Mo' Singles

It was a classic trap scenario where there could be a letdown. We beat the monster tournament team Monday. Only Thursday game of the season. Missing many of our power hitters and defensive stars. No Chuck for God's sake. He never misses a game.We played with three subs and there was no alternative better than yours truly batting cleanup.

And, to top it off, we were playing St. Mo's, who in the past, both in the regular season and in the playoffs, has beaten us when they have no right to, church and God aside.

So what did we do?

After spotting them the first run, we came up in the home half and scored twelve runs. Classic Conehead inning. The only out through thirteen batters was a hot line drive by Gene right at the left fielder. Right after that supersub #3 Bill drove in two with a single.

In fact I think it was one of only two times in the game that anyone took two bases on a hit. We clobbered St. Mo's (final score 18-8) with 24 singles and a three walks. Not a single extra base hit. Who needs power hitters anyway? The line just kept moving and turning over. Personally three times I was on third with Chopper on second and Haz on first. It felt like deja vu all over again.

After we let St. Mo's think they were back in the game at 12-7, we added four in the fourth and and two in the fifth to take an 18-8 lead that held up. No St. Mo's freaky comeback this time.

Heffe led the way with a 4-4 night, and supersub #1 Bobby and Chopper had three hits, and Heffe, Gene and Bill drove in three runs each. Bobby did a great Chuck impression as he started two 6-4-3 double plays in the first two innings that largely held St. Mo's in check. Unfortunately the first baseman dropped his throw on his best play cutting off a ball heading to center field. Doc Larry at 2B made the double play turns with flair (flaring out his shoulder in the process) and made a great leaping catch to end the third with runners stranded on second and third. Check his birth certificate, not to be racist but what was that saying about white boys?

It was a game we needed. We are now probably in a four way tie for first (the league is very slow getting the game scores to us). We own the tiebreaker against MTC55, and have the other two (Waitlisters and Broncos) in the last two games. It's pretty simple - win out and we will be the top seed going into the playoffs. Anything else, we will be anywhere from first to fourth. Keep the hit singles coming!

Special thanks to Bobby, supersub #2 Gerry and Bill for saving us. Gerry walked twice on a night when team walks leader Chuck was AWOL as I said. At this rate he will catch him on the leaderboard in about 2150. Stay tuned.

Milestone:
Bill        100 ab (#30)

And David Slew the Giant...

In the biblical story of King David, who as we know slew the monster Goliath, the latter is said to be nine feet nine inches by some accounts, and a mere six foot nine in others. But the point is David took his single slingshot, and Goliath went down, and then David cut the monster's head off and the Philistines went running off into the hinterlands, never to bother the Jews again. At least not for a while, they always eventually came back, but that's another story.

We all know the story of this year in Orinda Senior softball. The Philistines, er MTC55 or speedzone.net or whatever they really call themselves, is a top level tournament team sandbagging in our back yard. They have mowed down everyone they have faced this season so far, and that includes the Scouts and the DC's, two of our traditional rivals. They loaded up for our game - I saw at least three players that I hadn't seen in the two games I watched them play earlier. That is the MO of these tournament teams slumming in the rec leagues. I play against two of them, one in Pleasanton and the other far away in the City, and those two roughly combined to comprise this team. They create a roster of 25 tournament players, and pick the 12 available for any given game, and depending on the competition, bring their "A" players or "B" players.

But we have our David - Joe has his own slingshot, a wicked curve unlike anyone else's in slow pitch softball. In the first inning they were clubbing everything he threw up there, and they jumped to an 8-0 lead, and I don't think there was an out yet. We held there but this looked like it was going to be a long night, even if it only lasted an hour and fifteen minutes.

Then a funny thing happened. Joe 'figured it out' as he put it. The Ringers all seem to move up in the box, so they can jump on the pitch. Since they are mostly all as large as Goliath, they can hit any pitch from there. Well Joe combined throwing deep with his patented curve, and MTC was rendered helpless. They are too arrogant to adjust.

The turning point may have been when he faced Tim Millette, who is a nationally ranked player, and although currently somewhat injured, possesses one of the most lethal swings in slowpitch softball. Joe induced him to pop up near the third base dugout and Chopper couldn't quite reach it, but this Goliath was done.
Joe got him out twice, and he may as well have swung with his head in his hands. At the end of the second as we walked off the field down 10-3, Joe told me he's got this one, that is he figured it out.

