You thought this was going to be
about harakiri, often miswritten as harikari, according to wikipedia. It
refers to a form of seppuku (or ritual suicide),
which in turn means literally "the cutting of the belly."
You see I grew up with Harry Caray as the lead broadcaster of the St. Louis Cardinals, along with sidekick Jack Buck. This was long before he became a caricature of himself as an old slurring drunk guy at Wrigley Field doing the Cubs' 7th inning stretch; he was actually run out of town by the Cardinals, purportedly because he had an affair with the daughter-in-law of Auggie Busch, the owner of the Cardinals and Busch/Budweiser Beer. The way I heard it, he and the woman were drunk and stumbled out of the bar of the locally famous Chase-Park Plaza Hotel onto Kingshighway Blvd. in St. Louis, and there was some sort of car accident and they were busted big time; after all if you are married, you really shouldn't sleep with the wife of the heir apparent of your boss's corporation, even if you are a huge consumer of his products.
As a kid, I was always confused, why does the broadcaster's name mean suicide in Japan? And then he went and committed professional suicide. You see - everything in life ultimately makes sense.
That is irony; you thought this was going to be about a negative thing. No, it is because the trademark of Harry Caray as a broadcaster doing the games was when there was a big fly, he would ring out, "It might be, it could be, it is, a HOME RUN." It was his trademark call.
And I have been thinking this about the Sunshine Saloon team. It might be, it could be and it remains to be seen if we actually become a playoff team, but we took another giant step Wednesday night as we beat the Oaks, our main competition for the lower spots in the playoff hunt, by a ringing score of 18-16. In fact we are tied for third, and still could be playing for second or third before the season is over.
I can't remember exactly, and Sunshine is the one team play for that I have never kept the standings myself, and damn Pleasanton stopped archiving the scores from seasons past. But I swear we have almost always if not literally always lost to the Oaks in the 2+ years I have been on this team. It usually goes like this: we take a lead, they come back, it's close for a while and then they rise up and nose us out, or completely blow us out of the water at that point.
But not this week.
This week, they scored two in the first and we answered with five. They scored two twice more and then five in the top of the fourth, but in between we had a five run inning without making an out. This was a continuation of how hot we were last week, but against much stiffer competition.
All this damage was done by the top of the order. Tom stayed hot; he didn't make an out all night, with a couple of hits and a couple of borderline errors that he hustled out. Nor did Larry nor Mark W, who drove in six on the night. Mongo, Heffe, Darrell and Tim also had hits their first two times up in these rallies, and Sir Guy had a sac and a two run single. We were unstoppable.
The Oaks answered with their five, and there we were in the bottom of the fourth trailing, teetering on the edge of where we had been so many times against the them. Going down. But not this time. The bottom of the order rose up and with singles by Mark V and Steve, and a walk to our leader Don we set it up for the top to plate three more.
After that there was a quiet exchange of zeroes in the fifth, and we held them in the sixth. And damned if the same thing didn't happen, this time starting with Bob - three hits and another walk to Don set the table for another five spot, highlighted by Mark's inning ending gapper with the bases loaded.
We were all set with an 18-11 lead going into the open seventh inning. The Oaks would not go quietly. They played smart, hitting line drives and the machine was in motion - one run, two, three, when would it end? And we missed a couple of fly balls we really should have had, and the uhohs were in the house. And up stepped Ron the fattest player on the planet, who can't run, and can't hit it very far, but I have to admit, he can place it as well as anybody, present company included. He proceeds to hit a dribbler up the middle past the mound, and our rover who shall remain nameless, couldn't come up with it, and the flood gates stayed open. They got within just a few but then on a ball destined to the LC gap, our leadoff hitter and hero Tom Terrific made the statement of the game; he said no mas, and cut it off in mid-air, and there were two outs. The tying and perhaps the lead run was on base (we still weren't completely dead even if they tied it or took a lead because we had the hammer, but we didn't want it to come to that), but they popped up to end the game.
A big sigh was had by all.
It means we have our destiny in our own hands. New territory for this team, but we might just be on to something. Before it's over even Boomer's may fear us - they only got us by one run to start this roll.
