Ya Win Some, Ya Lose Some, Diablos Over Gray, 15-12

I came home from the Giant-Cardinal game yesterday afternoon, and I asked my wife, "which is the better combination, a come from behind win by your own softball team while the MLB team you root for (Cardinals) loses a come from ahead game, or vice versa?

Without hesitation, she says, of course your own team winning!

And she's right.

The highlight of the MLB outing was that I was able to park only about three blocks away from Oracle Park, and we made it to the game by the second inning - Mr. Hopalong Sciatica (me) and Mr. Limpalong Hip Arthritis (Don Devencenzi) - slowly making our way to the ballpark, and it seemed like about two miles in the heat.

The Cardinals got a three run homer early on, and turned their 4-1 lead into 5-1 and then 6-1, and it stayed that way until the bottom of the eighth when the woebegone Giants rallied and came all the way back to win, 7-6. Surrounded by Giants fans, I sat glumly in my seat. Don? I swear he was dancing in front of his. Woohoo. Where's that limp now, Don?

Now the Diablos - we were down 11-1 after three and a half innings. We couldn't throw the ball, we couldn't catch the ball, and we couldn't hit the ball - that's a bad combination - and it looked like a long day, even though the game was shortened to seven innings.

But Tom Caldwell had returned to action in this game, and he lit the match with a two run shot in the fourth. Jimbo Wilcox followed with a double and Tom Gonzales' single brought him home. 11-4. Scratch back.

Howard Davis, who had gotten torched for five the previous inning, settled down and held the Grays scoreless in the fifth. That was our signal - we can do this. We didn't come all the way back when we came to the plate, but it was close as we scored six, leaving the tying run on second, and at 10-11, this was now a game. In the comeback, Dan Roach had a clutch two run two out single with the bases loaded and then Mark Childress split the outfielders on a three run bomb.

Gonzales then came in to shut down the opposition again, aided by a slick Roach to rover Greg Lagomarsino to Jeff Kravin double play. 

All that was left was to keep the momentum going, put up a few and continue the defensive turnaround.

The middle and bottom of the order provided the offensive momentum. Bob Carver led off with a double, and singles by Bob Vitro, and Davis, tied it up and Mike Daley sent a deep sac fly to right to put us ahead to stay. Steve Shapiro and Bill Hoffman turned the lineup over with hits, and Mark Childress knocked a double for some insurance runs that gave us our final 15.

Gonzales held Gray in check, and got weak pop ups and grounders to end the game. Gray never knew what hit them with the 11-1 onslaught in the final three innings.

The hitting was very balanced. Roach continued his onslaught in finishing with an .800+ average as he went 3-3. Childress, Caldwell, Lagomarsino, Wilcox, Gonzales, Kravin and Davis all were 2-3, and everyone else had a hit.

Vitro made a great backanded play in the first at SS and Caldwell ran in hard to snag a falling blooper in left in the second. There was the doubleplay in the sixth, but the defensive sequence of the game came in the fifth. We threw out two runners at home to keep Gray off the board. One from Wilcox to Lagomarsino to Shapiro at home, and one from Childress all the way to home. Those plays were definitely momentum shifters.

Two games left and hopefully we can give the Clippers all they can handle next week.

Diablos Laser Sharp 21-5

The Diablos were a little concerned after the Commander, Ed Hendrickson wrapped his truck around a tree, and left fielder Tom Caldwell had a family emergency back east, and SS Jim Krochka was at a family event in Ohio. That's only our 2, 3, and 5 hitters, but who's counting?

In addition, super addition Clay LeChe was unavailable, still nursing sore legs from the end of the AD season.

It helped that the two best power hitting Lasers would also miss the game. That leveled the playing field.

So we went out and gave the Lasers a drubbing, 21-5. Everyone stepped up, and Creaker rookie and emergency injury replacement for Hendrickson Tom Gonzales and the reliable Howard Davis pretty much shut the Lasers down.

Stepped up as in Bobby Vitro moving over to shortstop, so we could leave Mark Childress in left center where he shines - and he shone today, once on a surprisingly deep ball off of the bat of Roy Gilbert and once coming in for a shoestring catch. Vitro didn't get much action but handled everything but one throw he put in the dirt when the first baseman bailed him out.

And Jim Wilcox in left and right center and Bob Carver also in right center made some good catches.

Carver had the best game at the plate - 3-3 with a double and triple and team leading four RBIS. Greg Lagomarsino joined him at 3-3. Leadoff hitter Dan Roach was 3-4. Newcomer Gonzales was 2-2 plus a walk. Brian Goldufsky (who brought a posse of women from his coed bocce team to show off for) was 2-3 and treated the team to pizza that we scarfed up.

