Walk Off the Walk-Ons

The season is half over. The Coneheads were cruising through the first half, not having to face any of the tough teams through four games (although * for Bushwood who forfeited due to the Warriors game five win).

What to do when you are facing yet another weak team while you are on a roll.

Of course, lay an egg, and then have every 50-50 chance go the other way. Like Chauncey's deep gapper running through the fence for a 400 foot ground rule double and their similar ball staying in play for a homer.

Like the fact that the damn soccer people actually managed to remove all the goals from the field of play except one that was tethered to the fence beyond first base, and an errant through lodged up there and took away a force play situation and probably cost us a run or two.

Or the Walk-Ons playing a shmiddler in no man's land in shallow center and about three of us hitting it right to him while trying to hit it anywhere else.

Well life's a bitch and what did we do? We played through the adversity and came out on top with a three run top of the seventh and held on in the home half to walk off the Walk-Ons, 10-7.

The defensive (and entertainment) star of the game was the man on the mound, Doc Sarver. He must have made about eight putouts and assists on pop outs and comebackers he induced, which belies his great pitching, and even covered first on a grounder to first that the baseman tossed low when he was about two feet away and should have stepped on the bag himself.

Pope requested that I only spend about five lines of this post on Chauncey's smash that was the bomb of the game. And then shut it down. He should have known I am way too wordy for that but I appreciate the sentiment. As it was Chauncey got robbed and had to settle for a ground rule double as stated above - it cost him an easy home run trot and cost the team two runs in a tight game.

The other offensive heroics of note included Haze, who was 2-2 including a triple to right. And the capper was Bruce hitting a seventh inning low liner that eluded first the second baseman and then the two right side outfielders and was hit so hard it rolled all the way to the fence (without going under). The two run round tripper proved to be the game winner as Larry walked off the Walk-Ons in the bottom of the seventh.

Next week we are off for the Fourth and then the real season begins with a game against Cal Bronco.

Milestones:

Ol'G         400 r (#9)

Bruce       150 r (#21)

Chauncey 50 rbi (#32)

Who Are The True Gangsters?

I don't want to get ahead of myself here with analogies. The Coneheads, despite another Heady win, 24-7 over Johnny's Gang, haven't really beaten any of the tougher teams in the league, or won anything.

Yet I remember another Bay Area team that started out 18-2 in the fall and ended up winning it all after a couple years off, why when was it, just last Thursday, Dub Nation!

So while we haven't been tested yet, I will take a 4-0 start any time, especially with the way we are pounding the opposition.

Welcome back Chopper! Merely a 4-4 night with the only Conehead yarder and tied with Bruce with four RBIs. And the Chop Swing was in fine form - on one he twisted himself into a pretzel like Popeye in the cartoons and then unleashed the power like he just downed a can of spinach.

He wasn't alone with four hits. Chauncey and Bruce were also perfect 4-4s, the former with two doubles and the latter with a two and a three bagger. Pope also had four hits - and three were extra base knocks. By the way, in case anyone notices, Pope will be sitting on the bench the rest of the season - his last double brought him within one of me on the career list. It's the last and only category I lead this team in and even though you all know how unimportant I think stats are, I just won't have him catching me. Greg - talk to me about always stopping at first or always making it to third - and no getting thrown out trying for a triple.

Randy added to the barrage with the mini-cycle, a single, double and a triple and G matched his three hits. Everyone scored at least once, and everyone had at least one RBI except Charlie, and that was just because they did not want to pitch to him and he walked his last three times up.

Some of it was Johnny's Gang only having three outfielders, and some of it was that they were, well, Johnny's Gang, but most of our hits were drives, and not too many were Coneheads hits.

Bruce and Greg made some nice running catches, but the two best defensive plays did not result in outs. David made a great stop on a smash to third but unfortunately couldn't get a good throw off. Heffe made a great back handed pickup in the dirt but the umpire ruled the runner beat the throw.

Speaking of which -  the ump was so bad that he ended up being possibly the best entertainment in the lopsided game. I can't even go into all the bad calls - but the best line of the night was when he told me, after mixing up the scores in our innings with theirs (right after the JG coach and I agreed on the score right in front of him, I think it was 13-6 at that point), he told me "I'm good at math". In the double header the first week, that ump missed seven calls but they were equally against both teams. If we were not blowing JG out Monday night, it might have been a different headline in this game.

It's just too much fun winning laughers so let's just run the table. OK?

Milestones (I forgot I did this!):

Game 1:
Pope         150 hr (#1)
Pope         160 2b (#2)

Larry        1550 ab (#3)

Larry        900 h (#3)

Ol' G        500 rbi (#6)

Game 2:

Chauncey  50 h (#35)

Game 4:

Heffe        650 rbi (#3)

Pope         800 h (#4)

Bruce       40 2b (#19)

Bruce       100 g (#22)

Chauncey 10 2b (#31)

Chauncey 100 ab (#33)

Dr. StrangeGreenGlove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tie

The good news: The losing streak is over (five games) Yay!

The bad news: there is no winning streak, as we blew a 12-4 lead and tied Royal 12-12.

So I guess I should be happy and learn to love the tie.

Why is it the team that comes back from a large deficit to tie a game rejoices and the team that blows a lead feels like they were sledge hammered to death?

But a tie is a tie. We started off really well, with a five spot in the top of the first (Oh that was it, the Curse of the First!)

All singles, line drives here and there, a balanced attack - just what you want. Royal scored in each of the first five innings but when we put up four more in the top of the fourth, it was looking good at 12-4. Big hits included a triple to right by Tony Gorgone, doubles by Phil Tucker (2 RBIs) and Greg Wilson in the fourth.

