Damn Lucky Hitters

Many of you old farts will remember the group King Crimson, an English progressive rock band from the 60s and early 70s. Predating the group they were Giles Giles and Fripp, which was a trio of three of the main guys in King Crimson. There's a satirical song on their one single album, called The Sun is Shining, that mimics the crooners of the previous generation. It goes like this:

The sun is shining, but it's raining in my heart, 

So please come back dear, and we'll make a brand new start.

Because of you the flowers will not bloom [(will not bloom)]

Because of you the clouds obscure the moon [(obscure the moon)]

The day will come, I hope it's very soon [(very soon)]

The day that brings the sun right into June [(right into June)]

And so on.

In Lefty's case, it goes like this:

The sun is shining, and it's left center in my eye, 

So please take me out coach, before another fly makes me cry.

And so on.

After the Coneheads staked out an early 8-1 lead, Lefty found himself in left center field.

Let me just say I love Lefty's defense. But tonight, the sun got the best of him as he was forced into left center when Rich pulled up lame with a hamstring injury on his double in the bottom of the third. The next inning, Advance Construction found Lefty a few times and put together their only threat to the game when they nearly tied it (8-6). And the next inning it was more of the same when he switched with Pope in left, and then Chopper did his best Jose Canseco imitation as he dropped one off his head, and suddenly our lead was down to 9-8.

It was pretty scary.

But we straightened out our defense, and even though we allowed Advance to tie us in the top of the seventh, we pushed one across in the bottom half on a walkoff sac fly by Darren.

Along the way we really played some outstanding defense, especially by shortstop James. He dove for a third out liner to end the first and kept AC scoreless. He grabbed a shallow left popup and doubled off the runner at second in the fifth. And he turned quickly on a feed from rover Haze to fire to first for another double play in the sixth. And to top it off, he snared the hot line drive with the lead run at third to end the top of the seventh to preserve the tie to that point.

Add to that a strikeout of the veteran sneaky Advance pitcher Bill Eppinga by Joe, and a tough catch in left center by Pope in the same sun and we actually had a pretty good game defensively.

Now about the offense. Let's just say that all you big time smashers at the top of the lineup got more bloop hits today than I usually get all season - and I get a lot! You guys have all the advantage with those outfielders all spread out and deep. I say, more power to you! Because it's more power to the Coneheads! But we all know who hit three line drives tonight, even though I couldn't stretch my single to center into a double on a boot.

The bleeders played in our favor tonight in the penultimate inning as Pope, James and Joe blooped our way to bases loaded with the winning run on third and no outs. And after Advance brought the outfield in, of course Chopper hit the best ball of the inning and lined out directly to the left fielder. But Darren knew what to do and managed a fly deep enough that Pope easily scored the winning run, final score 10-9.

Pope was 4-4 with a double and a triple. James had two doubles in his three knocks and Joe also had three hits. Larry (sincere thanks for showing up and giving us a full team) started his season with a triple. Lefty and Heffe and Darren each had two hits.

Suddenly we leapt over two teams into second place at 2-2! And the season is definitely looking up! We did this without G, Derek, Randy, Charley, and Gene - that's a lot of firepower. And they'll all be back soon.

Milestones:

Pope        150 ab (#20)