Most everyone else was 2-3 or 2-4, inlcuding Childress, Wilcox, Don Devencenzi, Jeff Kravin, Davis, Steve Shapiro, and Mike Daley. Bill Hoffman had bad luck - two balls he hit were line shots but one was right at the third baseman and then at the left fielder in Blue.Vitro was just 1-2 but also had a sac fly.

It was 'just the Lasers' but it felt good after we played our worst game of the season last week. Next week is the big test - it is doubtful any of Hendrickson, Caldwell, or Krochka will be back on the field for their various reasons, and we play WC Gray, who have a combination of savvy veterans and some fast outfielders. We'll see. In the mean time, enjoy this one.

I Wish Oranges Stayed In Florida and SoCal

My therapist finally said I can write about Team Gold's loss last week, 33-28 to Team Orange. She said if I can refrain from crying when I think about it for ten minutes, I am on the road to recovery and can take pen in hand.

It really wasn't that bad. It was a tight fun game for six innings. Team Orange's largest lead was 4-0 in the middle of the first and ours was three runs a couple of times. It was going to go down to the wire, and we had to feel good because we were the home team.

Even when they took their fifth lead of the game at 22-20 after seven complete and added five in the top of the eighth, Team Gold had no quit. We rallied for seven to tie it up on the strength of seven hits and a walk by the top nine in our lineup, combined with a clutch two out tying RBI single by Joy Dardin to knot it up 27-27 going into the ninth.

But our defense the last four innings finally did us in, as we gave up 21 runs in the last four innings. Including six in the open ninth, and we could only muster one in response.

It was disappointing to end the season just like that. Team Gold had great chemistry, and many players said it was the most fun team they have been on in the Creakers. We were in first place alone for eight weeks, and tied for first six others. That was a lot of fun. But the most fun was the chemistry part. In the end, injuries and absences caught up with us, just like most other good Creaker teams. But it's all good. At least that's what she said to me over and over again.

Gary Namanny and Rob Katzer made some fabulous catches in the middle outfield. I would not trade the top two in our lineup, Hugh Vasquez and Bob Fulgham for any team's duo. They were a collective 12-12 with a double each. Nammany behind them had a triple and four RBIs. Katzer and Curt Wade each also drove in four. Wade and my pick for rookie of the year Doug Carlson each went 4-5 as did Stan Bielecki, who popped a booming double up the middle. Steve Alvarez (a monster triple), Anthony Puccio, Dardin, Steve Bedrick, and I all had three hits. That meant that all but one Gold batter had three or more hits. Of particular note were Pooch and Bedrock, who came through in unexpected ways throughout the last two games. And even though Orange scored 33 runs, Bedrock stood tall in the adversity of missing our starting pitcher Tom Gonzales. Tip your cap to the Orange hitters, they hit when they needed to and then some and took advantage of every mistake we made in the field.

And now? I get to spend an extra day on the couch singing nursery rhymes to my therapist. She says I have an excellent voice.

The Gold Standard

In the bottom of the ninth inning, as we desperately clung onto our one run lead, and Navy got the tying and winning runs on base, Gerry Dasey, watching the unfolding drama after his game ended on Field three, called out to me. "Hef, are you nervous?"

And you know the thing was, I wasn't nervous at all. Not tense one bit.

Because, I had learned everything I needed to understand about the Gold team. We had no quit in us. Last game we scored eight in the ninth to win a game we should have lost.

This game we played without the left half of our outfield (Steve Mastonarde and Gary Namanny). Our starting pitcher (Tom Gonzales) was in the emergency room last Friday getting his leg stitched up after taking a line drive off the worst part of his shin. He was resting comfortably in the shade behind our dugout, he could barely stand up. The three of them finished the season hitting .765, .718, and .716, respectively. Not to mention that Namanny is probably the best outfielder in the league.

So what did we have?

Steve Bedrick, who we call Bedrock, was as solid as he has been all season. He pitched all nine innings - he fell over at one point and calmly went to the sidelines and stretched his legs and caught his breath and finished the game. He struck out three, two swinging. And he went 2-4, clutch hits each, and took a big walk in the second, our first five run inning.

Our shortstop Hugh Vasquez should have been next to Gonzales, having shooting pains in his hip. He went 5-5, and threw out a runner at the plate on a relay from Rob Katzer.

Anthony Puccio (Pooch) comes all the way from the Sierra foothills to play softball. He went 4-5, and made a great catch on a pop up behind the plate. Barely got above his head straight back.

Curt Wade started the season 11-11. He developed bone on bone athritis in his hip, and his great natural hitting had dropped off. He went 5-5 including lumbering around to third on a gapper. And made a great catch of a pop up at 2B in the second.

Mike Nichols, the mildest mannered person in all Creakerdom, quietly, of course, went 4-4 including a booming double. He or his proxy scored every time up.

