Season Recap
You know I like to compare our team to the great sports franchises in the Metroplex. Sometimes we’re the 1993 Dallas Cowboys. Sometimes we’re the 1989 Dallas Cowboys. But I think I’ve been looking at the wrong sport. I think we’re actually the Dallas Mavericks. We have a great team, always make the playoffs, hardly ever make a roster change of any significance, get screwed constantly by officiating and have an insane owner. Hear me out on this…
We have a superstar player in John “Dirk” Fuller. Tall and quiet. The only difference is the ManFuller doesn’t let his shaved head grow out during the season. Then there’s Craig “Damp” Whitlock. Both are hulking masses of muscle…with shiny tops. Mike “Kidd” Ward is the grizzled veteran on the team, with the hot young wife and the crazy eyes. Andy is our Jet…he brings it when we need it. The Colonel is J-Ho. Laid back, quick as lightning and great teeth. The Incredible Praying Mantis is JJ Barea. When you first see him, you don’t think he’s got any game. But when he steps onto the court, look out baby! And me? I’m the Mavs dancers. Curvaceous, attention grabbing, tight uniform and I only come into the game once or twice. The ladies? Well, they’re still the 1993 Dallas Cowboys without the b.o. Kerstyn is Troy Aikman cause he’s my favorite Cowboy and Kerstyn is my favorite wife.
Finally, our crazed owner/manager Dan is Mark Cuban…cause he doesn’t show up for playoff games either.
So we had only our second loss of the season last night. That’s not too shabby of a season. And we’re not alone. The #2 Bad News Beers also went down into the agony of defeat. But the deck was stacked against us. Not only did we have to beat the umpires, but we also had to beat a team that I can say with 100% certainty was full of more ringers than a Kay Jewelers. Interesting that the #3 and #4 teams both had ringers but both BNB and OBI had our original rosters. Who do I blame for that? Hmmm… Who could have possibly given us a couple more runs and caught several balls in the outfield and possibly have thrown out a few more runners on the bases? Who do we know who could have possibly done that? Oh! D’oh! Brittany! The ringer who ManFuller identified …and then promptly voted AGAINST playing with us in the last game. After all… why take the chance? No other team would have the audacity to do something like that!! Except our opponents. But I digress…
I can attest, however, that Smooth N Slow was, for the most part, the unhealthiest-healthiest group of players I’ve seen. They were a mix of beefy women and juiced up men, shoveling pills and pilfering syringes in the dugout, using our pitcher like a grip strengthener.
And then there was the umpire. When giving instructions to me, he spoke to me as if I was s-l-o-w. Occasionally pausing to see if I comprehend his message in the way a stage hypnotist makes his head rear back to emphasize his magical powers. In contrast, when hearing a challenge from me, he looked at his nails, sighed, and said, “Yes, yes, I already know. It’s fine. Not to worry…you’re out!”
So our debut season in Frisco is kaput. Now it’s back to our old area of domination for the summer to sharpen our bats. It was, by all accounts, a successful season. Sure we didn’t win the tournament, but we ended up in first place, with only one defeat by the smallest of margins. And we had another season to gel and grow into our cleats. When I look back over these last few months, I see a bunch of great games and a ton of funny moments mixed in with a couple heartbreakers. Such is life!
Adieu to Frisco. Allen, here we come…again!
Spring 2009 Recap –
Game 1 – Back in Black = Victory!
Game 2 – Crazy-eyed pitcher in bluejeans and kneepads = Victory!
Game 3 – Da’ Realtor says “No Soup for You!” = Victory!
Game 4 – A stinky, W-shaped turd = Victory!
Game 5 – “Don’t test me lady!” = Victory!
Game 6 – The ONLY game I asked everyone to win = Missed it by that much!
Game 7 – Finally the softball swords of justice arrive = Victory!
Game 8 – What’s a comin’ is a beat down baby! = Victory!
Tournament – It’s hard to beat a team full of ringers. We’ll get ‘em next season… Lord willing and the creek don’t rise… and if John, Mike and Craig vote “YES” next time.
