It Was Rigged!

It was revealed that I use a private laptop for my blog, and this is a breach of National Security.

The stats have been compromised, and they have shown up in a former Politburo bunker in Moscow. Who knows what the Russians will do with this information, but since Wikileaks made them public, and the FBI stated that we were under investigation, Cream and Clear and other teams in our league somehow seemed to know where were were going to hit before even we did.

It started two weeks before the playoffs. After starting the season 6-0, including beating Cream and Clear our chief rival twice, we came up short against Pat's Bats. We brushed it off - after all we had already clinched the number 1 seed for the playoffs. Then the league decided to skip playing on Halloween. All those millennials with their tiny tots had to take their precious candy grubbers across the neighborhoods extorting sweets from their helpless neighbors. We all know this was a clear ploy to break our momentum, as most of us are closer to Grampa age than toddler parent age. And, since no kids showed up at my door, I had to eat all the Snickers and M&Ms and Butterfingers myself, getting even fatter in the process.

Then there was the Wall they wanted to build at the Caldicott Tunnel. Isn't it a little suspicious our players on the other side of the tunnel were our two African-Americans, Ol' G and Sting, and the other is that noted Anarchist/Democrat Lefty? The final straw was when they wanted to outlaw all players not born in California. You think that it is a coincidence that the Conehead Managers were born in Brooklyn and St. Louis, respectively? Lock 'em up!

I'm writing this from Mexico, where I landed after being tossed 'over the wall'. Joe is in the hut next to me; Derek, who declared himself "Mr. Conehead for Life" is your new coach. Good luck in the coming years.

As it turned out, conspiracy theories aside, we just really didn't show up for the playoffs. Perhaps we are getting old; I happen not to think that is it. More likely we just need to step up our focus. We have a lot of talent and chemistry on the Coneheads, but that alone cannot always produce a winner, especially in the playoffs, and especially when everyone is gunning for us.

We just didn't hit. It could have been worse; we had a tremendous comeback in game one against the Hawks in Game 1 to avoid going two and out. We were flatter than a pancake and trailing 11-6 going into the bottom of the seventh. The bottom of the order picked us up. We started out with singles by Chopper, Heffe, and Johnny, then a double by Gene, and another single by Larry to turn over the lineup. Randy singled, and after a ground out, Pope knocked in the game tying and winning runs on a walkoff hit.

As it turned out that was pretty much the last highlight. We did have another comeback rally against Pat's Bats to remain alive winning 10-8, fueled by clutch two out hits from Patrick, Chuck, and Ol' G. However, in the last three games we had exactly two extra base hits, and they were 'only' doubles. Worse than that was we never really had the Conehead inning that we are famous for, where we don't even need extra base hits (but usually get a couple) because we string together ten or twelve straight knocks. This year, especially against Cream and Clear, it just wasn't to be.

Silver lining - even though we slumped for the last month, we still made the championship game. We'll be back.

It's tough to cite the MVP on the loser side, but I have to mention that Johnny single-handedly tried to defy our under-performance. He was on fire, and ended up 8 for 9 in the playoffs, and tied for the team lead in RBIs despite hitting near the bottom of the lineup.

Pope was runner up. He was down on himself after his first at bat, and even requested to be moved down in the order. But when he hit a little Heffe blooper into shallow left his next time up, I told him that would be all it took to shake his slump. He proceeded to go 10 for 11 the rest of the way, including that walkoff hit.

Lefty led the team in extra base hits and also walks in his leadoff role, and Knight tied Johnny for the team lead in RBIs.

Keep the faith. If we manage to survive the Trump presidency all is possible. Although I like our chances of winning another title better.

Milestones:

11/7
Game 1:
D                50 bb (#11)
Lefty          30 bb (#15)
Randy        200 ab (#25)

Game 2:

Joe             450 g (#2)

11/14

Game 1:

Sting          850 ab (#11)

Game 2:

Lefty         50 2b (#16)

The Top Ten List

Remember David Letterman? Here's my Top Ten List of Positives from tonight's Conehead game...