The Batman Steve Alvarez, pressed into duty in right center as we had to take almost everyone out for an inning, made two great catches in the sixth inning to hold Navy to two runs after they started a promising rally. And went 4-5 with an RBI on each of his hits.

And speaking of have an inning, Stan Bielecki, all eight feet of him, made all three outs on defense at rover in the eighth. First he snared a line drive no one thought he would get, especially the runner on first, who froze and Stan fired a strike to me OVER his head for the double play. I guess it's easier to do that when you are looking down on everyone. The next batter obliged by hitting a line drive that no one under Stan's eight foot frame gets. And there was a lot of ball showing as it rattled around in his glove but he hung on. The top of the Navy lineup scored one run that inning.

And Joyful Joy Dardin, who had played about two innings in the outfield all season, took over in left, and she set the tone in the first inning with a running shoestring catch. She added a clutch two out bases loaded double to finsh off our second five spot in the third.

And if Gonzales or Bill Watson on Navy is not the Rookie of the Year, it has to be Doug Carlson, he of the Creaker Carlson pedigree. The book is out on him - they play really deep on him now. He stepped into the vacated cleanup spot in our lineup and calmly went 5-5 with a triple and a double and four RBIs.

And Steady Eddies Bob Fulgham and Katzer did their usual, going 3-3 with a walk and a sac (three RBIs), and 4-5 with four RBIs, respectively. And Katzer gave us our weekly hilarity moment as he fell down going from first to second while running for someone else (Get up Rob, GET UP ROB!) while the opposition fell all over themselves trying to get off a throw to second to nail him, can you say Keystone Kops?

And me? I stopped being tense in about the fourth inning. We had already proven what we are made of. Don't get me wrong, Gerry, I would have loved the tee shirts, but somehow the pride of coming up strong in the face of adversity outshines a tee shirt.

Oh yeah, the game, we led 4-0, they led 5-4, we led 9-5, then 14-5, then 14-13, then 15-13, then they led 18-15, then 20-16, then 20-19, then 22-19, then we led 24-22, then 24-23, then we lost 25-24. Does it really matter?

Just watch out in the playoffs. We have grit.

Cardinal Sees Red, Diablos Win 25-18

After a slow start in the field and at bat, the Diablos woke up on both sides of the ball, to take a third straight victory over the WC Cardinal 25-18.

The Diablos gave themselves the potential for the Curse of the First by tallying five off of "Highball (Mike) Howard". The first few hitters couldn't seem to make solid contact off of him - Jim Krochka even struck out. But we managed a couple of thirty foot dribblers that few senior pitchers, especially an octagenarian would get, and a pop up that fell in sandwiched around a shot on the right field line by Ed Hendrickson and a couple other line drives to net five.

The Cardinal, who have a good lineup, kept up with us - although we gifted them a few extra base runners that scored. They took leads of 11-10 in the third inning, 13-12 in the fourth, and 14-12 after five. But the defense kicked in in the middle innings to keep it within reach. Clay LeChe in right center made a nice running catch in the fourth and Don Devencenzi netted a hot smash at 3B to get a force at second in the same inning. In the next inning, Bobby Vitro made probably the play of the day on a smash to his right and then the easy putout to hold the opponents to a single run.

Later, Brian Goldufsky started two double plays - to keep them scoreless in the sixth, and ultimately he took it himself to the bag at 2B and fired to first to end the game on a high note! Bang, bang!

LeChe was the recipient of the Game ball as he went 4-4 with a double and four RBIs, including the clutch two out two run double in the sixth that proved to be the Game Winner as it put us ahead to stay. 

Everybody got into the action in the 6th through the 8th as we poured on 13 runs to put the game away. Highlights included a solo blast by Krochka to start off the sixth, back to back doubles by Greg Lagomarsino and LeChe to finish the inning, a clutch two run double by Mike Daley in the seventh, and another back to back set of two baggers by Krotchka and Mark Childress to kick off the five run eighth.

LeChe and Childress were 4-4, Krotchka, Lagomarsino, Bob Carver, Devencenzi, Jeff Kravin, and Daley were all 3-4. Thirteen players had at least one RBI, and every player (or their proxy) scored a run.

Not a bad way to kick off August.

And I Thought It Was Greek Comedy, ND Gold Walks Off Green, 25-24

Clay Kallam is a great writer, literally a professional, and he went to college!

But he got this one wrong. This was not Greek Tragedy. It was the highest form of Greek Comedy.

When I was an English major (I did not finish that degree) I took a class in Satire, and there was a famous Greek Comedy titled the Birds by Aristophanes. My professor was the absolutely typical of the genre - buttoned down, probably patches on the elbows of his jacket. Monotone.

