The Everett AquaSox have made a name for themselves so far this season with their explosive bats.
However, the AquaSox made a different kind of noise Sunday night on the waterfront, serving as title sponsors of “The Everett AquaSox Present Thunder on the Bay,” Everett’s Fourth of July fireworks show.
“Fireworks are a lot of fun, especially on the Fourth of July, and this is going to be a terrific show,” AquaSox owner Mark Sperandio said before Sunday’s game against Vancouver.
Sperandio called it “the largest show Everett has ever seen.” He said more than $40,000 were spent on the show, versus $8,000 for last year’s show, and estimated that there were between 11,000 and 12,000 shots. The biggest blast came from a 23-inch mortar that shot 2,500 feet into the air.
North Sound 1380 AM simulcast music with the event.
“This is the first year we’ve done this on the water,” Sperandio said. “We’ve done fireworks here one other time. Last year we did them here (at Everett Memorial Stadium) on the Fourth and we said, ‘Instead of 4,000 people being able to see fireworks, how about 44,000 people being able to see fireworks or something like that.’ So we thought it would be a great giveback to the Everett community and something we’re going to sponsor from here on out.”
New solutions: So far this season Everett has been all about offense. But in the recent three-game series at Vancouver, the AquaSox showed that when the offense bogs down, they can find other ways to win.
Everett went into the series at Vancouver averaging 7.4 runs and 11.7 hits per game. However, Vancouver’s home park, Nat Bailey Stadium, is a notorious pitcher’s haven, with large dimensions and dead air that makes it difficult for the ball to carry. As a result, the AquaSox scored just 11 runs and had just 20 hits in three games. For the first time this season, the team batting average fell below .300 – it was .299 going into Sunday’s game.
Still, Everett won two of the three games thanks to alternative means. Starting pitchers Ruben Flores, Shawn Nottingham and Aaron Jensen all turned in strong performances, Everett runners stole 13 bases while being caught just twice, and the AquaSox committed just two errors.
“We played well,” AquaSox manager Pedro Grifol said. “I didn’t think we swung the bats all that well. It’s a real big ballpark and we hit too many fly balls. We didn’t make adjustments at the plate.
“But our club surrounds itself with base running, hitting, good pitching and defense,” Grifol added. “We’re trying to bring two or three of those to the park every day. In Vancouver it was pitching, defense and base running.”
Tenured: Sunday was AquaSox trainer Spyder Webb’s 51st birthday. This season also happens to be Webb’s 26th in the Northwest League, meaning he has spent more than half his life in the NWL, split between the Bellingham Mariners and the AquaSox.
“More than half my life has been spent here in the Northwest, so this is really my second home and I couldn’t be in a greater place,” Webb said. “Being a part of our team and the Bellingham Mariners and the Everett AquaSox has just been a tremendous experience for me. I’m one of the very lucky people in the world who get up every morning and get to go to a job that they really want to do.”
Nick Patterson, Herald writer
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