The Cure

I finally figured it out.

As you may remember if you didn't will yourself to forget, the Coneheads have scored five or less in four of our five losses in the Sunday Walnut Creek league, and only seven in the other. In the last couple of them, there is a pattern for the next Orinda game the following night: Smash the opponent.

Case in point, Sunday we lost to Big Feet 10-4, and then went out Monday and destroyed the Areolas 27-12 (never mind the Areolas had only eight players and they are one of the worst teams in the league, nor the fact that Big Feet is much improved this year - go with me here).

So beginning this weekend, we will convene (somewhere) and find a pickup game, in which we will suck, and then come Sunday's doubleheader, we will resemble the team that hasn't lost five games in a season since 2007. And by the way never six in the 13 years I have been on the team.

See how easy that was?

As it is, not much to say about Sunday's debacle, unless you count Ol' G having one of those inspiring defensive innings in the second, when he picked up one tough hop grounder and then started a slick 4-11-3 double play on the next one. Or really reaching, Pope, who never seems to slump with the rest of us, going 3-3 and Chauncy 2-2.

That's about it.

Monday was an entirely different story. Again, granted, the Areolas are not exactly world beater when they have a full squad, which they never do. But we were slashing line drives all over the field, and everyone got into the act. We had three almost Conehead innings, 9, 8,and 7 runs, in the third fourth and sixth respectively. We even had a defensive meltdown in the bottom of the third and let the A's close it to 12-8. Then we responded by outscoring them 15-4 the rest of the way.

Pope, Ol' G and Heffe led the way with four hits apiece. Pope's included the grand slam that unofficially put the game away early as the score advanced from 3-1 to 7-1 in one at bat. G continued to rake as his hits included a double and a triple.

They were followed by Bruce, David, Chuck, Chopper and Hazel with three knocks each. Chris overcame the razzing he was getting from his kids in the bleachers by blasting a towering two run homer to center-left center. Didn't slow down his offspring though. I think he has taught them well. Never let up.

There was not much to do on defense, as the Areolas mostly only managed to score when we gifted them a base here and there. We just had the one bad inning, and the three they tacked on in the last inning were mostly the product of indifference.

A great start at 4-0 or 5-0 depending on whether we make up the Bronco forfeit. We have a week off to prepare for a big battle with the worst team in the league, the Walk-Ons, before our showdown with the Old Scouts.

Milestones:
Monday:
Lefty        30 sf (#1)
Bruce       100 h (#16)

Sunday:
Larry        1450 ab (#3)
Ol' G        70 2b (#10)

The New State of Head

Once upon a time, there was a nice little recreational softball team called the Coneheads. The opposition feared the Coneheads greatly, because they had this crusty old codger of a pitcher who threw a nasty curve ball that no one could hit. And they played defense better than most teams. And mostly, because, with a lineup consisting of consistent singles hitters and a few terrifyingly hard hitters, the Coneheads had this penchant to throw together innings of ten or more runs, totally demoralizing the bad guys.

This year it is something different, but just as effective. It is simple - win each inning and you will come out ahead. We have won or tied fifteen of nineteen innings in which we batted (skipping seventh innings where we had won the game before our at bat).

Monday's game against the Waitlisters was a crisp well played game between two of the best teams in the league. We used to beat them all the time, but about five or six years ago they loaded up with young guys and became much more competitive. They've defeated us in the regular season and knocked us out of the playoffs but we have returned the favor more often than not.

In this game we jumped on them for a half-Conehead inning in the first. Six of our first seven hitters got a hit, and Ol' G had the biggest, a two run single. In the second, we took their counter-punch; They put up six to take an 8-5 lead. We kept it close and were trailing 10-9 going into the bottom of the fifth. A few hits, a sac fly, and Gene came up when we had just gone ahead 11-10. He hit a liner that got between the outfielders and it was off to the races. His triple was the knockout blow as it turned out. Even though he died at third, all they could muster in response was a one run top of the sixth. When Chris took a grounder up the middle in the seventh, and turned it into a 6U-3 double play, it was over and the Good Guys won.