Well, in the final class of the quarter, he shows up in a giant Bird costume. Think Sesame Street's Big Bird, only slightly phallic. I didn't pay much attention in class up to that point, but that got all of our collective attention. What a hoot it was. He was running around on the stage, prancing, preening and cracking us all up.

And today, it appeared that Gold players were running around in Bird costumes, as though their arms were appendages that just couldn't catch a ball or throw a ball and their birdbrains kept having mental lapses, time after time.

And yet.

This team has no give up. We hung in there even when we had the middle and bottom of the lineup up facing a seven run deficit in the bottom of the ninth.

And a funny thing happened. The birdbrains got transferred into the other team. Poor Green - they never had a chance after that. I started it with a forty foot popup between the pitcher, shortstop and third baseman - you know in ND senior softball no one is getting that. Curt Wade got a hit, after a ground out, Stan Bielecki, Anthony Puccio, and Steve Bedrick all got on. I can't remember which were clean and which were senior moments, but they turned it over to the top of the order with the bases loaded and four runs in. Hugh Vasquez smartly drew a bases loaded RBI walk, and up strode Bob Fulgham. He was 4-4 up to that point. He hit a routine grounder to third and (not mentioning any names) probably the best fielding third baseman in all of Creakerland fields it, and gets ready to start a game ending double play, and...falls down. He just never does that. He can't even get up to beat Steve Mastronarde, pinch running at second, to third base to get even one out. The Greek Gods were with us.

After that, it was a Gary Namanny single and a Rob Katzer line drive to left center and speedie Doug Carlson ran home from second with the winning run.

So Clay, it may have seemed a Greek Tragedy to you, but in the other dugout is seemed much more like High Comedy.

There wasn't much defense in this game for us. I dug one out of the dirt in the first to hold the strong top of the Green lineup to two runs. Pooch snagged a smashed one-hopper at second base and got an easy out at first in the fourth - immediately following the previous batter smashing one off his glove. How he calmly hung in there on the second one, I will never know. Later, pitcher Tom Gonzales got a swinging strikeout in the seventh to keep that inning from getting out of hand. Or wing. Or beak.

The top five in our lineup hit .913: Fulgham, Katzer, 5-5 (5 RBIs), Vasquez 4-4+BB, Namanny 3-5, Gonzales 4-4 (4 RBIs).

The middle, not bad either, Carlson 2-3+SF, Mastronarde 2-4, Kravin 2-3+BB, Steve Alvarez 4-4 (including the only real extra base hits, two doubles), Curt Wade 3-4.

And the bottom held up their end of the bargain, remember they got the hits that turned over the lineup in the ninth. Collectively, Joy Dardin, Bielecki, Pooch, and Bedrock were 7-15 with five RBIs.

A true team game, whether it was the botched birdbrained earlybird comedy of errors or the tremendous back to the wall rally to win it.

Gold may or may not go all the way, but just for today at least, we are back in first place!

Tragedy? I think not!

The Gold Rush Fell Short, 31-27 to Light Blue

The good news is hope is not lost despite losing three in a row as Team Gold fell to the relentless Light Blue team, 31-27.

All is not lost because after playing listless softball for two games and six innings (as we fell behind 26-7), the Gold Rush finally let loose and we almost, almost came all the way back. We outscored Lt. Blue 20-5 in the last two and a half innings, making it a game. If we can channel that energy into the last two games and win out, we can still reclaim first place.

It must be said that two of our players played out of their mind today. It was the emergence of what is likely to be a long and great career for Joy Dardin. She was 4-4 with a double and five RBIs, and played all over the infield and even an inning in  left field and one on the mound - she can play everywhere well.

She was tied with Doug Carlson for today's team lead in RBIs. Doug is a lock for Creaker Rookie of the Year (I say that and I am sure there are other candidates, but Doug is hitting a cool .731 with almost a 1.000 slugging percentage). Doug was 5-5 with a double and a grand slam home run to produce those five RBIs. The Slam came in the five run ninth inning folowing our ten run eighth as we were beginning to believe - it came with two outs and brought us to what ultimately and unfortunately was the final four run deficit. But for that one moment, we truly thought we could make a miraculous comeback.

Others with good games:

Gary Namanny, 4-4 with a home run and four RBIs despite pulling a hamstring. Hugh Vasquez and Tom Gonzales, 4-5. Steve Mastronarde, 2-2 with a walk, on a quest to never make an out again (OK, he did get a Sac Fly but that doesn't count as an official at bat, now does it). Anthony Puccio and Rob Katzer, three hits each. Mike Nichols blasted a gapper up the middle to the fence and didn't stop running until he had a triple. Everyone else had at least a hit and all but two scored a run.

The last two weeks should be fun.