Game 5 Recap:
The New England Patriots, the Chicago Bulls, the New York Yankees, the Dallas Cowboys and yes, One Bad Inning.
These are great sports franchises in American history. All have had their runs of defeats and triumphs. Currently, only one of these sports giants is undefeated. Perfect. Five wins, no losses. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch.
There are very few things that you and I will ever experience in our lifetime that are truly perfect. The 1972 Miami Dolphins, Don Larsen, the “Miracle on Ice,” a bean burrito at Taco Bueno. And as of today, May 6, 2009, we are among the elite group of sports professionals whose achievements are flawless. Admittedly, we have a long way to go before we can claim perfection. Three games and a tournament block our destiny for now. But like any good history buff, it’s important to know that, if you examine the past close enough, you can predict the future with some accuracy.
We know what happened in the first four games. A mish-mosh of mediocrity and brilliance, stringing together victories by 4, 2, 4 and 1 runs. Like Brett Favre, wild-eyed and unshaven, scrambling for his life while 300-lb linemen close in all around him… tossing a wounded duck high over the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field, landing perfectly in Andre Rison’s open arms in the endzone as time expires…our season has been a series of winning by a hair and a prayer. Until last Friday night.
We whomped them. I’m not sure that’s a word but it’s descriptive enough of how we man-handled (no offense ladies) SweetSpot yet again. Our display of power was fueled by Slim Jims, pork rinds, Pabst Blue Ribbon and a few ritual anointings of Right Guard and Brut… and that was just the ladies!
(Editors note: At one time or another, I have managed to offend persons of both sexes as well as individuals belonging to every religious, ethnic, regional, political and socioeconomic group. If you know of a group I have missed, please write in and the situation will be promptly rectified.)
Listen, I know the women on our team are tough, but last Friday night proved to the world what the men of OBI have known for years… that our ladies are tougher to get through than a charcoaled radial tire. Let’s review:
2006 – Lori steps up to the plate and, after hitting her first softball, proceeds to smack her ankle with the bat and, without flinching, tears off to first base where she promptly pulls a hamstring. Never said a word until 3 innings later.
2006 – little Kerstyn takes a shot to the mouth, splitting her lip wide open like a curtain on Broadway. Didn’t drip a tear and was ticked off for hours while waiting for the surgeon that she didn’t catch the ball.
2007 – The umpire and yours truly go at it over some horrific calls. Later, after the umpire mistakenly thinks I’m saying something to him and starts hollering at me, the Evil Eye jumps in his face, screaming him down and making him wet his pants.
2007 – The Belly Itcher takes cannon fodder directly into her gut, causing internal bleeding (hey, a bruise is internal bleeding you know!) and another line drive to her ankle, which promptly turns more colors than the gay flag.
2008 – Rookie Shumway or the Highway takes half a dozen gut shots and a few runners sliding into her in just one game… and doesn’t blink a lash. A few dozen bruises and strawberries later, she earns everyone’s respect.
2009 – Maui Laura comes out of semi-retirement to help her alma-mater win a crucial game. Smacking a hard single, she selflessly dives head first into the bag, glasses shooting off one way, blood, spleen and small intestine the other way.
2009 – A rowdy fan heckles the home plate umpire and is finally tossed from the ball park. With a baby on her hip and a Marlboro in her lip, she saunters past our dugout, hollering obscenities. I haven’t seen a blonde that beat up since Mickey Rourke in the Wrestler. Da Realtor jumps up and tells her to zip it and be a better example for her child, upon which she challenges us to meet her in the parking lot. Shumway or the Highway hears this from the first base bag and turns her head to shout for all to hear, “Don’t test me lady!” Everyone within three miles of Shawnee Park immediately falls silent and eyes are turned downward and tails inward.
