Sometimes You Just Have To Tip Your Cap

Conehead opponent the Hammers had only one power hitter, and he displayed it in the top of the third on a drive to deep left center. Gene got on his horse and chased it down for the play of the game. As he rounded first and slowed down when the catch was made, the hitter was heard to say "Sometimes you just have to tip your cap."

It was 5-2 and after that shut the Hammer down in the third, the Heads batted around in the bottom half scoring seven to put the game basically away. The Hammers did respond with six in the fourth, but never got closer than 13-8 and the final score was 17-10. Or 16-10 if you believe our book and not the scorekeeper's.

Ol' G was back and let it be known all around. He went 3-3 with a sac fly and a double, and drove in six runs. He managed to drive in three runs with a bases loaded single. Maybe he thought he needed the single for the cycle.

Chopper, in a rare chance batting third with a lot of players missing, made the most of it. He was 4-4 with a double and 3 RBIs. He also made the other play of the day, a leaping catch and snare of a line drive at the hot corner. I swear he got at least three inches off the ground.

Gene continued his torrid start as he and Haze were both 3-3. Da Buddha rounded out the three hit brigade. Lefty was 'only' 1-2 leading off, but walked twice and scored three times. He was generally a nuisance. He had a beautiful opposite field double when the left fielder played him shallow and way over toward center. Joe came out of his early funk with two line drive singles. One player who shall remain nameless hit into two double plays. Someone had to make the outs, and he thinks this makes him a team player.

Milestones:

Chuck        350 h (#1)

Steve         1st Conehead game

Red State

Word association: Pennsylvania is now a red state, and it is also known as the Keystone State, and Red played defense like the Keystone Kops, and so became the State of Red. As in the defense bled all over the field into a sea of Scarlet, and we gave up another one, this time 20-11.

Oddly, Red did make a number of good defensive plays: Al Kidwell made a great running catch in left in the 1st. LT Thompson made an over the shoulder catch in shallow right playing first and had the presence of mind to double off the runner who had taken off. Bob Muegge made a nice stop at first for an out in the third, and Roger Vaverka got up for a line smash off the bat of Dave Peterson at SS in the fifth. And Chuck Breese ran down the same Dave as the latter got caught halfway between second and third on a hit to the outfield and a throw home to Chuck at the plate. The bench screamed at him to run straight at Dave and he was an easy out with a toss to Ernie Spencer at third.

But errors on the routine ones killed us in this game, and Scarlet has too much talent not to take advantage. See the ball, catch the ball, throw the ball - these appear to be foreign concepts to our team. We did lead at one point 8-4, and kept it close for a while, and were only down 15-11 through six. But we gave them a five spot in the bottom of the seventh and they never looked back.

On offense, Randy Crase, Al Kidwell, and Larry Rafferty all had multiple hit games that included an extra base hit. Al led the way with a perfect 3-3, and Larry Fogli was also perfect with 2-2 and a walk.

Next week we will not be playing a team that has the same colored uniforms, so maybe we will not throw the ball at the wrong guys. HA! Blame the uniforms!

Sunday, Sunday

Due to the strange schedule this year, and our doubleheader sweep to start the season, we are alone in first after Opening Day, so the natural order is being followed.

In the opener, we were on first first, before Who's On First. In fact they weren't on first much at all, or second, or third, much less home, as we shellacked them 20-1.

The first three hitters in our lineup went 3-3, and Bruce, Chuck, and Gene joined them with three hits. Pope and D had four RBIs each.

Bruce absolutely scalded the ball all day. Don't tell him, but Joe will tell him we are desperate every week to get him there. Wonder how long til he catches on?

Although there was no official Conehead inning, we batted around in the fourth and scored in every inning. The rout was on after we loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the first, and D blasted a searing line drive single to plate two. Lefty's two out two run triple put the stamp on the breakout second.

Joe held them down until putting D in to finish the game. He even played some 2B, so with Larry filling in at schmiddler and yours truly we had just short of 200 years on the right side of the infield. Suffice to say D tried to get them to pull the ball!

Second game was more of the same, except Notg has added some talent and they scored 10 off us for a final of 22-10. Notg used to be St. Matt's, and then Holy Sox. Does Notg mean Not God? They could have used some divine intervention as, after a 4-4 first we took control with a six run second. When they closed it to 15-7 after four, we batted around in the top of the fifth for another seven runs and it was over.