10. No one struck out.
9. No one got hurt.
8. Along the same lines, that nasty hop in front of Ol' G did NOT rise up and hit him in his teeth or between his eyes.
7. Even though we were NO HIT through four innings, we BUSTED out for all of SEVEN hits in the last three innings.
6. Even though we did not have a hit in the first time through the line up, Randy at the top and Larry at the bottom did coax walks out of Pat's Bats' pitcher. Now those are team players.
5. Even though we hit into two double plays, wiping out two of those hits, we did not hit into ANY triple plays.
4. Despite Chopper's imploring Joe to give a coach's speech to inspire us, Joe held off, saying he would give it next week - so we still have that to look forward to.
3. The ground caused Pope to drop what would have been a great catch, and similarly, Reggie's knee knocked the ball out of his glove on what would have been another difficult catch - these things can't happen two weeks in a row.
2. Chopper had an off game - he looked lost out there. But we identified the reason, namely that Lisa missed the game.As long as we get her out there for the playoffs, he'll be himself.

And the number one positive that came out of the game tonight, a 10-3 loss to Pat's Bats, was that we still had beer after the game, and even though we talked politics over beers, Derek and I did not come to blows over Trump and Clinton. He still has not come to his senses, however.

Next week off to give out candy on Halloween. Then the playoffs, and we are still the team to beat, and we got our bad game out of our collective systems.

Milestones:
10/10
Johnny        100 ab (#32)

10/24
Larry          140 bb (#2)

The Engine That Could

A couple of weeks ago, Reggie cracked me up in the Conehead dugout as we watched Chopper chugging and huffing and puffing around the bases on a home run, when he said, "He's like the Little Engine that Could...I think I can, I think I can (first base), I think I can, I think I can, (second base), I think I can, I think I can (third base), I knew I could, I knew I could, I knew I could (home)." I was rolling off the bench with laughter.

That was the big blow, a three run bomb that put Pat's Bats away in our eight run Conehead fifth inning. We ended up trouncing the Bats that night 16-5, putting them further in our rear view mirror.

While the team was knocking on Good Wood (and Larry presented the win in a much more timely fashion), I had a couple of days off softball doing the 'Wild Hog' thing. Here is proof:

...although you can't even see my bike... (it's off to the right)

Last week's game was a Wally Pipp Special - Johnny took G's place, and had a stellar game at the plate and in the field. He was part of two DPs, and his turn and throw on a feed from Randy at short looked very professional. Like they had been doing it for years - wait they have, only against us on the Old Scouts in Orinda.

Plus Johnny had the hit of the game - a two run triple in the second inning that put us ahead to stay as we had the first of three mini-Conehead  innings, in the 2nd, 6th, and 7th.

Other Pipp moments - Knight takes Randy's place for an inning and makes a tough play. Greg had a season high seven RBIs on four hits.

After Larry pitches a great game through 6 innings (one run), D shuts down the Dusty Nuts in the seventh, final score 20-1.

And of course - Joe who? With Joe enjoying honey cake and other treats of Rosh Hashanah, I filled in as Coach for a day. Looks like I will finish the season 1-0 as we won by our largest margin in a while. We made no, as in zero errors, I take full credit for putting the right guys in the right positions.

Ok, granted it was against the weakest team in the league by far, and I had nothing to do with our team playing such good defense, or three hit games from Randy and Pope (minicycle) and Gene and Johnny and Larry, and Larry had them hitting almost all routine flies and grounders.

But no Stink Eye, 20-1. Just the facts.

We are the Engine that Could, once again. It starts tomorrow as we face Cream and Clear for bragging rights and first place seed for the playoffs. Should be fun.

Milestones:
9/19
Larry       1350 ab (#3)
Lefty        20 sf (#14)

9/26
Knight      40 2b (#18)
Knight      300 ab (#21)
Randy      100 r (#23)

10/3
Chuck      450 g (#1)
Lefty        400 ab (#19)
Bruce       200 ab (#24)

Welcome to the Club!

I tried to get the ball. I really did, but the ump and the Dusty Nut catcher were having none of it.

Wouldn't it have looked nice on the McKnight mantle? First Conehead hit, Patrick McKnight, Sept. 12, 2016. We coulda all signed it.

It was not to be.

On a night when the Junior Knight had a rather pedestrian (for him) 2-4, the rest of the Coneheads scored enough and the Nuts were generous enough for the Coneheads to win a rather ho-hum 14-9 no doubter.

There were quite a few Conehead hits - I had one that turned into a Conehead double - where's your hustle Patrick? You only got a single on yours. Never mind they threw mine under the fence.

But we also had some big hits - a slashed two out two run homer by Bruce, a deep gapper for a triple by Sting, and Chuck just muscled up to beat the left fielder for a double. The three of them paced us with three hits.