Men, let’s face it. Our women are the toughest women on the planet and each and every one of us are lucky to have them. Actually, we’re lucky they don’t beat us up. (Lori, for those who don’t know, had a childhood hobby of beating up boys.) They are all ferocious, fierce, persistent, unbreakable. Each week I watch them play… watching in manageable, gasping, horking gulps, and, in so doing, I’m able to protect my brain from the breathtaking, mind-numbing totality of how much tougher they all are than me.
Simply put, they’re awesome. I’m hoping this will win me points on Mother’s Day too…
But the ladies weren’t the only ones who played fantastic. The Angry Italian Sausage had an incredible Stretch-ArmStrong line-drive grab at 1st base! ManFuller had yet another HR, crossing the plate in lockstep with the Evil Eye. Each week John is pushing someone to the plate with coordinated kick turns, like the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. Overall offense was spectacular. 31 hits including 2 doubles and the aforementioned HR – meaning once again we played smallball and nicked the SweetSpot to death. In case you missed what I just said… we had 26 singles! (31-2 doubles-1HR-2BB for those of you who are math-challenged). That’s the way to win ballgames folks! Great pitching by the Vitaman, great defense all around and we won our fifth straight game to remain undefeated.
It won’t be easy so let’s have our game faces on! Focus people! Focus!!!
Numbers:
Tom – .1000 (6AB, 6H, 4R, 8RBIs, 1 2B)
Andy – .1000 (4AB, 4H, 2R, 1BB)
John – .900 (10AB, 9H, 6R, 5RBI, 2 2B, 1 3B, 2HR, 1BB)
Kim – .777 (9AB, 7H, 3R, 2RBI, 1 BB)
April – .700 (10AB, 7H, 2R)
Mike – .700 (10AB, 7H, 4R, 1RBI)
Saneetra – .667 (3AB, 2H, 1R, 1RBI)
Danielle – .636 (11AB, 7H, 3R, 2 RBI, 1BB)
Paul – .600 (10AB, 6H, 4R, 4RBI, 1 3B, 1SAC)
Craig – .500 (8AB, 4H, 2R, 3RBI, 1 2B, 1 SAC)
Kerstyn – .500 (10AB, 5H, 4R, 1BB)
Kris – .400 (5AB, 2H)
Lori – .333 (9AB, 3H)
Game 5 stats:
43AB, 18R, 31H, 1 2B, 1 HR, 2 BB, 1 strike out, 10 stranded runners
Game 4 Recap:
I started last game’s recap complaining that, because we had played so well, I didn’t have much to write about. I wrote that the lack of humorous, bad plays left my recap as “edgy as a potato.” Well break out the popcorn! I wish I had kept my mouth shut. The truth is that writing a decent recap requires me to think and as my wife will attest, I don’t like to think. When I think, I get confused, sad and then dizzy. Then I get confused again.
Good news is I’ve got plenty of material to work with this time around. Bad news is I’ve got plenty of material to work with this time around.
So what happened? Well… our defense had holes bigger than Rosie O’Donnell’s mouth. We swung the bat like Ray Charles batting from the wrong side of the plate… and we moved around the bases like a leather couch during an earthquake. To top it all off, we had to contend with an umpire who is losing his courageous battle with competence.
Simply put, we played awful. Actually, defining our last game by those lowly terms is like defining a sniffing explosive device detector as a dog. It just doesn’t do it justice.
We played what was possibly one of the worst games ever played in our franchise against a team that only had nine players! …I’ll let that statement pickle for a moment in its own distasteful brine…
Since the move to Frisco, our team has looked like the Notre Dame cathedral, with flying buttresses and Romanesque colonnades and labyrinthine passageways said to have mythical powers. Last Friday we looked like a cardboard shanty in East Hackensack, NJ.
We started the game with me representing for the toss. Bad idea. Note to all OBIers: never, ever let me represent in the coin toss. Nothing good can come of it. Stick with superstitions that work… like wearing the same set of underwear every game without washing them. Anywho, I won the toss and we took the field. During the first inning we were fortunate to escape with the Brewskis only putting up a couple runs. Then the bleeding started.
