...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)
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)
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)
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