Randy, Lefty, Pope, D, and Bruce continued their onslaught on the ball, showing why they are in the top six in the lineup. D ended up with seven RBIs on the day, followed closely by Pope with six and Bruce and Gene with five.

But everyone contributed as usual. In the six run second, five straight players drove in runs, Chopper, Bruce, Chuck, Gene and Heffe. In the fifth the same ones but starting with Bruce and adding Larry and Haze so the total was six. Notg's pitcher helped us out as we had eleven walks, including two with the bases loaded.

The schedule includes three holidays (Easter, Mem Day and July 4) and a league bye on Mothers' Day this year. Put that together with a bye we have in early June, and you will be able to go camping many weekends this season. But we do play the next three Sundays, and we get another doubleheader in late June.

Milestones:

Game 1:
Chopper      150 rbi (#4)
Haze           30 bb (#7)

Game 2:
Haze           200 h (#6)
Gene           350 ab (#9)
Randy         10 bb (#14)

Plan X?

I had a co-worker at a job I held for two plus years ending a couple of years ago. It was a 'start-up' although it begs the question of whether a company can call itself a startup after ten years. It seems like any 'starting' would have been 'up' by then.

The company had great ambitions to revolutionize the Building Energy Management Industry mostly with smoke and mirrors.  He and I were in a small group with one other person who was responsible for connecting devices to our system - the one thing we had the concrete ability to do. It was stressful in that we had to do all the work remotely with someone else's eyes, ears, and hands who generally speaking did not have the skill set to accomplish the task at hand. And - we were laden with about 65 projects each all at one time.

All this is my usual long-winded way of saying that he and I and the other guy had each others' backs many times, and it created a bond between us.

Why is this relevant? Well, he moved on to a company called Workday, the company that sponsors our last opponent (Workday Plan B). Turns out he played for them until this year, but decided to do something else with his Tuesday evenings; he said he would be a sub. We played them last week, and I sent him a message through another friend on their team that I fully expected to see him out there. And do you know what? He didn't show. I won't name him, but his initials are KD (Warriors fans, not that KD), and he goes by the nickname Kibbles (I know, with a nickname like that who would show??).

Workday Plan B needed the other KD, it turns out, because they only had eight players to start the game and finished with just nine. But it wouldn't have mattered. We took them apart, 18-1, and it wasn't that close. Makes you wonder, what was Plan A?

It was the usual assortment of good, timely hitting and good defense, and a porous opponent. After three straight fly outs to left to end the first, we exploded for eight in the second and the rout was on.

Mario had a game - he went 3-3 with four RBIs. Tom had them off balance all game and went 3-3 himself, as did Jay. The latter and Cage had two doubles each. Bert continued his quest for a home run in every game with a two run bomb.

Back to the drawing board - Plan C?

Milestones:

Cage        140 2B (#1)
Mario      250 rbi (#7)
Mario      350 h (#10)

Red Burst

Red's manager, Larry Rafferty, is a mild mannered guy. When we blew a seven run inning in the top of the ninth, he did not utter a single negative word to the team. He is a credit to managers everywhere.

On the way home however, I happened upon a rebroadcast of the great "Playoffs" meltdown post game comments by the great Jim Mora. Here is how he would have seen our ninth inning (edited for your enjoyment):

"Well, I’ll start off by saying this: do not blame that game on the coach, OK? I don’t care who you play — whether it’s a high school team, a junior college team, a college team — much less an Creaker team. When you make errors and walk guys and don't hit in clutch situations— you ain’t going to beat anybody I just talked about. Anybody. All right? And that was a disgraceful performance in my opinion. We threw that game. We gave it away by doing that. We gave them the friggin’ game. In my opinion, that sucked. Ah. You know? Holy crap! I don’t know who the hell we think we are when we do something like that. Unbelievable. And we’ve still got twenty games left, so there’s no telling how many we’ll have. That’s pitiful! I mean, it’s absolutely pitiful to perform like that. Pitiful!"

It doesn't quite come off on the written page so here is a link:

http://jimmoraplayoffs.com/rant

But, luckily, we have Larry, not Jim Mora, and there is a lot of Creaker season left.

The headline is Royal came back with a 10 run ninth to upend Red, 19-16. We had been in control ever since taking our first lead 6-5 in the bottom of the third. We held Royal to two runs in the middle six innings, but failed to build an insurmountable lead as we only were up 16-9 going into the ninth.

