I was freezing my ass off in the mountains, but here is what happened according to two of the players, Johnny Bartlett and Bob Carey:
Only a couple things need to be said:
J. Bartlett – complete game + striking out Bob Carey and hitting him Bob Carey — 4 for 5 off J. Bartlett (including triple ____________________________________________________________ Last Sunday saw the perfect 18 show up to play a nail biter. Great mixture of new faces and grizzled veterans.
Henway, like the subject sez, Sunday's game is at Balboa Park, the Cop field. 3:00 pm, natch.
Well that is pretty much all she wrote, the sun is here for a little while so you better enjoy it and get out to the park. The winning SQ game will be printed in the Mountain Democrat soon, will re-post once it is in.
I really wish I had been able to be there, if not just to add one more guy. Now I know I am preaching to the choir here, but come on people, either you are a baseball player, or you are a guy who used to play baseball and now does chores around the house and goes to brunches with the wife's family and talks about gardening tips and church functions and then to family barbeques with nutty relatives in Manteca....oh wait, well, hey...I don't have to explain myself... I come out as often as I can, but you know how it is? All you people without significant others should be out there every Sunday, that's for sure. I remember Sundays being the three hours of the week that I didn't think about scoring and just concentrated on...well...scoring.
In any case, some of us still love this game enough to go to GGP on Bay to Breakers Sunday, and forge a dynamite game! And to them I salute! The rest of you better get your fucking priorities straight. As Pete Rose once said, "Baseball is a hard game, love it hard and it will love you back hard. Try to play it easy and the first thing you know you are on the outisde looking in." Now here is the hero of the game, Johnny Bartlett:
It was a crisp Spring day at Big Rec. A figure appeared on the horizon. The shape was familiar, like Cool Papa Bell splitting the corn rows -- RICHIE GARCIA. Back in action and playing like he was never injured. However, Richie made for a grand total of 11 guys. Contrary to Nero's fear-inducing email, traffic was not bad, and parking was never easier at Big Rec (thanks John). That said, we quickly tried to remember the rules to Curacao 5ive. Adam volunteered to start out as permanent catcher. Johnny B took the bump for the home team, facing fellow San Mateo rival Sean Paul for the visitors.
Somewhat to concentrate on the game at hand because of the mini-skirted women (and men) from Bay To Breakers prancing about. Alas, the game began and the visitor struck first with a 2 spot in the first. The homes answered with one, and so the scored remained for quite a while at 2-1. Then 2-2. Then 4-2, then 4-4. A tight little game, considering the Curacao 5ive conditions. Lo and behold, two strangers joined. One was kinda hippy (we'll call him New Guy 1 and he played for the home team) and the other was kinda cranked up or something (we'll call him David). Anyway, both new guys were way more capable than expected. Ånyway, those guys made 13 men and made the game a little more legit.
Top of the 8th: Sean hits a home run that's still in orbit. RIGHT HANDED! 5-4 visitor. Mike Gaspar relieves Sean in the bottom of the 8th and retires the side with about 6 pitches. No kidding.
Visitors add an insurance run in the top of the 9th. But the home team wasn't done yet. Richie ties the game with a great situational single. Johnny B hits a double to bring home Richie and send everyone home to wallow in Budweiser.
Highlights abound:
Adam makes one of the most amazing catches behind the plate. I forget who was at bat, but the pop up goes pretty much straight up, it appeared that Adam didn't have a clue, but took the screams from his teammates to heart, lifted his mask, turned around and nabbed the ball right in front of him in what can only be described as being like a frog flicking his tongue to catch a fly.
There were a couple double plays, if I'm not mistaken.
Brian Girgus, playing first base, runs back and makes a fantastic over the shoulder catch. Amazing.
3 innings later, Greg Snyder makes an almost identical play to Brian's. The leather was on display!
New Guy 1 made a fairly amazing running catch in left field. And then promptly split from the game.
Adam, Mike G, and Greg all caught and sacrificed their ABs for the betterment of the game. Hats off to you fellas.
And it's great to have Richie back, and in fine form, I might add.
