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The Brown Rice got a taste of success Wednesday as the men's baseball team rode to a victory over Cornell on the bat of Zak DeOssie '07. DeOssie, a linebacker on the football team and professional prospect, is not on the baseball team, and no one knows how or why he was there.
"He just walked onto the field and said to me, 'I got this one,'" said Ryan Murphy '08. "I tried to protest, but he just stiff-armed me, stepped into the batter's box, and on the first pitch, hit a homerun."
After giving Brown a 2-1 lead in the second inning with the homerun, DeOssie left the field.
"He just bailed," said pitcher Will Ellis '10. "We didn't really care, though; he gave us the lead."
The game continued with the two teams trading runs. However, Brown's pitching struggled in the seventh inning, and by the ninth inning, Cornell was leading Brown 7-5.
"It didn't look good for us," said Murphy. "There were two outs and no one on base. Luckily, though, we started to rally."
The next two Brown hitters got on base, bringing the winning run up to the plate. Shortstop Matt Nuzzo '09 was expecting to be that hitter, when DeOssie came out onto the field again.
"He grabbed the bat out of my hand and looked me in the eyes and said 'Matt, you are a great hitter, but I'm feeling good about this one,'" said Nuzzo. "I couldn't do anything but let him go."
DeOssie stepped up to the plate and on the first pitch hit the game-winning homerun over the right field fence.
"We tried to thank him for helping us out," said Ellis, "but when we looked for him, he was walking away with the umpire slung over his shoulder. He won the game for us, though, so he deserved the umpire."
