You Win Some, You Lose Some, Parts I and II

I'm trapped.

I'm like the rat in the cage, or is it hamster, the one who has that wheelie thing and keeps spinning and spinning on it, never getting anywhere. I start writing the blog, and it just spins and spins and spins.

This is because I have been spoiled all year, and most of my teams have been racking up the wins hand over fist. JFT sweeps the playoffs after going 12-2 in the regular season. Transdyn does even better: 12-0 and also on the way to sweeping through the playoffs. The Coneheads headed into the playoffs with four straight Orinda championships under our belts and on the heels of an inspiring win over Cal Bronco in the last week in which we broke out with 19 runs in the first inning.

Then it all unraveled in one lousy week, which since has stretched into two or three. I don't know how to write about losing. The journalist in me wants to single out the reasons we lose - just as I highlight the individual performances that give rise to our wins. But this is no good for team chemistry, who wants to read about their failures? And besides, you may not believe this but some of them are my own failures and I would have to take responsibility for those. Now we can't have that can we?

The one single thread in common between the change of fortune of the two teams, Transdyn and the Coneheads, is a common frustration: We have not had a full team on the field for either team for much of the last month. There are some injuries: Both teams lost the starting pitcher, Joe breaking his hand (and valiantly playing through the JFT playoffs) and Sir Guy with his degenerative knee condition. Reggie has been out for the year with his Tommy John surgery (and yes we miss you Sting), and there have been some personal issues that put softball in its place in perspective. But there have also been no-shows and people committing to playing and then not showing up. I know that not everyone has the level of commitment of those of us that are complete softball sluts, but it is surprising on teams this successful when there are so many no-shows.

Transdyn was bumped up to the higher D "Upper" league after going undefeated in the spring season. We are stuck in limbo land - too good for the lower division but perhaps not good enough for the upper. Or are we? Playing shorthanded, we started out the Fall League with a win, and even though we have lost three straight since, it has been by a total of nine runs. A player or two that missed the game shows up, and then we don't have three guys playing out of position, and just perhaps the result is different. So there is hope but we need to field a complete team.

The Coneheads - well let's face it, the playoff championship streak had to end some time. Just not like this: five projected starters missing the playoffs. You could feel the fall from grace in the air - it felt heavy like the hot muggy (for California) weekend weather for the playoff tournament. After winning the opener against the hapless Reds. we melted down in the Waitlister game. We all saw what happened, bad pitching and no hitting is an awful combination. Even with our two-inning wildness streak by three different pitchers, we only allowed nine runs, but on our end we scored six in the first two innings and then were shut out the rest of the way. What sucks is that the three long time rivals that more often than not have won the tournament (The Heads, Scouts and Cal Bronco) have cemented a mutual respect 'club' in this league and we all went down to the Waitlisters this year, who do nothing but nitpick the small stuff and this year at least managed to wear us all down.

You could tell we had no stomach for coming through the losers' bracket on Championship Sunday in our last game against the Broncos. This was just not our year. I can only think of one highlight worth mentioning for the whole day of three games - Gene made an absolutely tremendous catch on a long fly ball to left. He juggled it what must have been five times on the way to the ground and finally corralled the damn ball. It was truly remarkable concentration.

The beauty of softball is that we have the delusion that it will go on forever. There is always a new season and we started the fall season 0-0 like everyone else last Monday. We faced Pat's Bats - who I unapologetically say is not in our class when we are whole. But they beat us last Fall in the regular season and then again in the playoffs to end the Walnut Creek run of four straight championships - so we owed them and we played like it.

Chuck and Randy and a hobbled Lefty managed three hits each and most everyone had multiple hits. But the hero was one Patrick the Knight, son of Greg the Knight, who made his Conehead debut. He stepped up in the top of the third in a 2-2 game with runners on first and second, and promptly pummeled the ball, sending it nearly to Concord, like the shot heard round the world. Only Brandon Crawford hitting a grand slam in his Giants' debut tops this, but he took three ABs to get to that shot.

