Schmutz

It's been a while since I've taken up the pen. I've got my excuses, my rationalizations. Mainly I've been waiting for inspiration, cause the Heads, no matter how great we play game to game, sometimes get into that great rut of win, win, win, occasional one run loss like a couple weeks ago by a run when we made a couple of uncharacteristic errors. Win again. Chuck makes the great dive into the hole; Derek hits the crap out of the ball, the Knight hits line drive after line drive. Pope dives and make a somersault catch (well that is new only because he is back from his hiatus - how great is that?). Lefty complains that we should throw a bone to the other team and then insults them by turning around to bat right handed and slapping a line drive to left.

But I needed an angle and it came from...mom. Mom who wiped my face when I was a little kid, when spillage was a regular part of eating, and like most babies, I wore my dinner on my face.

Here's the deal...Larry, my housemate/teammate/friend and I often go over the teams and where we stand and what we have to do, etc. etc. etc. Basic scoreboard watching but without the scoreboard.

And in this league we are reduced to talking about...the Dusty Nuts...the Duck Snorts... I mean who comes up with these names? And how are we supposed to remember the difference between them?

So I decided that from now on, all the teams with two names will have one name changed to...Schmutz. That's right. It rhymes with puts. No not putz, another Yiddish word, puts like in "We puts the Goat Schmutz out of their misery in four innings last week 26-6."

You might ask what is Schmutz? Well the Urban Dictionary has a few more plebeian definitions (look them up: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=schmutz), but the basic idea is it's something dirty and greasy you have to wipe off your face, or some other surface. So Mom wiped the schmutz off my face when I was a baby. And later when I should have known better, bade me "Wipe that schmutz off your face" (and later "wipe that smirk off your face," but that's another story).

And that's what these teams are to the Coneheads, Schmutz on the road to cotton to be wiped away.

Our opponents will heretoforth be named Duck Schmutz, Badger Schmutz, Goat Schmutz, Dusty Schmutz, Wood Schmutz, and my favorite (this week's game) Mucca Schmutz. Dub MD gets a pass - they have been around a little while so we remember them by their given name.

Now we only have to remember one name for each team. Much better for old people.

And so after that tough loss against Badger Schmutz, where we outscored them 19-9 in the middle innings, took a late lead and squandered it to lose by a run after having the last outs in our reach, we took it out on Goat Schmutz.

You look at the box score and it was the total team win...nine guys had three hits, none had four. The Larry/Joe combo would have but they and Gene were the only positions in the lineup that only got up three times. Everyone that played the whole game had an RBI and a run scored - even Joe and Larry each were credited with a run. Gene and Lefty were perfect 3-3 (Lefty added a walk). Heffe led the way in a rare four RBI game, although he felt bad because it should have been six as he left second and third with two outs in the second on a groundout. Chopper had two doubles - in one inning - and we only had five extra base hits. Mostly it was get a hit, move the runner first to third, next guy drives him in, and gets the guy on first to third...over and over again. In the Conehead inning third (13 runs), we had eight straight hits, one out and then five more. Definitely contagious hitting.

With Badger Schmutz losing to WMD, it puts us back alone in first, and now it's up to us to keep it that way. Let's make Mucca Schmutz this week!

Milestones:
8/19
Gene        30 sf (#5)
Lefty        100 r (#21)
Markley   200 ab (#22)

8/26
Heffe       1350 ab (#2)
D             300 ab (#18)
Lefty        150 h (#20)
D             10 sf (#21)
Knight      10 bb (#21)
Markley   20 2b (#24)

9/9
Joe           400 rbi (#5)

9/16
Pope        550 h (#6)
Knight      30 2b (#18)
Chopper  10 bb (#22)

9/23
Gene        800 ab (#9)
Chopper  300 ab (#19)
Markley   150 h (#21)

A Rare De-Feat

On Tuesday we are not used to losing. We had lost just once this year, in the playoffs last season, going into last week's game. It's tough going undefeated, and we learned last season the playoffs are not the place to get your first loss.

So, being really good at rationalization, losing to the Brew Brothers last week was not the worst thing in the world. We had a really bad defensive inning or two, and got down 14-2 going into the bottom of the third. We came roaring back to close the margin to 14-11, and then our last inning rally came up short to fall 17-15.