Larry had the Nuts by the...for most of the night. Take away the first inning and last and he allowed on run total in the middle five as we built what turned out to be an insurmountable lead.

As Reg said after the game, we are a freight train, and once we get rolling, watch out for the Coneheads! This was step one.

Milestones:
Larry            800 h (#3)
Gene            600 h (#7)

The Long and Winding Road

What do you do when you have missed a couple of months of blogging for your favorite Tuesday team?

Well, you just start up again like you never left, raving about the utter shellacking Transdyn put on the HLG Crew tonight 16-1. About Tom's near shutout, Jason's two great catches ranging into the outfield, once from short and once from second.

About Nick dropping a triple over the left fielder's head, and then just to remind everyone who the power hitter is, Bert puts it in almost the same exact spot, except over the fence. I called it, by the way, ask Mario, who was sitting next to me on the bench. That made it 7-0 and there was no comeback in sight for the last place HLG Crew.

And speaking of the Puppet King, Mario made a fabulous shoe-top catch in right to preserve the shutout to that point in the fourth.

D and Hama led the way with quiet 4-4s, and Al was matched by Heffe with team high 3 RBIs each.

But then you get to the Milestones section and you see that it extends from July 12th to now, and you smell a rat. So sorry, fellow Transdynians, if you made a great play or two, or got a clutch hit or did anything that called you out in the last two months, it will just have to live on in your mind's eye - you know what you did.

It's a long road to this season's championship and playoff cotton, with four competitive teams in the mix, and hopefully you won't have to wait until then to see your name in the light of this column.

Milestones:
7/12 (Playoff Game)
Heffe      1400 ab (#2)
D            300 rbi (#5)

8/2
Monty    1050 ab (#3)
Bert        10 bb (#25)

8/9
Jas          50 2b (#7)
Pauly      350 h (#9)
D            300 h (#11)
Rusty      50 ab (#51)

8/16
Bert        20 hr (#3)
Cage       550 h (#4)
Bert        102 h (#26)
Bert        150 ab (#28)

8/23

Mario      30 sf (#3)
Hama      200 h (#14)

Hama      300 ab (#15)

Tom        250 ab (#21)

8/30
Cage       60 sf (#1)

9/6

Cage       950 ab (#4)

Mario      50 bb (#6)
D            150 g (#12)
Hama      150 rbi (#14)

The (Un)Catch, Part II

As Jerry Seinfield said in one of the episodes of his classic show, everything always evens out.

Last night I went to the A's game against the Boston Red Sox. Two teams going in opposite directions, and I think you know which way the A's have been going for years, thank you Lew Wolff and Billy Bean.

I went with my friend and former colleague Pat, and our significant others. Pat and I have known each other for years, have had kind of parallel careers, each have two daughters, worked together, and even played a little softball together. We have our differences (politics and he's a DODGER fan despite moving to Petaluma at a fairly young age from LA), but we have much in common, including each having lived within a few blocks of Fenway Park, and worked together and separately on the Big Dig, and thus having somewhat conflicted views about the Red Sox and Boston in general.

We hadn't seen each other for quite some time, and probably to our SO's chagrin spent the game catching up. There was no drama in the game as the Sox scored 9 times by the fourth inning pretty much settling things baseball-wise. We barely noticed that Rick Porcello took a perfect game into the sixth inning, until the A's finally scored a run on a couple of hits.

One of the stories I told Pat was about the ball I caught at an A's game in 2012. You can read about it here: The Catch.

Last night however there were two balls that came down within a row of where we were sitting. How often does that happen? One was early in the game, and it was one row back and on the aisle a few seats away. They always look like they are coming right at you and then they peel off. This one faded to the aisle, and a guy who brought a glove stepped into the aisle and made it look routine. I thought of moving, but it happened so fast, and it wasn't really close enough to me to go for it.

Then in the ninth (I think), another batter hits a popup, but not too high in our direction. My baseball instincts took over; I was determined this time. The ball was going to be a few seats away again, but beyond Julia to my right there were no other fans in my way. The ball was going to land on the back of a seat in the row in front of us.

Some would say I fell. I might embellish the story and say I dove. The truth is somewhere in the middle - baseball instincts did take over - I would call it a lunge. But what happened was I landed with my chest right on the edge of the seat (ouch) and stretched out as far as I could, I just managed to get a fingertip on the ball. It bounced away, destined for someone else's trophy case.

