Plan X?

I had a co-worker at a job I held for two plus years ending a couple of years ago. It was a 'start-up' although it begs the question of whether a company can call itself a startup after ten years. It seems like any 'starting' would have been 'up' by then.

The company had great ambitions to revolutionize the Building Energy Management Industry mostly with smoke and mirrors.  He and I were in a small group with one other person who was responsible for connecting devices to our system - the one thing we had the concrete ability to do. It was stressful in that we had to do all the work remotely with someone else's eyes, ears, and hands who generally speaking did not have the skill set to accomplish the task at hand. And - we were laden with about 65 projects each all at one time.

All this is my usual long-winded way of saying that he and I and the other guy had each others' backs many times, and it created a bond between us.

Why is this relevant? Well, he moved on to a company called Workday, the company that sponsors our last opponent (Workday Plan B). Turns out he played for them until this year, but decided to do something else with his Tuesday evenings; he said he would be a sub. We played them last week, and I sent him a message through another friend on their team that I fully expected to see him out there. And do you know what? He didn't show. I won't name him, but his initials are KD (Warriors fans, not that KD), and he goes by the nickname Kibbles (I know, with a nickname like that who would show??).

Workday Plan B needed the other KD, it turns out, because they only had eight players to start the game and finished with just nine. But it wouldn't have mattered. We took them apart, 18-1, and it wasn't that close. Makes you wonder, what was Plan A?

It was the usual assortment of good, timely hitting and good defense, and a porous opponent. After three straight fly outs to left to end the first, we exploded for eight in the second and the rout was on.

Mario had a game - he went 3-3 with four RBIs. Tom had them off balance all game and went 3-3 himself, as did Jay. The latter and Cage had two doubles each. Bert continued his quest for a home run in every game with a two run bomb.

Back to the drawing board - Plan C?

Milestones:

Cage        140 2B (#1)
Mario      250 rbi (#7)
Mario      350 h (#10)

Red Burst

Red's manager, Larry Rafferty, is a mild mannered guy. When we blew a seven run inning in the top of the ninth, he did not utter a single negative word to the team. He is a credit to managers everywhere.

On the way home however, I happened upon a rebroadcast of the great "Playoffs" meltdown post game comments by the great Jim Mora. Here is how he would have seen our ninth inning (edited for your enjoyment):

"Well, I’ll start off by saying this: do not blame that game on the coach, OK? I don’t care who you play — whether it’s a high school team, a junior college team, a college team — much less an Creaker team. When you make errors and walk guys and don't hit in clutch situations— you ain’t going to beat anybody I just talked about. Anybody. All right? And that was a disgraceful performance in my opinion. We threw that game. We gave it away by doing that. We gave them the friggin’ game. In my opinion, that sucked. Ah. You know? Holy crap! I don’t know who the hell we think we are when we do something like that. Unbelievable. And we’ve still got twenty games left, so there’s no telling how many we’ll have. That’s pitiful! I mean, it’s absolutely pitiful to perform like that. Pitiful!"

It doesn't quite come off on the written page so here is a link:

http://jimmoraplayoffs.com/rant

But, luckily, we have Larry, not Jim Mora, and there is a lot of Creaker season left.

The headline is Royal came back with a 10 run ninth to upend Red, 19-16. We had been in control ever since taking our first lead 6-5 in the bottom of the third. We held Royal to two runs in the middle six innings, but failed to build an insurmountable lead as we only were up 16-9 going into the ninth.

We were not without highlights, on offense or defense. LT Thompson hit two bombs for a double and triple, and three RBIs. The bottom half of the order (Al Kidwell, Tony Gorgone, Howard Davis, Larry Fogli, Bob Muegge, Bill Marthinsen, Chuck Breese, and Larry Rafferty) put together a one out five run fourth to give us a (not permanent) cushion at 11-5. Kevin Kane, Rich Brown, LT, Al, Muegge, and Coach Larry all had three hits.