You will forgive me if I didn't quite believe him at that point - they were still up by seven, and had the hammer, and there was a lot of game left. But with one out in the top of the third we clobbered six straight hits around a walk, and it was punctuated by one of the three key hits of the game - Doc Larry sliced one down the right field line with the bases loaded, and when he scored to complete the grand slam, suddenly we were tied ten all.

At that point we believed we were at least going to be in the game. Then Joe shut them down three straight innings. He OWNED them, he was right! And in the fourth Lefty crushed a ball for a solo home run and we clung to a one run lead for a couple of innings.

You could see the panic showing in their faces and they were pressing at the plate, and they don't play defense anyway. In the top of the sixth, we loaded the bases with no outs, and up stepped up our long lost three hitter, Pope. He sent one nearly to Lafayette, over the right center fielder's head, and it was off to the races for the second grand slam and our third big hit of the game.

We held them to one in the bottom half and then got some insurance in the top of the seventh - appropriately on a double by Joe and his surrogate scoring for him on D's sac fly. They had a short rally in the bottom, but they were all trying to hit seven run home runs, and this translated onto pop ups to end the game at 17-12. Sweetness.

As for the playoffs in a couple of weeks, it could go either way. They may have more weapons we haven't even seen yet, and you just never know in this game. But two things we know - we can hang with them, and we have our 'slingshot' - Joe's combination of his arm and brain. He may not be young like David was in the story, but he is just as deadly.

Milestones:
7/20
None
7/27
Lefty        10 hr (#15)

Over Under

It has long been rumored that JFT and the Coneheads are one and the same team. It is not quite true; there are at least a couple of players that are different. However, over the years we have merged into pretty much the same team, although (even though some players are still confused by this) there are two different coaches, ol' Stink Eye and yours truly, at least for the Summer Orinda league.

But - once the Head season starts, and we play back to back nights, what we do on Sunday as JFT and Monday as the Heads are inextricably linked.

Last Sunday, JFT had one of those Nightmare Games. We played our old arch-rivals Advance Construction. Advance has advanced in age faster than we have - they are not the same team they once were. We have dominated games recently. In fact Sunday we had the game in hand through four innings. Lefty returned to the team and stepped up and clobbered gappers to left center his first two times up - one for a triple and one for a double. These hits were largely responsible for inspiring two rallies in the first and third. In the fourth we loaded the bases with two outs, and up stepped Bruce, who was batting near the bottom because he arrived late. He promptly unloaded them with a bases clearing double, and the rout was on. Up 8-1 with nine outs to go.

Then the softball gods turned against us. In the top of the fifth, balls found holes under the gloves of normally extremely reliable infielders, and two balls found the sun in left field and were missed. Eleven runs poured in, and even the Stink Eye couldn't stop the deluge.

Normally a 12-9 deficit wouldn't make us blink. But the gods were not through with us. We acted as if we didn't know how to get out of the hole, and we hit into a double play to end the fifth, and when we loaded the bases in the sixth with no outs, on the verge of yet another epic comeback, we hit into another DP, and then took strike three looking and could only add one run. And then because of the length of the eleven run nightmare, time was out and the game ended with us down 12-10.

All is not lost; we are still in first place and we should be able to win out to stay in first place for the best seeding for the playoffs. Despite our defensive lapses, we did turn three double plays of our own, and perhaps we got the nightmare out of our system at the right time. But it is a wake-up call; we are not immune to the whims of the softball gods.

The next night we had to take on one of our arch-rivals in Orinda, the former Pennini's now called the DC's after their fallen leader Dave Caraska. It's been testy a few times between us, but it's always a good game and there is mutual respect between the teams.

But I think we had learned a lesson the night before. Even though the DC's took leads of 2-1 and 6-4 we kept putting on the pressure, scoring in every inning through the fifth. After the third we shut down the DC's until garbage time in the sixth and final inning when they scored two to make the game seem closer than it was (final score was 11-8).

The statement play came in the fourth. The DC's had a couple on with one out, and their next hitter hit a line drive out to Bruce in LF. The runner on second strayed only a few feet off - not even half way. But Bruce unleashed a fierce strike to G covering second, and the guy was toast. The old 50 year old legs don't react quick enough and Bruce simply nailed him. It shook up the DC's, and as I said didn't score again until the last inning.