Our brains shut down. If we were lucky enough to stop the ball, we didn’t know where to throw it once we got it. From the dugout it was like watching a car crash in slow motion. A self inflicted car crash… like we suddenly decided to drive blindfolded down Lombard Street… backwards.
At the plate it wasn’t much better. We started the game with a strikeout. Bad ju-ju. At one point I remember digging through my backpack to call the Frisco coroner to have him autopsy this corpse.
I should point out that our very own Batman and Robin duo (aka ManFuller and the Bearded Lady) did have a great first at bat with the BL smacking a stand up triple… followed by ManFuller’s perfectly placed in the park HR, also bringing home the Pulk… John’s one player whose bat hasn’t cooled off… And then we proceeded to streak through the next 16 batters getting only 5 hits, leaving 1 runner stranded and three more – count ‘em – three more strike outs.
After a few strategically placed public outbursts in the dugout by yours truly, we started to pick up the play a bit. The Vitaman, blinded by scratching his hernia earlier that day, swung his glove like he was being attacked by killer bees and was able to swat out a couple runners at the plate. The Great One had a few put outs at short and the Belly Itcher got hotter than a flaming infidel on the mound. Throw some water on yourself Kimmie!
The bats got somewhat better in the fourth and we were able to put up some runs off down-and-hard hits by Shumway, the Vitaman, BellyItcher, the Italian Sausage and myself. And then we went back to our old ways. Another strike out and a pop out.
In the top of the fifth, mental errors caught up with us again as we weren’t able to figure out where to throw the ball, miscues on double plays, drops and poor throws allowed the Brewskis to tie it all up, 6-6. Drama.
Back in the dugout my Vesuvian dread was rising up inside me, ready to spill over my Pompeii of adult-rated comments about our playing when some mothers reminded me that there were children within ear-shot. What are you supposed to say when someone invokes “the children”? That I really don’t care about children? Of course not. You have to say something like, “Oh yeah, well, I am a better role model than you are, nanny nanny, boo boo.”
But the drama didn’t stop there. The Brewskis pitcher had several run ins with the Evil Eye, The Pulk, BellyItcher and the Colonel…challenging them to a fight after school at the monkey bars. Crazy thing is, when Danielle agreed, he turned away and went crying back to his dugout. He was a hulking mass with a moustache that made him look like a Confederate porn star, but I’m sure Danielle could have taken him. The Pulkster and I were talking afterwards and agreed we’d have jumped into the mix if a brawl broke out and could go full bore for about a minute… and then we’d have to fight from the bench.
The final inning we were able to string enough coherent at bats together to put the game away. Hammy got us started with a well-timed (if not a well-thought out) double. When he made the turn from 1st to head to second, he was as out as a pair of pastel leg warmers, but the Big Man upstairs was with us and their 2nd baseman dropped the ball.
After I had recovered from my stroke, I watched another strike out. Then, after I had recovered from my second stroke, I watched the Colonel hit a hard ball to advance Hammy over to third for the winning run.
With one out, runners on 3rd and 1st and the game on the line, up came the Evil Eye. She had up to this point what we in the business call a crappy game; going 0-3 at the plate. But outside of Josh Hamilton and John Fuller, I wouldn’t have wanted any other player at the plate in this situation. She can stare a pitcher down and scare a ball into the outfield just by thinking of something her husband said to her in a previous inning! Turned out, she didn’t need that trick because her swing was as smooth and beautiful as I am stunted and dorky.
She smacked a perfectly placed ball right over 2nd and into the sweet smelling grass of victory! Hammy strode across the plate and all was right with the world again. That is, until Kris met our friendly Brewski pitcher at the plate. He started hollering at Kris about some random grievance, mustache twitching in the wind… seriously, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen an upper lip have a bad hair day. And Kris, defending his honor, dropped a few adult-rated barbs in JoeBob Magnum P.I’s general direction.
The umpire, who was completely clueless all night long, suddenly was on top of things. He jumped in and heard half of the argument and proceeded to toss Kris out of the game. Our first ejection! And it’s a boy!! Cigars will be circulated next week!