All this without the curve meister on the mound; Larry did a nice job keeping the Waitlisters waiting and listing. And without two of our best players in Bruce and D. A good win.

The top of the lineup featured four guys with three hits; Lefty, Chris, Pope (with his daily home run blast), and Ol' G. David with his three continued to threaten Chris' lock on rookie of the year. Gene also contributed a double as did Chopper among their pairs of hits. Besides the slick DP to end the game, for the defensive highlight, Larry shook off some early fielding trouble to snare a hard come backer that nearly knocked him over but he made it into a force out at second.

We stand at the top at 4-0 alongside defending champs and arch-rival the Old Scouts, looking to win the next couple to prepare for our showdown with them July 16th. Not to look ahead but we should take care of business against the Areolas and the Walk-ons, who have one forfeit-win between them (did I jinx us?).

Milestones:
Larry       450 g (#4)
Gene        110 2b (#4) (passed Muggsy)
Haze        10 sf (#24)

Will The Real Coneheads Please Stand Up?

Two nights:

Sunday, lose 5-4 to the Slammers, hitting .321 as a team. We actually had lost to them once long ago, going back to 2007. Led that game 7-6 going into the seventh only to lose 8-7. But still.

Then Monday, the same guys put up 17 and win 17-12 over an improved Warthogs team.

Sunday, one guy had two hits (Chopper never misses - his two run triple in the first was our game highlight as it turns out). Monday, only two didn't get at least two, and one, Larry tied for the team high three runs scored.

Sunday, we scored three in the first to take a commanding lead, and then scored two the rest of the game. Monday, we scored three in the first and then added on at least two in every inning until the game was already decided in the seventh.

Both games were most un-Coneheadlike. The Conehead inning was nowhere to be found, but I will take scoring in almost every inning.

There are no more highlights from Sunday.

Monday, Pope led the way with a two run homer in the first, and five RBIs overall. But he had plenty of help - D slashed rocket line drives four times down the right field line. Haze had a brilliant drive down the third base line for a double among his three hits. Welcome back Ol' G - he had four hits. Chuck and Heffe joined the three hit club, and Joe found his stroke with two hits and a walk.

We will need everything we've got as we take on the Waitlisters Monday. Early battle for first place with the Old Scouts.

(Sunday) Milestones:
Heffe        200 g (#3)

(Monday) Milestones:

Heffe         1700 ab (#2)

Larry         650 r (#3)

Chopper    600 ab (#16)

Bruce        30 2b (#21)

Hazel        100 r (#24)

Bruce        250 ab (#24)

Bruce        150 h (#24)

Bruce        100 r (#25)

Jump Down, Spin Around, Pick a Bale of Cotton

This is us playing out the season (we are Steve Martin in The Jerk), no rhythm, kinda clutzy:

Opening

This is us after our games Tuesday night, humming to the beat:

Closing

We went through this season kind of lost and overmatched. We could hear the music but we could not dance. But then Tuesday night Gregg hit a three run bomb in the first inning, and everything changed. Note how smooth Steve Martin is by the end of the Jerk - that was us Tuesday night.

In Game one against Pleasanton Auto Mall, it was the offense. After Greg's bomb, we put up three more hits - by Bert, Bo (his first of nine on the night - a perfect 9-9), and Hama, and then a bases loaded walk to Heffe, and two fielder's choice RBIs to finish up 6-0.

And that was just the beginning. The next two innings produced four and 13 runs, almost all with two outs. Brian used his speed to steal a run in the second. He singled, took second on a deep fly by Gregg, and raced home from second on a fly out to the warning track by Bert. Then we had no one on and two outs, but singles by Bo, Hama, Heffe, Coop, a walk to JT, and another hit by Monty made it a four run inning and a 10-0 start.

But that was just the middle. After PAM put up five, Jason singled, and Gregg got him to third with a single and Bert again hit a sacrifice fly. Now there was one on, one in, but two outs. Again, Bo, Hama, and Heffe singled, this time it was Coop that walked, and then there were consecutive hits by JT, Monty, Cage, Jason, Brian (the only extra base type, a double), Gregg, Bert, and Bo and Hama again, and suddenly it was 23-5. Only Heffe getting robbed by PAM's center fielder on a little looper prevented it from continuing, or we might still be up at bat.

