By Pete B.
First of all, sorry. Sorry to "the other team." (Did we ever choose team names?) In the early going, I insisted there were two out. But there was only one out. And I got kind of mad about it. I might have uttered a swear word. But I was wrong. Jon in fact did not catch the liner to CF. Jon even informed me in the dugout afterward that I in fact fielded the dropped liner. I have no memory of this and quite honestly, this scares me. Anyway, my bad. At least I wasn't arguing in bad faith, I really actually thought there were two out.
Softball was fun on Sunday. It was good to have D. Lee back. He looked all tanned and whatnot; braised by the Italian sun. I could tell he was kind of holding back because it's clear he bedded like nineteen olive-skinned Tuscan virgins and he just didn't want to make us jealous. His game was a tiny bit rusty too -- lots of ill-advised attempts to throw out the lead runner when it's clear in Jimmy Walker land the smart play is to keep the tailing runner from advancing to second.
In fact, one would think there was a new stat for assists given the number of times "our team" tried to throw out a runner and cost us runs instead. This is not a knock on D. Lee because his game is tight and even with a little rust, he's the man.
And I know it's not even that important who wins and who doesn't, but if you are trying to gun down runners, you better have a play, that's all I gotta say, cuz I'm not chasing down your poorly thrown attempts at glory. I'm a fielder, not a golden retriever.
Ernest and his (expanding) crew showed up for more and -- ain't it a bitch? -- Ernest popped a hammy trying to beat out a double play ball. Ernest's young son (pretty sure it's his son) Terrence pinch-ran for the E man the rest of the way. And with the pressure off, Ernest was hitting like another famous right-handed E--man who couldn't run but boy could he mash. For 6 Verbungle GP's can you name him? I'm stoked he brought like three bodies, not including the pinch runner, because we needed players, but I'm not sure if anybody has brought up the bad news yet to Ernest and Company that it ain't free to play. Maybe it doesn't matter; it doesn't really matter too much to me.
James was back for more and he provided an impressive display of raw power with an IEHR in approximately the 7th inning using the softest, mashtest, assiest ball I've ever seen. Most of us couldn't get it out of the infield. Anyway he got hold of it and deposited it in the garden out in left for a first-pitch IEHR. Ouch. The proved to be a bad break for "the other team" because "our team" came up in the bottom of said inning and promptly banged out seven runs using the livelier ball that entered into play, erasing a 5-2 deficit and pulling ahead by 9-5.
We almost ran the Puma to death out there in left; he had to field about ten balls.
Dan Kois made it to the game and he was raking line drives all over the joint. Some of them found mitts, some didn't. He made a couple of nifty picks at third and he has the "cross diamond sling" down pat.
Chris Hussar also made it. What can you say about this guy? He's the David Wright of Bungleball ... just an infectious character who knows what it's all about and he packs the game to boot. At short stop for "the other team," he had us on level six lockdown until the lively ball entered into play, turning DP's like it was going out of style not to mention slapping BBs off the wall in left center.
At 8:40 p.m. the skies opened up and by the time we had it all packed in and the soccer players were taking the field, things were getting good n soggy. The soccer players were pretty well-behaved actually. Nobody ran onto the field of play. But I have never seen so much gear for such a low-rent game. Doods were all sporting like $100 game jerseys. It's World Cup fever...
Other CSHRs included Jon's post-HR reset called grand salami*, my 2-run job, which I'm told hit two cars and set off a car alarm, and Deion's mashus collusus, with two out in the last and the rain coming down, after which it was agreed the game was OVER.
Final Score: Our Team 12, The Other Team 6
* I'm 98 percent sure it was Jon, but correct me if I'm wrong
Hans's addendum: since I wasn't at this game (DNP-sniffles) and the scorecard was in my possession, I can only assume that no stats were kept. I am open to suggestions on how to handle this. We could allow it to derail the entire stat-keeping process, but I'd rather not let that happen. My first thought is we treat this game as an "exhibition game" but I don't want to sell short the efforts of the fine men (and children) who showed up and played. I also like the idea of only counting HR's from this game, and nothing else -- maybe an "ACSHR" column for Anecdotal Called Shot Home Runs? Please tell us your thoughts.