It went for the game winning RBI as well as it set the tone for the rest of the game. After we had a 14-3 lead in the sixth, Pat's Bats rallied for seven to make it closer, but the end outcome was never in any real doubt. We had the real Pat's Bat.

So there is hope for both teams - but please get back on the winning track for good. I hate losing, I hate having to write about losing, and really hate that damn wheel.

Milestones:
Transdyn
8/4
D            250 h (#12)
Bert        50 h (#35)

8/11
Brian       50 ab (#50)

8/18
D            50 2b (#6)
Pauly      650 ab (#8)
D            400 ab (#12)

8/25
Cage       120 2b (#1)
Monty     80 bb (#4)
Jas          250 r (#7)
Rene       150 ab (#27)

Coneheads
8/15, Game 1
Gene        550 h (#7)
Lefty        150 r (#19)
Haz          150 h (#21)

8/16, Game 2
Chuck      1700 ab (#1)
Ol' G        300 r (#13)

8/16, Game 3
None

8/24
Chuck        900 r (#1)
Chuck        60 3b (#1)

Larry          600 r (#3)

D                450 ab (#17)

Lefty           100 g (#19)Knight (sr)  250 ab (#26)
Bruce         100 ab (#31)

Lucky 19

Ommmmmmm...Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm

This is the sound of Heffe meditating on the playoffs this coming weekend. After Monday's game against the Buddha's Cal Bronco, I'm thinking Zen Buddhism is the way to go. I'm meditating on the number 19.

But first...

Nineteen has been my lucky number since I was nine years old. Long story, but I won two straight bingo games at a resort on family vacation in Estes Park CO, in a room full of a couple of hundred people, on the number I-19. I think I won something like twenty bucks, a huge sum for a nine year old. Boxes and boxes of baseball cards could be bought with such a fortune. Therefore I wear number 19 on almost all my teams. Tony Gwynn, my hero, the master of the 5-6 hole as a lefty, wore number 19. But I'm not superstitious. Much.

Monday night the Coneheads erupted for 19 runs in the first inning. Every game I have to scramble to get enough players, and we are missing many of our best hitters, the rest of the team steps up, and uncorks a huge offensive output. Monday the buzz-saw hit our sometime teammate Buddha's team, Cal Bronco. On paper they should have out-slugged us - they have a veritable murderer's row in the middle of their lineup. They even exploded for their own big inning, a 12 run second, but it was not enough to overcome our great start. We ended the time shortened game (four innings) up 26-17.

Buddha, who plays with our alter-ego teams in the Fall League and in Spring in Walnut Creek, is married to one of my tribe (she's Jewish - does that make them a Bujew family?). This means he loves to suffer. When he talks about facing the Coneheads in the summer, he sounds like he is already beaten, and it is like Henny Youngman talking about his wife ("Take my wife...please!").

Monday he suffered an ultimate indignity. And I am not talking about hitting into a double play to end the first. He later received a walk from Doc Larry, on the mound filling in for Joe. Buddha strained a calf muscle while taking ball four. He had to have a courtesy runner, and invoke the Joe Fuchs rule (runner from home for the batter) his last time up with the game on the line. He smoked it, but right at Gene to end the game. Take my bat, please.

In between there were some highlights and a lot of hitting in the middle of the order. Chopper made a run saving catch - I think is was the inning after the Broncos twelve run outburst, and kept them at two runs in the third, and our lead intact at 23-17. That was as close as the Broncos got. We added on three in the top of the fourth. It should have been more but the Bronco's super star outfielder Patrick _ ran down a blast by Chopper and it limited the damage. However, with so much offense, time was running out in the bottom of the fourth. We shut them down on three easy outs to get the win.

A few more notes about the breakout nineteen run first: Bruce had the defining blow - his three run homer as the third batter of the game set the tone. Haz had two doubles, driving in three. Larry C had a critical at bat - he came up with two outs and four in and hit a two run single. It doesn't seem big now, but it opened the gates, after that we got twelve more two out hits (!), so we had 15 altogether. We may have had a couple of bigger innings but I don't recall ever getting 15 straight two out hits. Definitely need to channel that energy for the weekend playoffs. Ommmmmmmm.

