Throw Me a Bone

I have an important announcement for the Coneheads.

It won't be published until tonight (it's now Monday morning),  so you won't read it until after the game. This is good, because I don't want it to affect the game. After all, we are still undefeated, and must continue our momentum.

This is the announcement: You guys let me down. No, not in the way you let Joe down sometimes - the missed ball in the outfield, the bad baserunning mistake. So there will be no stink eye here. More like the Stink Pen.

You let me down by taking all the drama out of the game on occasion, like last week. I mean, 25-1 over the Shenanigans...who is the team acting out shenanigans?

How many times do you think I can write about the Conehead inning (13 in the first, game over, nine later on). How many times can I talk about Pope with three extra base hits, or Randy leaping up to make a great grab on a hot line drive, and keep it interesting and entertaining.

Really, do you think it is your job to make me dig deep to find something interesting to write about?

"In yet another laugher, the Coneheads walloped the last place Shenanigans. 25-1 in four and a half innings. We had eight straight hits in an inning TWICE, and the defense was outstanding. Ten guys had at least two hits, including Pope, Randy, Johnny, and Bruce with four. Chuck only didn't because he walked once. Gene was perfect in his platooning as he went 2-2. Derek pitched great in relief, rebounding from his wildness the week before. There was no Chopper siting, as he is still rehabbing his leg injury."

Yawn.

I need drama. Can we throw in a couple of errors, a few more walks by Derek. a double play to end an inning in a one run game in the fifth (for either side)? A walk off win?

Please, feed me. God forbid, I'm beginning to sound like Lefty.

I hope I didn't jinx tonight. OK, I will accept 25-1 again. Never mind.

Milestones:

Joe          400 g (#1)
Pope       900 ab (#8)
Sting        40 bb (#12)
Bruce      50 ab (#37)

Musings from the Foxhole

Ol' G, as we call him, is usually gone from one of our Conehead games in a flash. He stays long enough for the beginnings of the post-game banter because he is our teammate and friend, and he usually had a lot to do with the outcome. But ten minutes or so later, it's 'great game', see you all next week, and he's off.

Well, last Monday was a different deal. Gerry, the reigning Mr. Conehead, showed up to give out this year's Mr. C award. For those that aren't in the know, this is given every year to the teammate that best shows the qualities that make up a true Conehead - the full list of them is the subject for another post, but it includes the usual things one might expect - contributing something special on and off the field. Each year there is only one vote - the reigning Mr. Conehead - although consulting with the previous honorees is allowed, and one suspects that a certain former Mr. Conehead with the most years on the team is usually consulted.

It's a tough choice because we have so many players, especially these days, that are so deserving of the award. We play so well as a team, and the hallmark of a great team is that everyone contributes in a major way, sometime or other. And the camaraderie has never been better, at least in my 15 years as a Conehead, than it is now.

This year Ol' G was most deserving of the award and Gerry gave a great speech listing all the tangibles and intangibles that made him the obvious choice. He started with the stats from this year - Gary had a particularly productive season in the Orinda Summer League - but so did others, and he worked up to naming G by starting out in more generalities and then worked to more and more specifics that could only point to our second baseman. By the time he talked about 'the guy you want in your foxhole with you', and then finally to the reference to the time G got the crazy guy from Two Score Or More in a headlock when he tried to attack us in our own dugout, we all knew who he was talking about.

Ol' G gave a short speech, it was humble yet you could tell he was flattered, and then he said "Well, I gotta go". Laughs all around, and then he was gone.

His wife Deb is also steady as a rock, and I am sure his anchor at home. But she is also a gamer, and an athlete in her own right and a die hard sports fan. So you wonder how it went when he got home, and I think it probably went something like this:

(G drives up, parks and walks in the house)

G: "Deb, I'm home! You won't believe what happened at our game."

D: "Did you win?"

G: "Yeah 20-10 against the team we beat in the finals last year, we own those guys. But you won't believe what happened after the game."

D: "Did you knock in any runs?"

G: "Yeah, I think three, although the strike zone was ridiculous and I took a called third strike in one at bat."

D: "You what?!?!?!?!?"

G: "I wasn't the only one, Derek did too, and he was pissed! It's ok, what I wanted to tell you was that they named me this year's Mr. Conehead...see the trophy? It's quite the honor! I was so surprised!"

