Hey, the world's next great tag team is out there somewhere. Based on their performances yesterday in an Inter-Ac League baseball all-timer, pitchers Colin Kish and Slater McCue might be ready to stake their claim.

The heck with Tinkers to Evers to Chance. That famous baseball phrase now may be forced to yield to Kish to McCue to Kish to McCue to Kish (pause) to McCue to Kish to McCue.

You had to see it to believe it, folks. And those who did see it almost ran out of the necessary amount of daylight.

What a day! (And night.)

"That was crazy," Kish said.

"That was crazy," McCue echoed.

"Coach [John] Duffy is known for doing some, um, fishy things," catcher Joe Conaway said, smiling. "But it was all legal, so . . . Hey, it worked."

As the visiting Patriots (6-1, 22-3) nailed down a 4-2 win over Malvern (7-1, 33-2), preventing the latter from clinching a tie for the championship in a classic battle between two of the area's very best teams, Duffy, GA's first-year coach and a former situational lefty in the minor leagues, pushed the lefty-right matchup thing to the very limit.

With GA ahead, 4-2, Kish, a senior lefty, allowed a single to Chris Cowell to begin the home sixth. McCue, a sophomore righthander who to that point had served as the designated hitter, strolled to the mound and Kish slid over to first.

They then proceeded to exchange positions, batter by batter, for the rest of the game!

Plate ump Terry Spratt said the incessant hopscotching was legal. He allowed no warmup pitches, though, from Kish's second appearance onward. And he even encouraged the two to make snappy their switches, with help from bench players, of regular gloves and first baseman's mitts.

Kish ended the sixth by striking out Dennis Mitchell with runners on first and third. The seventh went 1-2-3 with McCue's two outs coming on whiffs.

"My heart was pumping!" McCue said. "That was so much fun! I'd love to do that again. Tomorrow would be great."

Even the back-and-forthing?

"I meant the game itself," he said, laughing. "Don't know if my arm could take that. Feels all right now, though."

Said Duffy: "The way their lineup was set up, with a lefty then a righty and so on, it worked out perfect. I thought we stood a better chance with Colin pitching to their lefties and Slater coming in with his slightly harder stuff to their righties. I checked with [Spratt] beforehand to make sure it was legal. I thought it was.''

The reason the game lasted until 7:50 was also quite the story.

I-A games are scheduled for 3:45, but some players on both teams were scheduled for advanced-placement tests and the starting time was pushed back to 5. One problem: GA's four kids, including two starters (Conaway and centerfielder Steve Boland), did not arrive until 5:31 and the contest did not start until 5:39.

"Taking the AP stat test, Steve was on one side of the library and I was on the other," Conaway said. "Every 5 minutes, we were looking across at each other and up at the clock. It was like, 'Can't this go faster?!'

"Three tennis kids were also taking APs. They had a match here. When we were all finished, [a baseball assistant] piled us all in a school van and drove us up here. My father [Mike] was in front of us, leading the way."

Any speed limits shattered?

"He's a slow driver" Joe noted. "He kept us in check."

GA jumped to a 2-0 lead in the first against junior lefty Tim Cooney, Malvern's prominent ace. Sean Coyle began the uprising with a double over the head of leftfielder Alex Olah. Kish (on a sac fly) and Pete Rosa (single) collected the RBI. Kish's two-run single occurred in the second.

Designated hitter Nick Busillo accounted for Malvern's runs with a two-run single in the fourth.

McCue had no idea what faced him when he walked to the mound.

"I wasn't supposed to be our first reliever today," he said. "That was going to be Tom Stolzer. But his arm was a little tender.

"Once I got out there, it was just, 'Get this batter . . . Get this batter.' I didn't pay much attention to [the craziness]. Going back and forth, Colin and I just exchanged words of encouragement. I thought I had a good chance of doing well. I've been doing OK as a pitcher."

Said Conaway: "That was very cool. Especially to see Slater do his thing and come through like that. He's a young guy and hasn't had much big-game experience."

As the game ended, Conaway rushed the mound to congratulate McCue and, soon, the Patriots were in full-glee mode.

Next came dinner, right then and there in the bench area, thanks to a team mom.

"The hoagies are in the one cooler!" she yelled. "Italian and turkey!"

Not quite as good a combo as Kish and McCue, but appreciated nevertheless. *