The silver lining is that we never gave up. And we got Chopper back in the lineup - he only went 4-4 with a clutch two out triple in the second and a two out two run single in the seventh to bring the winning run to the plate. We couldn't finish, but it was a sign of good times ahead. Rene stretched a single into a double on his way to a 2-3 with a walk evening. Dizzy D drove in four, including the last one in the seven run fourth that got us back into the game. We had eight straight hits in that frame, and we never said die.

This will pay off, starting this week against the cellar dwelling BAHSBAT. Our loss tightened up the early race - six of the seven teams are either 2-1 or 2-2. Last season maybe was just too easy, nothing like a tight race to motivate you!

Milestones:

8/6
Cage        10 k (#4)
Dizzy D    10 gw (#8)
Rams       200 ab (#21)
8/13
Timmy      400 r (#2)
Rams        20 bb (#13)
8/27
Heffe        1200 ab (#2)
Pauly        550 ab (#9)

Walk On By

Sometimes I swear I am clairvoyant. Others call me deranged but that's a story for another time.

When the Oaks came up in the bottom of the sixth with us up four runs, I remember thinking, it wouldn't be so bad if they got the maximum five runs in the bottom of the sixth, because that would get through the bottom of the lineup, and use up their top and middle, their best hitters, and we would trail just one run going into the seventh. If we could re-grab the lead, then we would be facing the bottom of the lineup in the last inning.

There's two ways to look at what happened. One is I could see the future.

Or - lesson learned - you never wish for the opponent scoring. We came dangerously close to blowing this game, which we needed badly after a tough one run loss to the defending champs the week before.

But I get ahead of myself.

We showed a lot of character getting to that point. We were down 5-3 after three innings, and had left Chris on third after a leadoff triple. We then came roaring back as eight guys in a row reached safely in the fourth. the maximum five runs without recording an out. Big bases loaded two run hit by Tom.

So there we were up 9-5 going into the sixth. The bottom of the Oaks' lineup up. And there stood Big Ron. And by big I don't mean just tall. Ron has to be close to 400 pounds. We (Sir Guy, our pitcher, and me) have a lot of history with Ron. He's an umpire, has been umping in Pleasanton nearly as long as Guy and I have been playing there, which is like a hundred years. He never passes an opportunity to antagonize us, me personally. We never know if his bad calls are on purpose or just lack of judgment. Bill goes back even further with him - they coached against each other when their sons were in little league. The Hatfields and the McCoys (and if you saw him you would know what I mean).

Ron plays for the Oaks now. He can't hit the ball more than 50 feet, and he can't outrace a snail. I would make fun of him except for the fact I can't hit much further and can't run much faster. But at least I can more often than not fool the other team and get on base.

Not Ron. And there was Sir Guy, ready to induce a weak grounder out of him. But then -

Bill couldn't throw a strike. Ball One, Ball Two, Ball Three Ball Four. Why does it always happen to the best pitchers - they can't throw strikes to the weakest hitter on the opposing team.

And then - Bill still couldn't throw a strike. And he walked one, two, three, how many more? I think he walked in runs three altogether.

Now Bill and I have been playing on one or two teams together for 32 years. That is nearly a third of a century. As a stats slut, I can tell you that we have played approximately 750 games together - I have stats going back to 1986 on our teams. I have never seen him walk more than three in a game. Two in a game is a headline, three is a banner. Now he walks four or more in an inning, I can't recall the exact count, it was like the twilight zone, and time stood still.

So the Oaks get their one run lead, and Sir Guy is worried about the seventh. But we picked him up and got a three run lead in the top of the seventh. Could have been more but it was enough to play with.

People write poems about baseball because the game has such poetry intrinsic in it. Or maybe just that it reflects life. In the end, the Oaks got a little rally going, they scored one, and had two on and two outs. Tying run at first, and who stepped up as the winning run? Big Ron. He tried to draw another walk, but Bill was having none if it this time, Ron had to swing and took a mighty cut and hit a one hopper right back to Bill. Bill came to first with the ball himself, no way could Ron outrace him, in fact he had stopped when Bill fielded it. Bill may have wanted to take the out himself to rub Ron's nose in it, but truth be told, he was afraid of throwing it away with the sudden control problems he had. Game over, just another 13-11 win.

Is that poetry or what?

I've got to say, I saw it coming out that way the whole time.