D: "You struck out???? LOOKING???"

G: "Deb, I'm Mr. Conehead, they love me!"

D: "You're Mr. Looker around here, and I don't mean that in a good way!"

And so on.

I kid...I love Deb and I am sure she was proud of her man, and I know that G goes home so soon because he actually has a life outside of softball, and he can't wait to get back to it.

Speaking of the game (isn't that what this is about?), we came out blazing - Nine runs in the top of the first, which technically is not a Conehead inning because it wasn't double digits, but nevertheless it set the tone. Pope hit a monster two run shot as the second batter, and it was off to the races. Six straight singles with one out, and then Joe came up with runners at the corners, and slashed a hit down the left field line. It was hit so far past the left fielder that I scored from first and Joe made it to second base on his reconstructed knees.

After that even though we scored the next two innings (including a two out two run knock by the soon to be named Mr. Conehead), we got a little complacent, and saw our lead slip down to 15-10 at the end of the fourth, and when for the second inning in a row we did not score in the top of the fifth, Joe was nervous.

But a funny thing happened. Chopper, on the DL, showed up and soon there were the calls of "Popcorn" and "Alley! Alley!", although they came from the bleachers. And Joe put in Lefty to pitch, and he shut down DubMD after they had scored ten runs in the last three innings.

We topped it off with a good five run rally in the top of the last inning, highlighted by a lead off triple by Lefty, a double by Sting, and another triple by Pope, who by the way hit for the Cycle.

With Joe returning to the mound for the save (although the rally made it a non-save situation), DubMD was done and they knew it. See you in the playoffs, Dub.

Randy went 5-5, Pope and Lefty had four hits, and Heffe three. RBIs and runs scored were spread out as they usually are when everyone contributes.

Ahem, and two guys looked at strike three - in the same inning.

And finally, we might be too old to worry about having to go to war - but if we did, we know we have the guy that can be trusted to be there with us. Good to have him on our side.

Milestones:

Sting           90 2b (#6)
Randy        100 ab (#29)
Randy        50 rbi (#29)

The Perfect Pitch

This blog is supposed to be about what happens on the fields of our dreams - in our case, softball fields.

Two weeks ago last night, in the early hours of Monday, August 25th, my father died. He waited until after midnight, because it was my mom's birthday. She was calling him home. He always listened to her.

I went back to St. Louis for the funeral, but I wasn't going until Wednesday. What to do about the Monday night Conehead game? Well that is obvious, go play. Harold would tell me to.

I don't remember much about the game - I was a bit distracted. I remember we had a Conehead inning to put away the game, and I was the last one up and I made the first out. I remember Randy hit a home run, Sting hit a couple of triples, and he drove in six runs. Chuck went 5-5 and Johnny 4-4. Every single teammate gave me heartfelt condolences.

These are the facts, and we won going away 18-2. Damn we are a great team.

But I want to tell a different story. It was something I heard during the week of mourning in St. Louis.

I have a cousin Jerry. He was my first babysitter. That makes him older than Joe. In fact he is 74 years old. He still plays on a softball team. He plays second base too. He doesn't play senior ball - he is on a regular rec team playing against and with 18 year olds. He told me his arm is gone but he can still catch the ball, and he does go up to the plate looking for a walk these days.

Jerry told me this story. Last year or earlier this year, a friend of his was supposed to throw out the first pitch at a St. Louis Cardinal game, but something came up and he couldn't make it. He gave the opportunity to Jerry. I asked him if he was nervous, and he said he was until he took the mound. He got to the top of the mound, toed the rubber, and a calm came over him. He wound up and he pitched - he had no idea where it was going to go - and the ball was a strike right in the catcher's mitt. It had movement too, he said.

Shane Robinson, a Cardinal who has been up and down between St. Louis and Memphis (the Cardinals' AAA team) for the last couple of years, was the designated catcher for that pitch. He came running out to Jerry. He told him that there had been some that threw a strike standing at the foot of the mound, and there had been some that didn't bounce it to the plate standing on top of the mound, but he had never seen anyone throw such a perfect pitch in that situation.

Anything can happen in this world.

Milestones:

Sting        40 3b (#4)
Sting        400 r (#8)
Sting        200 g (#11)
Johnny     50 ab (#36)