In fact they shouldn't have scored then either. Mark Hayes of the DC's had the audacity to try to go first to third on Bruce's arm in that frame and he nailed a strike again - this time it even was down on the bag where Hayes was sliding head first and D took the throw and punched him out on the head. Alas the umpire, who initially called him out, changed his tune for some reason, and overruled himself. But we all know what truly happened, and the rest of the league better take note not to run again on Bruce.

The hitting was balanced as it often is when you score almost every inning. Bruce led the way at the plate too with two doubles among three hits. Gene and Chopper both went 3-3 with a double, and Haz had three RBIs on a two run single and a sac fly. A bunch of us had two hits, and I won the entertainment award with a slow motion slide into third that set up Haz' run scoring single. Perfect form, I might add, and my first ever on turf.

The fate of the two teams remains forever intertwined now - on the rare occasion when we go down on Sunday, it's important to make a statement the next night, and we did. Not so much to the other team, although it never hurts to hurt Pennini's, but for ourselves and to the softball gods too.

Milestones:
(JFT)
Knight        30 2b (#2)
(Coneheads)
Doc Larry  1250 ab (#3)
Doc Larry  750 h (#3)
Bruce         10 2b (#29)
Bruce         50 h (#33)

Leaky Areolas

Like many English words, there are several meanings to the word areola. For example, did you know that it has two or three other meanings in biology (besides the obvious)?

• Areola (lichen), a round to polygonal part of a surface of a crustose lichen
• Areola (entomology), a small ring of color or gap in wing margin of insects
• Areole, a raised structure bearing spines on cacti

I am going to assume the Orinda softball team named the Areolas is not named after lichen or insects. A cactus part would be kind of cool, but then it would be misspelled. That leaves the obvious:

• An areola is a small colored area of skin, usually around the nipple

So they are named after the female body part that is one of our favorites. In fact it is used to give milk to our babies, so there is a very strong reason for the shape and size of the areola and its permeability, and it is not just there for us to gawk at.

Why do I bring this up? Do I have your attention?

Because in the Conehead game against the Areolas Monday night, their defense was spongy and leaked and it led to two straight Conehead innings of twelve and thirteen runs, and we ran away with the game 28-6.

It was shaping up to one of those manager's nightmare of a game. For some reason our team, despite having won four straight championships in Orinda and eight of nine overall is having trouble getting players on the field. Here is where I thank Bill H and Gerry D for coming to our rescue so we could field a complete team.

We were missing some of our best hitters and fielders, not to mention our rock Joe on the mound. The Areolas are one of those teams that seems better than they play, because it is usually they that cannot get their players to games. But this could have been the night they stood up to us.

Instead it was our players that played out of their minds. Ol' G and Chopper carried a large part of the load. G was 5-5 including a double and a three run homer that capped off our second Conehead inning. Chopper had a bases clearing double in the first Conehead inning, and didn't hit a single - he hit three doubles and a triple.

They each contributed four RBIs but they weren't alone in the one-sided slugfest. Three others had four hits, including Doc Larry and the two Jeffs, and the only thing that kept Derek from a fourth was a semi-intentional walk, and the only thing that stopped Larry C was that he was only up four times and had a sac fly once. Everyone scored and had at least one RBI. Overall, we hit .745 as a team, and although it was aided by the leaky defense and some Conehead hits, we pretty much pummeled the ball all night long.

Our defense in contrast was steady, and Doc Larry pretty much shut down the Areola offense. Gene made a couple of rally-killing running catches in left center and Chuck made a nice charge and throw out on the infield. I don't recall a single error.

As for the Areolas - perhaps they need a name change - the correct plural for Areola is Areolae. Maybe that would stop the leaks.

Milestones:

Chuck        140 bb (#1)

D               40 bb (#13)

D               250 rbi (#15)

Bill             50 h (#32) (YAY!)

The Complete Season

The facts are:

Transdyn did not lose a game in the Spring 2015 season, going 12-0 and 2-0 in the playoffs to capture the regular season and playoff championships, a rarity in team history. In fact we have done it only once since joining the Pleasanton League in 2000. That was Spring 2009, and our record was a relatively pedestrian 8-4. Since 2000 we have now won the playoffs only four times, and the regular season title eight times. Two years ago we were also 12-0, but this is the first time we have put it all together.