Game over, a couple innings later, 25-11. See you, Pleasanton Auto Mall.

Even though defense highlighted the second game there were some fine fielding in the first. Bert speared a hot liner at third in the second. Brian, Jason and Heffe turned a slick 6-4-3 double play in the third. Hama played really good defense from the mound, hustling to cover second a couple of times for force outs, enabling the middle infielders to play deep and extend their range.

The defensive highlight of that game though, was an alert Jason taking a force out throw on a come backer to Hama and throwing to third base to get the lead runner trying to get there. Better be alert with our middle infield.

In the second game, we started remarkably similar, but instead of Gregg it was Bert with the three run home run in the first to start the scoring. We added on seven in the second. Not to be matched by Bert, Gregg went yard again for three runs - this one must have landed at the Hopyard Brewery across the parking lot from the ball yard. We never looked back up 11-2 at that point and finished it 14-7.

The defense featured Cage throwing out two runners trying to advance (and I think Gregg had one also).

But the ESPN highlights awaited us at the end of the game. With one out, the BPO hitter smashed a liner headed to left field. Jason leaped as far as I have ever seen him, and took away the hit.

Not to be outdone, when the next hitter blasted a nearly identical shot, but toward right, Brian came out of nowhere and grabbed that one. Game over, Cotton is ours. Talk about your exclamation point, this was double !!

Bo was on fire, as stated was 9-9. Gregg was a one man wrecking crew, with 10 RBIs on seven hits, and had both game winners. Hama, Jason, and Brian each also only made two outs on the night. Contributions came from the bottom of the lineup too - Coop and JT had but one hit each but managed to drive in nine runs.

It was a sweet end to a strange and mediocre season, and shows that the lower division is the appropriate place for us as a team. We got great performances from our team, but both games were very competitive. Hopefully we will be placed in the right place come fall.

Milestones:
5/22
None

5/29
None

6/12 Game 1
Heffe       150 bb (#1)
Jas           350 r (#6)
Hama      400 ab (#13)

Game 2
Coop       450 g (#2)
B             150 h (#16)

White Beats the Heat and Teal, 21-9

There is one way to beat the curse of the first. White started out with six straight hits in the top of the first, and went up 5-0. The key is to add on, and White didn't let up the rest of the game, winning 21-9 in a heat shortened seven inning game.

It didn't hurt that we very nearly batted around before we made an out. In fact we were just one batter short of what very possibly could have been a Creaker record. I'm not mentioning any names, you will have to check the box score, but when lead off hitter Rich Brown knocked in our tenth run, it was 10 runs in 14 batters in two innings.

Teal never recovered, although they did make a run in the third and fourth, answering our three with seven while we cooled off temporarily, and they cut the lead to 13-8. But when we put up four each in the fifth and sixth, it was all over.

That was also because our pitching and defense took over. Barry made the first great play in the first, a tough come backer that wasn't really at him, but he knocked it down and recovered to get the guy at first. In the second, we had a Mike Saindon to Clay Kallam to Jeff Kravin double play to keep Teal scoreless.

It was the fifth inning that stood out. The first baseman pulled an errant throw in the dirt against his leg, and held on. The ump at first ruled the runner safe, assuming the throw was dropped, but to his credit, reversed his call when he realized what happened. Then Paul Lisi made a huge running catch in left center, and wheeled and threw to Helen Kostoff at second base, who picked up the one hop throw. The same ump wasn't as generous this time - he may have been mugged by his teammates if he called the double play. However, that just set up a bases load two out confrontation between pitcher Barry Gronenberg and Gerry Dacey, one of the best hitters in Creakerdom. It was the biggest moment of the game. Dacey fouled a couple off and worked a full count, and then watched as Gronenberg hit the very corner of the board, and 'thwack' - there was no doubt it was strike three.