Seinfeld would have said, "See, it all evens out."

Mike Krukow, the Giants' broadcaster would have said, "If you brought your glove, you would have extended your reach just enough to corral it, meat!"

And he'd be right...instead, all I've got is a story, and a sore man-boob, and a black and blue fingertip.

Winners and Losers

Donald Trump.

has a dim view of losers.

Bet you didn't think I'd start out with that did you.

He thinks that if you don't win you lose, as in you're a loser. And there is nothing worse than a loser. He loved the quote by golfer Walter Hagen so much he tweeted it twice - "No one remembers who came in second.”

And when he trailed in Iowa during the primaries (where he did eventually come in second), he said, "Unless I win, I would consider it a big, fat, beautiful ... waste of time.”

(Political aside, he better get used to the feeling)

Now I hate to lose as much as the next guy. Maybe a little more than most. Especially when, say, you make the last out in the championship game with the bases loaded and two out and the tying run is on second. You see the other team donning their champion shirts and you think "I coulda, I shoulda," and you beat yourself up a little.

But there are a few overriding themes in this, the 2016 Orinda Summer playoffs that make it all go down a little easier (like the post game beers - note we outlasted the champion Old Scouts to close down the park).

First and foremost - the Coneheads are winners. We each have a large collection of Cotton. We have so many that I famously concocted a spreadsheet tallying every championship season. In Orinda alone, we had two separate streaks of four in a row, the most recent ending two short years ago. Nine Championships in 18 years. We had a win in Walnut Creek just two weeks ago in Spring League, and can look forward to fall ball where we have won five of the last six years.

Face it, we are spoiled. Like in poker, which many of us play when we aren't on the field, there is a certain element of luck involved. The breaks have to go your way. In fact, many things did go our way in these playoffs to get us to the finals. And there was a lot of poetry to the way it unfolded.

First there was the 12 Angry Men drama. I played against them for years in winter ball and an annual charity tournament in SF and as a sub on the Conehead mirror image Rip City, a SF team. Some of them are nice guys, but they are fundamentally simply arrogant. To continue the Donald theme, we oughta build a wall on the Bay Bridge and make them pay for it, and allow No Angry Men through it. The feeling is shared by the rest of the teams in our league and any league they touch. Since our tournament conflicts with one of their precious weekend tourneys, they tried to get the league to move the tournament (no), tried to force their way into the C league tournament next weekend (no), which presumably would eliminate the 8th place team in that league. I'm sure that would be popular. Instead, just like last year they assembled a "B" team for our playoffs.

In a stroke of complete genius, their opponent in the second round, the second most loathed team, the Waitlisters (a.k.a. the 35 year old grandfathers), waited until 12 Angry took the field, and then called roster check. Voila, they could not produce 8 guys who actually were on the team. They were summarily kicked out of the tournament.

This was set up by our first game. In a theme revisited later, we just could not score and fell 5-4. Other than a Lefty home run, there were no highlights. However, if we had won, it would have been us against 12 Angry, and I doubt we would have had the chutzpah/pettiness, you pick, to challenge the Angry roster. We would have told ourselves we can beat them into 12 Silly Men on the field. But the Waitlisters did, and it worked.

In the other stroke of luck, the one upset had Johnny's Gang beating St. Mo's in a first round game. That set them up as our next opponent after they were spanked by the Old Scouts and we accepted our forfeit by the no-show 8-seed Warthogs. We probably would have beaten St. Mo's anyway. Of late, they seem to have our number in the regular season (a tie this year) but we make them pay in the playoffs.

At any rate, facing Johnny's Gang made for an easy road to Sunday. They celebrated their upset win with many beers. They were drinking in the dugout, smoking on the field during pre-inning grounders, and generally giving the impression of a team just happy to be there. We scorched them with our only true Conehead inning with 11 in the first, and although disturbingly we really didn't add on much, the outcome was never in doubt as we walked away with a 15-10 win. Nine straight hits in the first, a three run monster by D, a later solo shot by Chopper, you know, the usual stuff when we win.

The great debate was which was the best line of the games, both of which came in this one. Chopper, who was just ON all weekend, kept calling out the illegal player on loan from 12-Angry the "One Angry Man".

And after Lefty toppled over the overweight, smoking first baseman with what really was a routine grounder, and the guy lost the ball in his gut, couldn't get up, and couldn't make a throw, I looked at him and called out "I feel fit!"