So we were able to pull a “W” out of our rear. A stinky, W-shaped turd. But a win is a win. Sure our opponents only had 9 players. And yes, the umpires were inept and had no idea how many outs there were during any given inning. But we flexed our muscle when it mattered – if the muscle you’re talking about is, say, the eyelid. Or whatever it is that makes the nostril flare.
But now that we’ve won, I can relax again. And by “relax” I mean, of course stay under the influence of over-the-counter narcotics administered in doses large enough to sedate a cow. This condition will last through next Friday evening, when I plan to resume a strict regimen of cantankerous and un-Christian-like behavior that will most likely resemble that of an enraged ape. If I have it at hand, I will fling feces.
Numbers since we started keeping stats:
Tom – .1000 (3AB, 3H, 2R, 5RBIs, 1 2B)
Andy – .1000 (1AB, 1H, 1R, 1RBI)
John – .833 (6AB, 5H, 3R,2RBI, 1 3B, 1 HR, 1 BB)
April – .833 (6AB, 5H, 2R)
Kim – .800 (5AB, 4H, 2R, 1 BB)
Paul – .667 (6AB, 4H, 2R, 1 3B)
Mike – .667 (6AB, 4H, 2R, 1RBI)
Saneetra – .667 (3AB, 2H, 1R, 1RBI)
Danielle – .571 (7AB, 4H, 1R, 1 RBI)
Craig – .400 (5AB, 2H, 1R, 1 2B, 1 SAC, 1 RBI)
Kris – .400 (5AB, 2H)
Lori – .333 (6AB, 2H)
Kerstyn – .333 (6AB, 2H, 1R)
18 stranded runners
Game 4 stats:
30AB, 7R, 14H, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 1 BB, 5 strike outs, 6 RBIs, 4 stranded runners
Game 3 Recap:
There’s a saying. I’m sure you’ve heard it.
“Pride comes before the fall.”
And you know me… I’m not one to brag. Humility is my middle name.
However… we ARE undefeated. 3 AND OH. We beat the team that others said was the toughest team in the league. While the score ended up being closer than we would have liked, in reality, the game wasn’t that close. If we took out our One Bad Inning, we would have smacked Smooth N Slow down 10-2. It was a dominate performance. But to be honest, SNS kinda disappointed me. The girls weren’t very nice and reminded me of a pregnant woman in stretch pants beating her children in a Wal-Mart parking lot. And the guys evidently had a three tooth maximum limit to play on the team. But we had to play them… and play them we did.
The problem with a near perfect game is that it makes for bad recaps. I can’t sell newspapers with good news! I need some motivation when I write… Paul doing the Riverdance when running down the base path… or Mike doing his crazy-eyed Brett Farve fake throw to 1st… or Lori hitting herself in the leg while batting. I need material people. So be forewarned. This recap is as edgy as a potato.
We started off with April’s cunning strategy of losing the coin toss. This gave us yet another inning to give our opponents a glimmer of hope, only to rip it away at the last minute. That Shumway is as savvy as a fox. By the end of the game, I heard one of their players muttering that they were so worthless, the Octomom wouldn’t want them.
On the dirty part of the diamond, our defense was stellar. The play of the game has to go to Da’ Realtor for snagging what could have been a double or triple while on the run and with the sun in her eyes. She reached up and shouted, “No soup for you!”
Our infield was superb! BellyItcher not only pitched a great game, but she was insane in the dirt; snagging any ball that came her way. It was kinda scary. I’d rather take my chances with that crazy chimp from Connecticut.
And speaking of good ball handlers, Paul had a great night in LF. He was worried that based on his week 2 performance, folks would start to think that the Special K, ManFuller and Da Realtor were carrying him out there. But no worries Oh Bearded One. You are still the most feared man in softball… and at Hometown Buffet. Now I’m not one for telling tales out of school but… I’ve heard the BeardedLady is on supplements. That’s right. The Vitaman has the BeardedLady hooked. So technically, that leaves the ManFuller as the only one on the team whose urine is clean… and according to Paul, a little salty.