We were not without highlights, on offense or defense. LT Thompson hit two bombs for a double and triple, and three RBIs. The bottom half of the order (Al Kidwell, Tony Gorgone, Howard Davis, Larry Fogli, Bob Muegge, Bill Marthinsen, Chuck Breese, and Larry Rafferty) put together a one out five run fourth to give us a (not permanent) cushion at 11-5. Kevin Kane, Rich Brown, LT, Al, Muegge, and Coach Larry all had three hits.

In those middle innings our defense discovered itself. Roger Vaverka made several stops up the middle on one hop shots (he knows just when to close his eyes) for outs, and shortly after one of them we turned a rover to second to first DP. Rich caught all three outs one inning. Kevin in RC made a fine running catch on a smash up the middle. It was a game saver at the time. And Larry F made a great backpeddling grab on an eighth inning blooper to shallow right to seemingly put Royal away.

But it was not to be. Every blooper and bleeder Royal hit in the ninth found grass or a bad hop and you know the rest. They were gracious enough to give me a post-game Guinness so I am not bitter.

Much.

Beat Red

As Bob Muegge said after the game, Red had Navy right where we wanted them - and then he threw the first pitch. Red struggled at the plate all morning, and faltered a few times in the field and fell to the Navy team 16-6.

It started out with a bad sign in the top of the first. We had one on on a walk and our number three hitter up (not mentioning any names but the initials are JK). He promptly hit a popup into a double play. We then didn't get our first hit until Tony Gorgone singled to lead off the third, and subsequently scored our first run. But we put up zeroes in six of the nine innings - not the way our Coach drew up the Plan. In the mean time, Navy scored in every inning, even though they never got more than three runs in any single inning.

The one highlight came in the top of the sixth when Jerry Ginochio came up with the bases loaded and two outs and plastered the ball down the left field line to clear the bases. He was singled to third but then Larry Rafferty was robbed on a great catch in left center on a sinking line drive. It was one of a number of great defensive plays by the Seadogs.

But there is hope - this is what the losers always say - it's early and the season is just getting started.

Randy Crase, Roger Vaverka, Bill Marthinsen, and Larry Fogli had two hits apiece to lead the team. On defense, Kevin Kane made a nice running catch and Muegge was off the mound like a cat to get an out on a dribbler in front of the plate. We did turn one double play.

Sometimes a Great Notion

From 1980 to 1988, MLB kept a statistic called the Game Winning RBI, defined as the run driven in by a hitter that put his team ahead to stay - the team never trailed after that run.

Of course this meant if you drove in the first run of the game in the top of the first and your team ended up winning 15-2 or 9-8 and never was tied or behind, you got the stat. Which pretty much made it irrelevant, and they discontinued it in less than a decade.

Sadly, I programmed it into my home grown stats program at that time, and I never took it out. I considered removing it entirely, or changing it to track reached base on error (which is more useful to a team), or some other stat, but being lazy be nature I never modified it. And besides, we had years of tracking it on my teams!

But - once in a while, the original intent of the stat, which was basically to track walk-offs, is actualized in a game and tonight was the perfect example.

Derek strode up to the plate, having gone from down on himself after his first at bat, to mild self-satisfaction when he hit a scorching double in the 5th, to climb the heights in the bottom of the seventh. He came up with the tying run on second, and the winning run on first and blasted a ball off the pole in deep right center and we had our first win of the year, 16-14. I think it was still rising when it hit the pole. It felt real good after going down 6-5 the week before in a game we should have cruised through.

He had plenty of help. Berto hit a three run blast of his own in the first to start our scoring, and went 4-4. Jason was a nuisance on the bases also going 4-4. Jeremy made the most of his ABs, with a double, sac fly and reaching on an error to plate 3 RBIs. Plus he made a great catch in LC filling in for Cage. Heffe ignited our six run catch up inning (with two outs and no one on) and our game winning rally with nine hop singles up the middle.

And you don't come back from down 12-3 after 3 1/2 innings without some stellar defense. We turned three double plays, a 1-6-3, 6-4-3, and 4-6-3. Those guys up the middle are our strength. And Tom pretty much slammed the door on his teammates from another league, another time, after they came out of the chute on fire: Helped by the double plays, he only allowed two runs in the last three innings.

It was a great team win and put us back on the map in the early going. Onward next week.

Milestones:
3/28
Jas          300 r (#6)
Monty    450 h (#6)

4/4
Coop      1450 ab (#1)
D            60 2b (#4)
Chopper 100 rbi (#19)