Underdog!

There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!

Sing with me...Ooh ah Ooh ah Ooh ah Ooh ah Ooh ah Ooh ah

Speed of Lightning! Roar of Thunder!

Well we certainly Kapsched off a challenging season last night. On April 30th we stood at 0-3-2, the arguably worst start in the 20 years we have played in Pleasanton. Then we totally screwed the pooch - and I am not talking about Underdog yet - by winning three of the last four to greatly reduce the odds of moving down for fall season.

There was only one thing to do. Blow a 13 run lead in our last game, sneak into the last playoff spot (and only by tiebreaker), and then take out the first place and second place teams. And get Cotton, or whatever Polyester they are passing for Cotton these days.

And so it came to pass. Never fear, Underdog is here.

In the first game, we were playing ho-hum, looking like a fourth place team just happy to be here. But the East Bay Long Strokers never took advantage and were only up 7-3 after four innings. And then - The Spark Plug came into the game. Yours truly got a hit! to start the top of the fifth and then eight more guys got singles sandwiched around a Gregg Sac fly and a walk to Rusty and a pop-up, and before you knew it I was up again, and this time I took a bases loaded walk. The other RBIs went to Bert, Pauly, JT, and two to Hama. B followed my walk with a two run single and we were in double digits for the inning. When the smoke cleared we were up 13-8 and never looked back. Up two in the bottom of the seventh, Tom induced a bases loaded pop up to the catcher to end the game.

The defensive highlight of the game was Coop laying out to take away a hit in the first. It held them to one run and kept it from getting away early.

In the Championship round. Tom owned SOP. He was squeezed by ump Ron all night long - the strike zone was about 8-10 feet. Very dangerous with a team like SOP, but somehow Tom kept them from scoring until the fifth inning.

He was greatly aided by our defense, which found its way to reverting to our former stellar defense. B was a vacuum, including ranging far to get three assists in the bottom of the second - he might deserve 'Finals MVP' even without consideration of his 7-8 hitting performance.

Cage turned a potential tag up and go to third fly out into a double play, throwing behind the indecisive runner, and Hama got a quick tag on him. JT turned one way and then adjusted to turn the other way on a twisting blast to right to end the fourth. Tom even got Donny M to strike out when he induced him to yank strike three foul by a mile.

We knew SOP would eventually score, and they put up five in the sixth to make it a one run game. It is our usual nightmare with those guys - they come storming back late and rally fiercely to smother us.

But not last night. Coop started the seventh with a ten foot 'bunt' hit - Donny tried to pounce in it from behind the plate but he had no chance to get the speedy Coop. And then up strode our secret weapon, JT. He blasted a gapper to left center, and Coop flew around the bases and JT ended up on third. The the top of the lineup took over and we added four more runs on hits by B, Gregg and a two run single by Rusty.

In the bottom of the seventh now down six again, SOP had no answer. Tom got a comebacker for out number one, Gregg came in hard to catch a pop fly to shallow left. And even though Donny got on when his ball took a no-hop on Hama, the next batter obliged by giving Hama a do over. This time he fielded it and fire to D at first and it was ballgame, season and thank you for the Maroon shirts!

There were two other keys to success. Albert took over the catching chores in the last inning and was a calming influence on Tom after he had had a wild streak (mostly due to the fucked up strike zone) in the sixth.

The other was Rusty - he came riding in on his white horse and saved the day (night) with his solid defense in right center and outstanding hitting. He only had five official times at bat, but he added two walks and a sac fly, and two of his hits were a double and a triple at key times. The triple led off the second and when he scored it provided the only run in the first three innings by either team. The  double kicked off scoring in the five run fourth that allowed us to take control of the game. Without him, missing Bo in the playoffs would have been a much larger burden.

And special thanks to Hama and Pauly - Hama wanted to bag it because of his "KD" calf injury but allowed me to guilt him into playing, and played great defense and hit like, well like Hama. Pauly had a pretty severe limp from a base running injury but gutted it out to the end.

Very rewarding to win like this - I don't think we ever have before as the four seed, and it was totally unexpected, which makes it twice as sweet. And we sent SOP off into oblivion as they are expected to fold up their tent after this season.

See you in a few weeks. Maybe our next uniforms should be a cape with a "U" on it!