Although there is the asterisk of moving down a league, it is a testament to the character and chemistry of this year's edition. To continue the Warriors' theme of these posts, we really never put together a complete game, but we played well enough to withstand every obstacle in our way. Including in the semifinal game, when our usual outstanding defense deserted us.

The other excellent characteristic that we shared with the Warriors was our unselfishness. Adding Brian to our lineup on offense and defense was huge. We added him when it looked like Jason was going to be out for a long time, maybe forever because of his father's health issues. When he came back 'early', we had already added Brian to play SS. It was a lot to ask both to give up the limelight that is shortstop on any team. They ended up sharing it and second base, switching mid-game just about every game, and each made fantastic plays in both positions. Last night's 1-4-3 double play comes immediately to mind - the ball deflecting off of Tom's glove, Jason reacting and changing direction to get it, and make it to second and wheel to throw out the batter running to first.

Mario also had to give up his long standing as the second baseman to allow this to happen, and contributed instead in the outfield. And even was pressed into duty in left field when Bill went down and Tom had to move to the mound. Speaking of which, I am not kidding when I said Tom was the MVP. We have one of the outstanding pitchers in all of Pleasanton in Sir Guy, and Tom stepped into his big shoes, and we never missed a beat. And the guy hit .659 on top of it. And can even cover first on a grounder to first!

And what team strikes out twice in any softball game, not to mention it was the championship game, and wins??? Twice in the first, although we managed to score four runs around them to take a lead we never relinquished. You look at the box score and if you witnessed the games, you saw that we were playing under our abilities just enough to make both games interesting, especially the first.

The Dirtbags are one of those teams whose playoff lineup has no semblance to their regular season lineup. According to their pitcher/coach (who is crankier than Bill after getting a bad call), this is because they never had more than nine of their guys show up for a game in the regular season. No doubt they are the second most talented team yet finished fourth in the standings - but that is an old story, or an excuse. Or maybe this explains our chemistry - we had nine guys miss two or fewer games, and Monty, Paul and Rene only missed more because of work schedules.

At any rate it wasn't our finest hour and we spotted the Bags a 6-1 lead through two. Old nightmares started to creep up my neck - how many times did we not finish in the playoffs? But then it started simply enough, with Jas leading off the fourth with a walk. After an out and a hit, D stepped up and sent one flying to deep right - the right fielder should have caught it but it just kept soaring until it was over his head and two runs were in, and we were on our way. It rattled the Dirtbags, and before you knew it we were up one, and in the next inning D drove in two more with a single, and we made ten runs stand up. We had to withstand a rally in the top of the seventh - ultimately they had the bass loaded down one 10-9 - and Tom induced a pop fly to send the Dirtbags back into the night..

D had an interesting night - he was really a little off and those were his only hits, but clutch is clutch - he led the team in RBIs on the night with those four, and he or his proxy led the team with four runs scored. Jas and Cage were hot all night - Jas didn't make and out going 5-5 with two walks; Cage's only out was a line drive right at the third baseman and he owned one of only three extra base hits.

Load made the catch of the night - diving for a sinking line drive that the home ump correctly called an out. But Marva the other ump got her ego right out there and overruled him, EVEN THOUGH HE DIDN'T ASK FOR HELP. Ultimately, it didn't hurt us at all, as we got the next guy out. But I am pretty sure I would have gone the protest route, because this is clearly not in the rule book.

The second game was pretty routine - the most entertaining part was the Kung Fu Panda pitcher going all Kung Fu in his pitching motion and throwing it flat or flat and short, and the apologizing for it. We basically scored four in the first despite the two Ks, and then scored in every inning but the fourth. We did let up after grabbing a 9-4 lead, and let them creep back to 9-6 before we showed them who's boss by scoring five late runs to finish 14-8, and the celebration was on. Pauly and Heffe led the way with three RBIs each, and Cage went 4-4 with our only extra base hit, a double in the first that was a statement hit - we are going to club the Pandas out of sight.

It will be interesting to discover one thing in the fall, assuming they do bump us up. Was last Fall an aberration when we went 2-8 in the upper league? Or are we really just destined to be the in between team - too good for the lower league, and too old for the upper league. I guess we will probably find out this fall.

But in the mean time relish the season, it was rare, like the Dubs bringing a parade to Oaktown. We will always have that - and two pretty decent shirts - to prove it!

Milestones:
Game 1:
Monty           350 g (#3)
Chopper        50 g (#26)

Game 2:
Cage             450 r (#2)