On the offensive side of the diamond, we had one of our best games ever. I kept a scorebook and the numbers may surprise you. Like every game this season, we played small ball and it won us the game. I know it’s tough on our muscle-bound jocks to not aim for the fences at every bat… because for some of us, image is all we have left. It matters to men. I get it. Why, just last week my lawnmower broke and when I told the Home Depot guy what model and evidently small horsepower my mower has, he heckled me saying, “Oh, you cut your grass with the Lady Norelco.” That hurt. I get it.
But by hitting singles we win. Period. As matter of fact, we only had 1 double and 1 triple all night. We scored 10 runs on singles all night long. Our lineup may look like it has the horsepower of a carousel horsie, but it gets the job done.
We were missing The Fighting Risolvati and Maui Laura. That should keep the rest of us humble… the guy who’d show up for a grand opening of a Krispy Kreme had something better to do. Talk about mailing it in. Sheesh. I kid Andy! You know that. And it’s not because you have more muscles in your eyelid than I do in my whole body.
So… hot off the ESPN website, here are our stats from last week. As I said earlier, you may find them slightly surprising. Again, only 1 double and 1 triple. Small ball. That’s the ticket my friends.
If you’re disappointed with your numbers, don’t worry. Opportunity will come knocking on your door this Friday… and it will most likely ask for directions to John’s house.
Mike – .1000 (3AB, 3H, 1R, 1RBI)
Tom – .1000 (2AB, 2H, 1R, 2RBIs, 1 2B)
John – .667 (3AB, 2H, 2R,1RBI, 1 3B, 1 BB)
Kim – .667 (3AB, 2H, 1R, 1 BB)
Saneetra – .667 (3AB, 2H, 1R, 1RBI)
April – .667 (3AB, 2H, 1R)
Kerstyn – .667 (3AB, 2H, 1R)
Paul – .667 (3AB, 2H, 1R)
Danielle – .667 (3AB, 2H, 1R)
Craig – .333 (3AB, 1H, 1 SAC, 1 RBI)
Kris – .333 (3AB, 1H)
Lori – .333 (3AB, 1H)
14 stranded runners
Game 2 Recap:
I’d like to point out the absurdity of purchasing a pair of perfectly good blue jeans and then playing softball in them. Paying hard-earned cash for nice jeans and then playing in the dirt for an hour is like ordering filet mignon at Three Forks and having the chef serve it with Cheese Whiz and Twinkies. And then, show up to the restaurant wearing your nicest suit and knee pads. Only our Father in heaven knows why.
I was trying to think of something funny to describe our jean-wearing, knee-pad-clad, clam-digging, yellow-turtle-neck, neon-yellow-sleeveless-vest, tucked-in-jersey pitcher… but sometimes you can’t top reality.
Mike on the mound…that picture is forever etched in my mind… like looking at the sun too long. Or like driving past an overturned 18-wheeler on the shoulder that’s just returned from a trip to Wet Seal in 1983. Were those painters pants and speedos?
And when he ran… whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh down the 1st base line. The friction of those jeans sent thigh sparks flying as the smell of burning acid-washed Levi 501′s lingered in the night air. There he went, making the turn to second, spreading his legs and showing his class.
The other team used their neon tye-dyed crazy shirts as an attempt to distract us. We had Mike.
Our method worked better.
Enough about Mike. The man gets it done. I get preoccupied though when watching our team elders, Mike and John, play softball. Of course, I’ve always been fascinated by really old things that still work. I love my truck with 138,000 miles. We have a 142 year-old dining room set. I love my wife…
The other fantastic fossil was spectacular. In a normal game ManFuller would be fantastic. Spectacular, I’m told, is a significant step up. Not only did ManFuller have yet another multi-RBI home run, but he had what has to be in the top 3 all-time Crusher/Weasel/OBI outfield plays with his over-the-shoulder-at-the-fence grab to completely deflate the Bad News Beers. Witnessing the incredible catch from the dugout, I turned to John’s son and said to him, “Do you know your dad is a super stud?” He looked at me and said, “Do you know the difference between you and a cat? The cat licks his own butt.” Ouch.