It continues next week. Reggie will be in the house. Don't roll out the red carpet, he doesn't want that kind of treatment. He just wants on this wagon train, he knows a good thing. See you then.
You see I grew up with Harry Caray as the lead broadcaster of the St. Louis Cardinals, along with sidekick Jack Buck. This was long before he became a caricature of himself as an old slurring drunk guy at Wrigley Field doing the Cubs' 7th inning stretch; he was actually run out of town by the Cardinals, purportedly because he had an affair with the daughter-in-law of Auggie Busch, the owner of the Cardinals and Busch/Budweiser Beer. The way I heard it, he and the woman were drunk and stumbled out of the bar of the locally famous Chase-Park Plaza Hotel onto Kingshighway Blvd. in St. Louis, and there was some sort of car accident and they were busted big time; after all if you are married, you really shouldn't sleep with the wife of the heir apparent of your boss's corporation, even if you are a huge consumer of his products.
As a kid, I was always confused, why does the broadcaster's name mean suicide in Japan? And then he went and committed professional suicide. You see - everything in life ultimately makes sense.
That is irony; you thought this was going to be about a negative thing. No, it is because the trademark of Harry Caray as a broadcaster doing the games was when there was a big fly, he would ring out, "It might be, it could be, it is, a HOME RUN." It was his trademark call.
And I have been thinking this about the Sunshine Saloon team. It might be, it could be and it remains to be seen if we actually become a playoff team, but we took another giant step Wednesday night as we beat the Oaks, our main competition for the lower spots in the playoff hunt, by a ringing score of 18-16. In fact we are tied for third, and still could be playing for second or third before the season is over.
I can't remember exactly, and Sunshine is the one team play for that I have never kept the standings myself, and damn Pleasanton stopped archiving the scores from seasons past. But I swear we have almost always if not literally always lost to the Oaks in the 2+ years I have been on this team. It usually goes like this: we take a lead, they come back, it's close for a while and then they rise up and nose us out, or completely blow us out of the water at that point.
But not this week.
This week, they scored two in the first and we answered with five. They scored two twice more and then five in the top of the fourth, but in between we had a five run inning without making an out. This was a continuation of how hot we were last week, but against much stiffer competition.
All this damage was done by the top of the order. Tom stayed hot; he didn't make an out all night, with a couple of hits and a couple of borderline errors that he hustled out. Nor did Larry nor Mark W, who drove in six on the night. Mongo, Heffe, Darrell and Tim also had hits their first two times up in these rallies, and Sir Guy had a sac and a two run single. We were unstoppable.
The Oaks answered with their five, and there we were in the bottom of the fourth trailing, teetering on the edge of where we had been so many times against the them. Going down. But not this time. The bottom of the order rose up and with singles by Mark V and Steve, and a walk to our leader Don we set it up for the top to plate three more.
After that there was a quiet exchange of zeroes in the fifth, and we held them in the sixth. And damned if the same thing didn't happen, this time starting with Bob - three hits and another walk to Don set the table for another five spot, highlighted by Mark's inning ending gapper with the bases loaded.
We were all set with an 18-11 lead going into the open seventh inning. The Oaks would not go quietly. They played smart, hitting line drives and the machine was in motion - one run, two, three, when would it end? And we missed a couple of fly balls we really should have had, and the uhohs were in the house. And up stepped Ron the fattest player on the planet, who can't run, and can't hit it very far, but I have to admit, he can place it as well as anybody, present company included. He proceeds to hit a dribbler up the middle past the mound, and our rover who shall remain nameless, couldn't come up with it, and the flood gates stayed open. They got within just a few but then on a ball destined to the LC gap, our leadoff hitter and hero Tom Terrific made the statement of the game; he said no mas, and cut it off in mid-air, and there were two outs. The tying and perhaps the lead run was on base (we still weren't completely dead even if they tied it or took a lead because we had the hammer, but we didn't want it to come to that), but they popped up to end the game.
A big sigh was had by all.
It means we have our destiny in our own hands. New territory for this team, but we might just be on to something. Before it's over even Boomer's may fear us - they only got us by one run to start this roll.
It continues next week. Reggie will be in the house. Don't roll out the red carpet, he doesn't want that kind of treatment. He just wants on this wagon train, he knows a good thing. See you then.