In those middle innings our defense discovered itself. Roger Vaverka made several stops up the middle on one hop shots (he knows just when to close his eyes) for outs, and shortly after one of them we turned a rover to second to first DP. Rich caught all three outs one inning. Kevin in RC made a fine running catch on a smash up the middle. It was a game saver at the time. And Larry F made a great backpeddling grab on an eighth inning blooper to shallow right to seemingly put Royal away.

But it was not to be. Every blooper and bleeder Royal hit in the ninth found grass or a bad hop and you know the rest. They were gracious enough to give me a post-game Guinness so I am not bitter.

Much.

Beat Red

As Bob Muegge said after the game, Red had Navy right where we wanted them - and then he threw the first pitch. Red struggled at the plate all morning, and faltered a few times in the field and fell to the Navy team 16-6.

It started out with a bad sign in the top of the first. We had one on on a walk and our number three hitter up (not mentioning any names but the initials are JK). He promptly hit a popup into a double play. We then didn't get our first hit until Tony Gorgone singled to lead off the third, and subsequently scored our first run. But we put up zeroes in six of the nine innings - not the way our Coach drew up the Plan. In the mean time, Navy scored in every inning, even though they never got more than three runs in any single inning.

The one highlight came in the top of the sixth when Jerry Ginochio came up with the bases loaded and two outs and plastered the ball down the left field line to clear the bases. He was singled to third but then Larry Rafferty was robbed on a great catch in left center on a sinking line drive. It was one of a number of great defensive plays by the Seadogs.

But there is hope - this is what the losers always say - it's early and the season is just getting started.

Randy Crase, Roger Vaverka, Bill Marthinsen, and Larry Fogli had two hits apiece to lead the team. On defense, Kevin Kane made a nice running catch and Muegge was off the mound like a cat to get an out on a dribbler in front of the plate. We did turn one double play.

Sometimes a Great Notion

From 1980 to 1988, MLB kept a statistic called the Game Winning RBI, defined as the run driven in by a hitter that put his team ahead to stay - the team never trailed after that run.

Of course this meant if you drove in the first run of the game in the top of the first and your team ended up winning 15-2 or 9-8 and never was tied or behind, you got the stat. Which pretty much made it irrelevant, and they discontinued it in less than a decade.

Sadly, I programmed it into my home grown stats program at that time, and I never took it out. I considered removing it entirely, or changing it to track reached base on error (which is more useful to a team), or some other stat, but being lazy be nature I never modified it. And besides, we had years of tracking it on my teams!

But - once in a while, the original intent of the stat, which was basically to track walk-offs, is actualized in a game and tonight was the perfect example.

Derek strode up to the plate, having gone from down on himself after his first at bat, to mild self-satisfaction when he hit a scorching double in the 5th, to climb the heights in the bottom of the seventh. He came up with the tying run on second, and the winning run on first and blasted a ball off the pole in deep right center and we had our first win of the year, 16-14. I think it was still rising when it hit the pole. It felt real good after going down 6-5 the week before in a game we should have cruised through.

He had plenty of help. Berto hit a three run blast of his own in the first to start our scoring, and went 4-4. Jason was a nuisance on the bases also going 4-4. Jeremy made the most of his ABs, with a double, sac fly and reaching on an error to plate 3 RBIs. Plus he made a great catch in LC filling in for Cage. Heffe ignited our six run catch up inning (with two outs and no one on) and our game winning rally with nine hop singles up the middle.

And you don't come back from down 12-3 after 3 1/2 innings without some stellar defense. We turned three double plays, a 1-6-3, 6-4-3, and 4-6-3. Those guys up the middle are our strength. And Tom pretty much slammed the door on his teammates from another league, another time, after they came out of the chute on fire: Helped by the double plays, he only allowed two runs in the last three innings.

It was a great team win and put us back on the map in the early going. Onward next week.

Milestones:
3/28
Jas          300 r (#6)
Monty    450 h (#6)

4/4
Coop      1450 ab (#1)
D            60 2b (#4)
Chopper 100 rbi (#19)

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)