For me, a play like John’s compels grim introspection. While everyone around me was cheering and screaming, I found myself thinking: I’m not that good, and I’m 37 years younger than he is. And I play like something you’d find sitting under lap shawls watching Pat Sajak at a nursing home. Also, I’ve noticed I can’t come up with words any more. I find myself asking Kerstyn if she’s “seen my thingy,” which unnerves bystanders.
While Andy, Craig, Paul and Kris move around the bases like they were 7-11 slurpee testers headed for a port-o-potty, I’m moving around the bases at the speed of the continental drift, oozing into bases like a scoop of Jell-O plopped onto a hot skillet.
While Kerstyn, Saneetra, Lori, Danielle and April are diving for balls all over the field, I’m moving towards grounders gingerly, worried I may collect another bruise on my pasty, pale body. And getting distracted by the umpire’s large, blank eyes – he had eyes like a cow and I found myself wondering if he also had udders…
Anyhow…the Bad News Beers were in second place. They had beat the X-rated Master Batters 15 to 5 and I’m sure they thought that they would be able to handle us. Especially when they saw our pitcher. Little did they know, he was juiced up on more chemicals than a professional baseball player. And while our opponents were just a gathering of ex-hippies, we were more like a gang of third-graders after a birthday party where too much sugar has been consumed. In short, we were wired.
Shumway got the ball rolling by winning home field. Our defense was awesome! We stopped them cold in the first inning and then grabbed our bats and hit every hole in that field. We made those Bad News Beers look like they were swimming in a pool of mayonnaise trying to get a softball in the deep end.
I would be remiss if I didn’t point out Evil Eye’s incredible base running. I’m sure most of you caught this Friday night but Danielle can actually run! Yes! It’s true! For the last few years, I always thought she secretly had midget legs and put stilts on under her pants to play. Turns out she was just lazy. But not Friday night! If we had sponsor signs along the fences like the big leagues, she’d have been going so fast the signs would’ve smooshed together…. BurgerDiscounters, Next Day Chicken, Fried Bank, Taco Discounters Linens ‘n Brew…
Despite our large lead going into the last minutes of the game, we couldn’t afford the corporate liability of being sued for false advertisement. So we gave our opponents their guaranteed “One Bad Inning” and let them get within striking distance. It wasn’t easy. Heck, the Incredible Pulk had to throw the ball twice into the other team’s dugout just to ensure they could put a few points on the board. Whew! Thanks for sparing us the legal troubles Paul! He is a giver.
At the end of the night, we were and are undefeated. These Frisco folks don’t have an answer for us yet. I heard that some of the BNB’s were calling us Sweet Old Bob’s in their dugout, or sometimes, just the initials. I guess this league hasn’t figured us out yet. We’re really just a mishmash of athletically gifted, fashion challenged players about as pristine as Andy Dick’s bloodstream.
Game 1 Recap:
We’re baaack.
It was great to get back to softball. Putting on the jersey, writing the lineup, walking up to the field and seeing The Vitaman casually leaning against the bleachers watching the fielders like a cheetah stalking his prey… it made me feel like all is right with the world again.
That is until I caught a glimpse of our opponents – The SweetSpot. Despite my reservations about their name (which sounds like a community of 19th-century British fops who got together fortnightly to trade witticisms over crumpets and crème de menthe cordials), all the guys were huge and the women had the swagger of knowing any one of them could take all our guys at the same time in a brawl. I’m not too proud to admit I was worried. Slightly worried. Of course, being slightly worried is like being slightly pregnant – it tends to get worse. Maybe we made a mistake in switching leagues? We’d know that answer in a short 60 minutes.
Unfortunately for us, I represented the team in the coin toss. I don’t think I’ve won a coin toss since the first Bush administration. It was an ominous beginning.