Finally in the last inning we showed off our outfield. Lisi ranged far into right center to peg a dying quail for one out, and for the exclamation point, Brown ran down the last out in the right-right center gap.

White plays best when we spread our hits around and everyone gets into the act. We hit .733 as a team in this game. Brown and Saindon led the way with four hits. Right behind them were Lisi, Mike Guerrero, Dave Rose, and Kravin with three hits each. Lisi, Guerrero, and Saindon each had a triple. And then there was our secret weapon, Howard Davis, aka Superman. He also had three hits (but in just three ABs), and deserves separate mention because after the first two he hurt his ankle and played the rest of the game on one leg. What does he do? He comes up and slaps his third hit.

Lisi, Guerrero, and Kravin, led the way with three RBIs. Everyone but me (somehow) scored a run.

Lastly, of note, Gronenberg and Dave Siegel held a very good hitting Teal team under ten runs, quite an accomplishment.

We're Baaaaack! Part II

Speaking of back, the long off-season is finally over for the Orinda Coneheads. Except of course that, outside of Ol' G and Larry and Mark and Bruce and now David (ok maybe not the exact same team), we have all been playing in Walnut Creek for two months.

Still, there's nothing like opening night in Orinda, it's where this team started, and has arguably had the most success. Maybe one evening it will even be warm, and we will be reminded of the days of sitting around on the middle school field in Moraga after the game listening to Chuck's Louie CDs and Mugsy's ("all right!") musings.

As it is, it is usually cold at the still new fields at Wilder, but they are such a joy to play on, we don't care. And Monday night we were not cold, St. Mo's was.

I will have to look it up - I think most of our 'they have our number' losses to St. Mo's have been on the Sports Field, particularly field two over there. I just remember them hitting bad hop gappers over and over in that outfield.

But we play better defense on turf than they do. And it made a difference Monday night as we won big 18-7.

St. Mo's was missing some of their big hitters, but that excuse doesn't fly. We were missing D and Lefty, two of our best.

This was a story of about four moments, if you grant me a little poetic license since one was a team rally.

The first was newcomer Chris stepping up after leadoff man Bruce drew a walk to start the bottom of the first. He promptly deposited the ball between the outfielders and it was off to the races. He rounded third about when they retrieved the ball. He thus got the game winning RBI in back to back nights since we never trailed. He also ignited us and we followed up with six hits and a sac fly to score five more, and it put St. Mo's in catch up mode.

However, they did rally for four in the top of the fourth, and suddenly 8-4 did not seem like a safe lead. Then the second moment - they were threatening more, and their best hitter hit a smash into the left center gap. However, Willie Mays Bruce Reed tracked it down and made the over the shoulder catch.

The third moment was a second mini-Conehead inning as we plated seven again in the bottom of the fifth. It put St. Mo's away. Chris and Chuck had doubles in that rally. The two of them led the team with four RBIs apiece.

And the final moment was, appropriately enough, the last play of the game. Chuck, on the mound for his second save in two nights (might be a stretch with leads of 13-2 and 18-5 when he came in), stretched high for a smashed line drive. And just like that, it was over.

Three hits from Pope, Ol' G, Chuck, and Chopper should have, but there was a slow runner that got forced at second on his hard line drive 'base hit' to center. Payback's a bitch, I have it on good authority that the same thing happened to that guy in his Creaker game Tuesday morning.

Milestone:
Haze         200 h (#22)

Oh, and Gene tied a major league record, getting all three putouts in right center in the second inning.

We're Baaaaack!

Just in time for the Orinda Summer league to start, the Coneheads have started hitting and catching the ball. We won Sunday night in Walnut Creek over Notg 13-2, and Monday night we thumped St. Mo's 18-7 against a team that has had our number at times.

Sunday produced a quintet of heroes in a rout. Two were expected and three had a surprise angle if not outcome.

Ol' G (#1) finally brought his new cleaned up shoulders to start his softball season in June - I heard in Vegas they were betting on whether Gary Middleton or Madison Bumgarner would return to the field first - and G won by two days.