Ol' G and D had perfect 4-4 nights with G driving in four runs. Doc Larry, Bruce and Heffe rounded out the guys with three hits.

Milestones:
Heffe        1500 ab (#2)
Ol' G        400 rbi (#7)
Haz          100 rbi (#23)

Flatheads

The facts:

Coneheads played Waitlisters Monday in a game between two of the four teams tied for first at 7-1 with two games left.

Coneheads for the most part comprise the JFT team that completed a victorious playoff tournament in Walnut Creek over the weekend.

Coneheads came out flat, and got flatter, and then ended in total flatulence losing 10-6.

The lone highlight was a total blast for a three run home run by Ol' G. On another night, I would be waxing poetic about the majestic qualities of his hit. Although a little wind-aided, it was probably the longest ball I have seen Ol' G hit in over 10 years playing together.

Only two others had multiple hits and there were no other extra base hits. While we singled St. Mo's to death the week before, we just died this week.

The good news is that we will be in the upper half seeds for the playoffs; cotton is awarded for the playoffs, not first place in the regular season, and there is no reason to doubt our ability to defend our four straight championships.

Milestones:
Joe          1250 ab (#4)
Gene        900 ab (#9)

It began with a kiss...

...and it ended in a group hug.

I was one of the first to get to the field on Championship Sunday. I wasn't that early, but I was third after Joe and Chuck, twenty minutes before game time. I suppose that is a sign of a confident, veteran team. Next to arrive was Chopper, and he came bursting upon me all smiles with Happy Birthday wishes. He gave me a big hug and then leaned in to kiss me (!). I was struggling, and panicked, and then I made the fatal error - I turned in! I was like the runner going down the line to first, and there was an overthrow but not too far, and he turned in and thought, "Oh shit, I turned in!" And gets tagged out. Well the next thing I know, I got tagged on the lips - and there was some sort of liquid.excretion - I think that qualifies as a French Kiss! It's a good thing we are not homophobic on this bus. Just know that a Golden Retriever has nothing on our Chopper.

But I got ahead of myself, it all started on Saturday morning...

Once the league actually settled on a schedule, the weekend started off with promise of an easy run. Arch-rival Advance Construction went down with a whimper as we slaughter ruled them in five innings 14-2.After Joe set them down scoreless in the first, we scored three with two outs to go up four zip. Bruce had the key hit, a two run double. In the fourth, starting with five straight hits, a mini-Conehead inning erupted for six runs. The highlight spawned a new rallying cry. Buddha tagged up at third on a medium deep fly by our fearless leader, and Chopper led the dugout: "Shake your Buddha, Shake your Buddha!" Great hustle, Scotty scored.

And then we awoke to Championship Sunday. I love the smell of birthday coffee and Cotton in the morning. After we watched Big Feet crush the Crushers in the early game, the Polar Bears overcame Big Feet's hot start and wont and then were gunning for us. They even drew home field advantage - I will never understand why the higher seeded team doesn't get it in each game in the playoffs.

Trouble was brewing. Our rock, Chuck, was hobbling around like the hobbit Bilbo Baggins at his hundred and eleventh birthday party at the beginning of Lord of the Rings. His back was tweaked in a major way. Well, no problem, we have Randy, normally at third for us but a born shortstop, and D plays 3B in most of our Conehead games anyway. We would survive even Chuck going down.

Well, go to the top of the second, still scoreless and Randy, leading off, does the two step shuffle as he hit the ball, and wrecks some muscle in the back of his knee and after gutting it out to make it to first, goes down in a heap, literally. He's done. Now we have to go to Johnny, also a very capable SS, but his hamstring has been tight all weekend.

It's the teams in the losers' bracket that are supposed to come up lame as they play in their fifth game of the weekend. We have had six innings in and we are already deep into the depth chart. The effect was delayed though as Randy kick-started (bad pun) our offense and we put up eighteen runs in the next four innings to win going away 18-4. The hitting was spread out as seven guys went 3-4. Now we got to rest and watch the Polar Bears tire themselves out against Big Feet and then try to beat us twice.