But it turns out I had no reason for alarm. Sure this was a new league and we have no idea how good the competition would be or how bad the umpires would be. Yet, during our first turn at the plate, our bats made their infield seem like a snoring wino’s mouth, yawning wide open.
Everyone hit hard and down on the ground. As matter of fact, we didn’t have a single pop up that I recall and we only had a couple deep fly outs. Mrs. Bearded Lady was robbed by a stellar play from the SweetSpot’s left fielder who had to make a diving shoestring catch to send her back to the dugout. All the ladies hit well, from Maui Laura to Special K… no one could have guessed that most of us hadn’t picked up a bat for 4 months!
The men hit well too. Of course the Man Fuller continued his phenomenal career with picture perfect placement hits. You couldn’t do a better job of cramming a ball into a hole with a shoe horn and a can of Crisco. And the Incredible Pulk smashed an in the park home run despite spewing stomach acid from every orifice in his body.
And the Fighting Risolvatee turned on the jets after hitting a bunt down 3rd base line. I have to admit that when I saw that hit, I was sure it was an out. But standing on the 1st base line, I had a front row seat to see Andy sprint towards first in a heartbeat, closing in on his quarry. It was shockingly beautiful. Slowing my minds eye to a few frames a second and it looked like one of those clinical National Geographic documentaries…
“The Italian Sausage of the Serengeti lunges ominously towards his quarry with menacing athletic grace… the hapless 1st baseman, paralyzed by an instinctive and unconscious fear, never sees the Angry Sausage crash into the bag with a force that knocked her to her knees, never to rise again…”
That, my friends, is what we call solid base running.
And, for the most part, we all ran the base path smartly. Except the Lotts, who had a couple unusual mental breakdowns and blowouts on the side of the chalk. The Man Fuller, in his manic desire to keep his streak of 732 consecutive games with a HR alive, had to run over Special K, as she couldn’t decide if she felt like moving to the next bag or not. And your fearless leader, after pulling a hard grounder down the 3rd base line, started heading to the dugout… when I should have been sprinting to 1st until the ump called me out. Yet I was sure that the anthrax-like powder dispersal tossed high into the air as my ball scooted to the left of 3rd base, would have been enough to call me out on a 3rd strike. Lucky for me the umpire can only legally see 15 feet.
On the dirty side of the plate, we fielded well enough to hold our competitors to only 7 runs. Not too shabby since most of us didn’t practice this off-season (you know who you are…and you should feel ashamed of yourselves).
Old-lady Fuller pitched like she just turned 20. I don’t know if many of you know this, but Man Fuller recently came into a lot of money and that’s how he was able to purchase Kimberly that very expensive softball bat. Turns out that recently a gold necklace was discovered in a tomb in Egypt and it was inscribed with the sentence, “Happy sweet sixteenth Kim Fuller.” And the archeologists were able to track down John and pay him his royalties. Congrats John!
Shumway or the Highway played great at 2nd, catching several gut shot throws from her errant shortstop. She is a tough lady! The Punctual One also stepped in at 2nd to play well… as did the Colonel at SS. Now that they’ve all completed an entire season with us, we can no longer think of them as the new guys… they stuck with us and gave us a second, third and fourth chance… and we were able to grow on them like a deadly toe fungus. We are all now one. Like the Borg without the implants… those aren’t implants, right Danielle?
So now we know we can win in this league. No matter what happens from here on out, we know that when we play small ball and good defense, we win. Of course, that’s about as scientifically surprising as proving that when I fall down, I go boom. We’re a good team. Sometimes we look like the 1993 Dallas Cowboys… sometimes we have the stability of a mid-game Jenga tower… Regardless, we’re back in action and it’s a beautiful thing!
Wiping the tears of laughter away as I injested the OBI Softball game summary, brought to the surface why I play Friday Night softball, reading the colorfull description of our team’s play. Thank you for carry on the Paul Harvey journalistic batan!!!!!!
Vitaman