonders were carrying the freight for the A’s.

We weren’t done yet, though. X just missed a home run and settled for a double, pushing in our fourth run. I came up and hit a ball a million feet in the air just past the pitcher’s mound. Catching a fly ball in the twilight hours is something I can’t really describe to you if you haven’t done it. The ball disappears past a certain height. Gone. Poof. Unless you have the vision of a bald eagle, your best bet is to be prepared in the right-ish spot for the moment when it heads back down to Earth and is visible again.

They did not pick up the flight of my pop-up in time, and the ball bounced off the turf for, technically, a single.

Nick…did the same thing. He hit a ball wayyyy up in the air that they could not track down. No one touched it, and he scooted over to second for an RBI “double.” As if we were doing it on purpose, Gomez hit the third straight big league pop-up of the inning, and once again, it found its way back to the turf. Nick, who is known to have an iffy hamstring, scored on the play while high-stepping his way to the plate like Deion Sanders on a pick-six.

That’ll be a six-run inning for the A’s, thank you very much.

When In Doubt, Hit A Pop-Up

Willy escaped a bases loaded jam in the top of the 3^rd to keep them off the board. We went 1-2-3 in the bottom half. Still 6-0.

Amed reached on an error to lead off the 4^th. Peewee then hit a sharp single. X came up two batters later and again torched a ball into the gap that was initially called a home run, before the umpires converged and decided it bounced in front of the wall, not behind it. Tough to tell with a chain link fence. The ground-rule double brought Amed in. I then came up and…hit another pop-up that fell for a hit and an RBI. Better to be lucky than good. Another run scored on a wild pitch. 8-0.

Willy pulled off another Houdini, working around a hit and hit by pitch to throw a scoreless bottom of the 4^th, aided by a 6-4-3 double play. When you induce as many double plays as Willy does, no amount of danger is inescapable.

Finishing Up

We hit cruise control after that. I hit another RBI single later on; this one made it into the outfield at least. Yuca hit a “Yuca Special,” which is a flair over the second or first baseman, and came around to score later. Nick also chipped in an RBI single, while another run scored on an error.

As for Willy, no inning didn’t feature base runners, yet only one run scored across his next three innings (and it was unearned). He helped produced three double plays in six stellar innings of work, while scattering five hits. After seven, the knockout rule came into effect. 12-1. Final.

Day 1

Can’t ask for a cleaner start to our tournament than that. Two ass whoopings. We knew we’d end up facing much stiffer competition, and that we wouldn’t always benefit from pop-ups getting swallowed by the twilight. But in the end, Angel and Willy combining for 10 innings with zero earned runs, Alex being an iron man for both games behind the dish, and every hitter in the lineup helping put runs on the board, is exactly what you’re looking for.

We’re onto Day 2, with two more games to win to ensure our spot in the playoffs.

Subscribe now for updates on the latest and greatest banter from the Peanut Gallery!