The Polar Bears just kept on getting more batting practice as they dispatched Big Feet. They were hot, hot, hot, and started our game by putting up four in the first against Joe, who by the way, as we know now, pitched all weekend with a broken left hand. By the third it was 7-2, and it seemed like we were the ones who had already played four games. Johnny was tightening up and switched with Knight at schmiddler, and Greg became our fourth SS of the weekend.

And then things started to turn. It started with defense, as it usually does. Bruce was playing shallow against one of the Bears who crushed a ball. At first it didn't seem like Bruce got a good break; this thing was travelling. But he hit his long-stride stride, and somehow glided out to the warning track and reached up and there it was. Runs saved. In successive innings I scooped one errant throw backhanded and then went off the bag for another and tagged the runner coming down the line. Both saved runs. In the top of the fifth Gene went sprawling in a dive to snare a blooper he had no business catching up to. More runs saved. Derek ended an inning falling down and stopping a shot down the line - and provided comic relief as he scrambled all over the bag to tag it while he actually had the ball in his glove. More runs saved.

Our offense had kind of disappeared, but Gene's catch inspired us in the bottom of the fifth. After two were out, Johnny got a hit - he led the team in hitting on the weekend at 8-9, bad hammy and all - and Haz walked to load the bases. Here was Joe's first brilliant move. He sent up Chuck to pinch hit for him. We didn't know if Chuck had any strength to even hit the ball. But he shot the 5-6 hole and two runs scored. When Lefty followed with another run scoring hit, it was suddenly only a 7-5 deficit and we had a shot.

When you come back from behind to take game, there is a moment when you know it's going to happen. It could be a little thing or a big thing. But in this game, it was the Dive in the sixth. A sinking liner up the middle with runners moving, Lefty came out of nowhere and in an ESPN highlight dive, went full length and caught the ball just before it hit the ground. I don't remember seeing another player in all my softball years extend that completely, horizontally. That's when we knew we somehow would not let the Bears extend us to an elimination game.

But it was not to be easy. Both teams went out in the sixth and the Bears in the seventh without scoring. In the bottom half, Chopper started out the rally, as he had all weekend, with a hit. He was 3-3 in this game and was just nosed out by Johnny for the playoff hot hitter award. And he led the team in hitting this year. After a flyout, Buddha and Johnny followed with hits to load the bases. Appropriate as these three were the team hitting leaders for the weekend. Up came Larry who along with Haz sacrificed their time in the lineup to platoon without complaint. He had had two ABs in two games to that point. So what happens? He's up in the most crucial moment in the playoffs to that time. He steps up and gets the Big Hit, a slicing line drive to LC, in the perfect spot to score Chopper and also Gene (running for Buddha) from second with the tying run.

Significantly the Polar Bear outfielder airmailed the throw home to try to get Gene and both runners moved up. This was crucial because hobbler #3, Johnny, was now the runner at third, and it would take a hit or a long fly to score him from third. But now we could put our rabbit Gene in again to pinch run. Naturally, Lefty came up knowing this and tried to hit the ball to Mt. Diablo. Predictably instead it was a very shallow fly ball, but Gene beat the throw anyway, and the Championship was ours.

Those are the highlights we all remember - because it was close, because it was a walk off 8-7 win, because it was the Championship game, because we were dropping like flies, because everyone had their moment. It had been a long time (2009) - and Pinky's or no Pinky's - it was sweet to get the Championship Cotton; it won't go straight to garage rag like the last several runner up shirts.

Milestones:
7/26
Gene       300 ab (#10)
D            100 h (#15)

D            10 2b (#16)

Bruce      50 h (#20)

8/1
D             10 k (#1)
Lefty        250 h (#4)

8/2 G1
Heffe        10 gw (#4)
Joe           150 h (#10)
Chopper   250 ab (#13)

8/2 G2
Knight       400 ab (#5)
Chopper   150 h (#11)