Well, G seems to have taken his time off perfecting the bloop hit, and he dropped three of them on the unsuspecting Notg outfielders, as the scouting report said slashed line drives to center-center right (by Monday's game in Orinda he had straightened this 'flaw' out, and hit several line drive hits).

Second on the list was Lefty (#2), who made sure he saw every second of the Warriors pre-game coverage before showing up late in the first inning. But once he jumped in the batter's box, he hit like one of those guys who could jump out of bed and get a hit. At the time we thought the score was 3-2 after Notg had answered our three with two in the bottom of the first (it turned out to be a rumor and it was 3-1). Craig came up with two outs and two on and proceeded to bring in a run with a line drive to right. Knight and Pope followed with singles and we were in business. But that was not the end of his night.

In the second we had a three ring circus of defensive gems. First the first baseman snagged a high hot line drive over his head. There were rumors he actually got off the ground.

Which was too bad because then his old legs got caught in the quicksand and he couldn't quite tag out the runner on first, who had taken off thinking it was a hit, but turned back and dove for the bag.

That just set it up for Lefty. He was catching to ease into the defense because he had arrived late. The opposition had a female in the lineup - it looked like she could hit line drives over the infield, but in this case she fouled one back into Lefty's glove. He caught it, it popped out, and for what seemed like a while, he thought about letting it go so the woman could have a second chance. Then instinct took over and he grabbed it. No date for you Craig. The final out came when Chopper (#3) made a great throw from right field to third base to nail a runner, trying to flaunt conventional baseball wisdom - never make the third out at third.

But Lefty's real contributions came on two or three great running catches when he returned to his traditional position in right center. Rally killers, all.

Chauncey (#4) had only one hit, but he made it count. He came up with the bases loaded and two outs in the top of the third, and promptly unloaded them with a blast over the right center fielder's head. It turned a 7-2 game into 11-2 and it was over at that point.

Pope (#5) had yet another great game, going 3-3 with a double and a solo HR and three RBIs, but we are so accustomed to his performances he only got fourth billing here. Sorry Greg!

Keep tuned for Monday night's Orinda opener recap.

Sunday Milestones:
5/6
Chuck         650 ab (#1)
Haze           450 ab (#5)
Johnny        50 g (#19)

5/20
Gene           150 g (#7)

6/3
Pope            20 2b (#11)
Gene           400 ab (#8)

Gray Lives Matter

It has been suggested that I might be a little long-winded when we win a game. So with that in mind I will be try to be brief this week. Because we lost!

Today's story at Field 5 was that there was a Ray Mariadaga sighting. Ray brought margaritas, chips, salsa, guacamole, a variety of cheeses (they were even labelled!), and dished it out to one and all. Everyone who knows Ray feels a strong personal connection. He never forgets anyone. The topper was this: I haven't seen Ray in a couple of years; when I was saying goodbye and thanking him for the spread, he said, I'll be hearing from him soon, August 2nd (my birthday). Who remembers everyone's birthday? I'm lucky if my kids remember mine!

So today, I nominate Ray to become St. Ray of the Creakers, mentor to all, holy to everyone. I'm serious, I love that guy.

In other news, Gray beat White 23-16. Apparently I gave Gray bulletin board material in our last game, a White win I might add, and they took it out on us. They had contributions up and down their lineup (I think Steve Suchon and Les Reams had about eight hits between them), and we countered with uncharacteristic walks, uncharacteristic errors, and general malaise at the plate. We made a late run, closing to the final score after the top of the eighth, held them in the bottom, but couldn't mount a final comeback in the ninth.

Mike Sainden had a perfect 5-5 thing going. Mike Guerrero was 4-5. David Partridge had three knocks including a double. Barry Gronenberg and Clay Kallam were the others with three hits. In his return from the DL Charlie Uhlman had two including a booming triple. Partridge, Coach Neil Henry, and Paul Lisi all made great running catches. Guerrero had our ESPN highlight, diving to his left to grab a low liner. He even got dirty.

The rest was waiting for Mariadaga's Margaritas. Live long and prosper, Ray.