But then the magic of Bill Eppinga shut us down in the next three frames. We only managed to get two runners in scoring position in the last three innings. In the mean time, Royal was creeping, and creeping back, but we were still looking pretty good at 12-7 or 8 going into the agreed upon last inning, the seventh.

We then gave it away, spotting Royal five outs (including one egregious error by yours truly) and a free pass, thus giving up the lead. We were lucky to get away with a tie as the bases were left loaded by the Royalty.

Our hitting wasn't too bad - Tim Orr, Kevin Fisher, Mike Nagy, and David Partridge all had three hits, Wilson had two doubles. and five others had a couple of hits. Just not enough in the late innings.

There was no joy in Greenville, to blatantly mix cliched metaphors.

Conehead (Double Barrel) Barrage

I didn't know what to expect going into the season opening night for the Coneheads in the Orinda league.

It's the Last Hurrah of Last Hurrahs. Many of our players played last year in the original Last Hurrah in Walnut Creek, but 'Ol G was coming back from shoulder surgery, we were breaking in a new shortstop (welcome Raul) and the league itself had been on hiatus for two years. And let's face it, a lot of us are on the far side of the minimum age to qualify for the league, 40 y.o. Our kids are pushing 40 in some cases.

And we had the usual set of no-shows, and the Randy-playing-on two teams issue.

But here we are, we have outlasted all the good teams in the league except the Old Scout and Cal Bronco - the early reports say it looks to be a three way race as it has been for the last decade or so.

Each team this season will have one doubleheader night, and we drew the first night of the season. Cool. We had the Sandbaggers as our first opponent. They had been in our league many moons ago, before Orinda officially made it an over 40 league. And now the Sandbaggers had all turned 40, and so they are back.

Well, the Coneheads are like a fine wine, we age well apparently, but the Sandbaggers did not. Of course it would have helped if they had a full team at game time - they played the whole game with only three outfielders and no catcher, and had to hit first just to hope that an eighth player showed up (who did in the nick of time).

The first barrage started quickly after we shut them out in the first. After a Randy leadoff single, Pope hit the first of three home runs on the night - he hit bombs to all fields all night - and it might have been over then and there. Later in the inning Haze hit a bases loaded triple to go up 6-0. The Sandbaggers did get a few hits and put up four in the fourth to close to 6-5, but we answered with our first Conehead inning of the night, sending up twelve batters and plating eight. The big blow was a two run triple by Darren.

After that we added on and basically shut them down. The final score was 20-8, but could have been much worse as the Sandbag centerfielder made diving catch after diving catch to rob several of our hitters.

Pope had three two run hits overall - a single, double and the home run. Raul was involved in two great defensive plays. Hazel tossed a fly ball to him and he threw a strike to Chauncey at the plate to deny a run. In the eighth, Raul took a grounder himself to the bag at second, and fired to first for another DP.

In the nightcap it was more of the same for the first five innings. We scored five in the third and fourth, and by the end of the fifth, we had built a comfortable 15-4 lead. Raul had two of his three triples in the game in those middle innings. Note that Larry kept all the opposing hitters off balance all night and had but one walk to blemish his pitching.

And then came the sixth. The Warthogs didn't know what hit them but their snouts were plenty burnt.

The first seven hitters all scored two runs. And Chauncey - he led the inning off and was the only one to go three for three in the frame. It was mostly a barrage of singles - bam bam bam. But there were the  two homers by Pope, Raul's (third) triple, and doubles by Gene, Charlie and Chauncey. Altogether twenty hits. Sadly there is no mercy rule in Orinda, and we showed none. In the end they stood in shock on the downside of a 32-4 score. The Hogs did manage a solo home run in the seventh but it hardly mattered.

I will let you look at the stats but of note on the night as a whole:

Pope, 9-10, 3 HRs, 12 RBIs

Bruce, also 9-10 (Welcome, back)

Ol' G, 8-9 (Ditto)

Hazel, 8-10, 2 triples, 11 RBIs

Darren, 7-9

Raul, 7-10, 3 triples

etc.

It was reminiscent of Conehead days gone by and a great sign to start the season. Conehead rally indeed. SEVENTEEN runs.

And so, when we got to the dugout, Bruce, who never misses a beat, looks at me and says, so when was the last time we did that? And looked me straight in the eye as if I had the answer at my fingertips! When I looked back in doubt, he says, "well you have all the data." And I have to admit he is right about that, and now I have a research project.

The first thing I found is that nothing in our Walnut Creek season last year came close. Next, in the last Orinda season, 2019, amazingly, our biggest win was 29-8 in the first game of the playoffs that year against, you guessed it, the Warthogs. Followed by a 26-8 drubbing in those same playoffs. I am surprised they showed up last night. But no 17 run inning, 10 was the largest.

In June 2019 in WC, Big Feet had a 17 run inning against us. But that hardly counts.

On July 31, 2017, we beat the Usual Suspects 32-13, but our largest inning was a 15 run 7th.

June 26th that year, Coneheads 34-Reds 6, so that's the last time we scored more than 32. But again, 15 runs was the biggest inning.

July 30th, 2016 WC also against Big Feet, we had a 16 run inning.

But the last time we scored 17+ runs in a single inning was (drumroll...) August 10th, 2015, when we opened the game against Buddha and the Cal Broncos with a 19 run first inning. We needed it too because they closed to 23-17 before we put them away 26-17. We only played four innings in that game before time and/or light ran out. Not sure which. They got payback a week later when they knocked us out of the playoffs.

So there you have it, the recent history of the Conehead mega-innings. Hope to see more in the near future!