This set up the final four for Sunday between the Old School teams we have faced over and over on Sundays past: The Old Scouts, Cal Bronco, the Waitlisters and us. The difference this year was we had lost to all of them in the regular season. Yet it felt right.

And the 12 Angry Men? I think I saw their equipment trailer on the freeway:

So we woke up having the to make great comeback like in 2013 from the losers' bracket. But you couldn't ask for more at the same time. A chance to avenge the 30-7 loss last week (shorthanded) against Cal Bronco, and a chance to keep the detested Waitlisters out of the finals after they won last year. I know one thing, both the Broncos and Scouts root for us against them.

We played perhaps our best fundamental game of the weekend in the 10:30 match-up with the Broncos. Mark continued his MVP of the playoff ways: 3-3 while starting two run scoring rallies, and an RBI in four run fifth that really put it away (it made it 13-4 in an eventual 14-6 win). In the third he made a tremendous dive in short left field in the hole and somehow got the ball to second base. It was contagious: in the sixth, Larry in his one inning at 2B made a similar stop but in shallow right and flipped it off balance to get a force out at second, and then made a great stop and throw to first for the last out. That sixth was the Broncos' last hurrah, and Larry singlehandedly kept the damage to a minimum; by the time they came up in the seventh, they were done, needing eight to tie. Joe was funny, he asked me if I wanted to put in a different pitcher. Are you kidding? To hold that lineup to 6 runs in 6 innings? So he went out and shut them down without a run.

In the semi-final, we again allowed the Waitlisters to get a big lead, this time 6-1. They were hitting the ball all over the yard. But some of us said, and it turned out to be true that they had shot their wad; they scored only two more the rest of the game. We rallied in the top of the fourth with a Mini-Conehead  inning - 7 runs. The big blow was a two run double by, you guessed it Mark. He wasn't even supposed to be there - he shined a Burning Man prep party that sounded like his own long tradition to be with us.

In the sixth, Chopper hit his second solo shot of the playoffs but we weren't done. Five straight hits by the bottom of the order and we had three more to give us what proved to be an insurmountable lead on the Waitlisters at 12-8 on the way to an eventual 13-8 win.

A word about Joe's pitching - he held the big 35 year old Waitlister SS and the cleanup hitter behind him to almost no hits between them. Nothing really after that first inning rally.

And so, as it should be, we faced the Old Scouts having to beat them twice in a repeat match-up of 2013. Really, their worst nightmare, just ask our teammates from the rest of the year, Scout Randy and Scout Johnny (who took off his championship shirt to don his new Conehead duds when he joined us for postgame beers).

But this year it was not to be. Neither team seemed to get out of the batter's box.and really the difference was a ball that got lost in the sun as we fell 5-3 (not the outfielder's fault). Maybe it was the heat but no one could buy a hit. Even brother Randy could not get a hit and he usually scorches us.

In a low scoring game, everyone feels like they had a chance to change fate - I got lucky and mine came with the game on the line. This day no Conehead could be the hero, we were all the goats. Who knows what would have happened if I got a hit, maybe we would have busted out with 10 two out runs, yet they had the hammer and we would have to beat them again as we did in '13. But still.

On the other hand, there is a lot of mutual respect by both teams, and the Old Scouts had not won since 2009. Class team that deserves it. Seven dry years, just like we once had. I for one am happy for them. And at least they are not the Waitlisters, and not the Putzmeisters.

And for the Coneheads, yes we hate losing, but we improved over last year when we did not even make it to Sunday, and we eliminated the Waitlisters and Cal Bronco. Last time we lost in the finals was in 2010, and we reeled off four in a row after that. WE'LL BE BACK.

Unlike the Donald. After he loses.

Milestones:

8/1
Pope         140 2b (#2)
Chopper    150 g (#15)
Bruce        100 h (#26)

8/4
Chopper    40 hr (#4)

8/8
Pope          1000 ab (#7)
Pope          250 g (#8)

8/13 G1
Chuck        150 bb (#1)
Gene          90 bb (#5)
Ol' G          850 ab (#10)

8/13 G2
Bruce          50 g (#26)

8/13 G3
Heffe           600 rbi (#3)
Gene           300 g (#6)
Chopper     500 ab (#17)
Lefty           200 rbi (#19)
Haze           10 bb (#24)

8/14 G1
None

8/14 G2
Haze            20 2b (#27)

8/14 G3
None