All in all, it was a great modified Curacao 5ive game.
A threatening morning of rain, we were fearful of a rainout, but next thing you know it is sunny and bright, and not too much wind. It ended up being a muggy warm day, which was the last thing any of us expected.
So once again, we found ourselves short, it was a pretty good crew but with only 12 guys there isn't much you can do. But we started with the usual 12 man thing, and before too long we had Edwin and Adam show up and next thing you know we had ourselves a real game.
Satch started on the hill and was throwing at about 60%, but with some good change ups and curves, that kind of thing. And who should be facing him on the big bump but Mr. Brian Girgus, back after a long absence. And he threw pretty decent, but we had made a rule at the beginning that it was going to be an aggressive day at the plate. It seemed to work out well, we are a highball hitting crew. The score ran up 4-1 through the 3rd, the visitors with a healthy lead. But the homers were not to be stopped, coming back with a mixture of guile, old fashioned shitty fielding, and powerful line drives to the gaps.
Brian bowed out first, followed by Satch, and Greg and Greg came in to mop up. Home Greg did his best and shut down the visitors with his mixture of speed and slow. Visitor Greg was less successful and hopefully didn't hurt his arm. The visitors tried their best, but the homers in the end were victorious with a 9-8 victory.
Highlights
* Actually had a game....
* Satch went 5-6 with 3 singles, double, triple and the longest fly out in the history of MBC. If it hadn't been for Mitch tracking it down, I might have thought about trotting it out.
* Mitch had some other great catches, and a couple of drives that hissed past the mound
* Adam, Ben, Gaspar did a great job of catching
* We kept Tony off balance all day, Lattig and Satch got him out 4 times in a row.
* First time in a while that Greg didn't catch
* Greg picked off Vic and only through a error made by our own team did he keep from being out, pay attention on those bases, there are no timeouts
* Sean jogged by, spent the day with his mom, nice....don't let it happen again
* Foggy on the rest, but if you got a highlight, send me a message.
Satch is out of commission for the next month, so someone write it up and email me the stories for the blog.
We congregated in the parking lot, making sure we didn't have any of the 160 things that you can't being in now, 12 no, wait, 14 of us (Ben and Vic) trudged up the hill, already sweating in the hot Marin sun and started the process. Amazingly we were in record time, the bag search was about the same, the guard barely peeked in each bag and when the phone rang he stopped all together. I think they must have known we were good guys.
The new multi-million dollar hospital is finished, and according to one inmate, they only have one floor of medical services, the rest is fancy offices with views of Mt. Tam and the bay. Sounds about right. They still have to leave the grounds to get any major medical help, so one wonder what the hospital is used for. During the Norovirus outbreak, they closed the hospital and told the inmates that they didn't allow sick people in there.
We put on the spikes and got the word from Kent that we would be starting a little late as one cell block had not been released, and that group contained both pitchers. We threw in the outfield and then took infield, looking remarkably sharp in contrast to games past. The Giants took their turn, we spoke to the umpires about the rules of balls in the yard and the first pitch was underway. Mitch was hit with a ball in the shoulder and helmet, stole second, and came home on a single by Chris Powell. Another run scored and we ended the top of the first out in front for the first time. Sean, the cagey lefty, who was on his first trip to the Big House (that we know about) took the bump and started mowing inmates down. He kept them off balance all day, and added to his glory by going 3-3 at the plate. He had a little trouble, as we all did with the home plate umpire whose strike zone was changing batter to batter, and who was very susceptible to the frame. But he did it for both teams, so whatever. Apparently it was his first game behind the plate.
One of the main reasons we had been excited about this game as that we had cherry picked a defense that wouldn't crumble and fall at the prospect of playing at SQ, and indeed our defense was solid all day, no misplayed balls in the outfield, the only major hit that the Giants got was off Satch, and it was a deep drive, saved from being a homerun by a few feet. Our infield knocked everything down that they could, and did a really great job of keeping the ball in the infield and preventing the hungry runners from advancing just because they could.
Neither team scored again until the 6th, when we got a new pitchers to face, and took full advantage of the situation. John Nero was our lone baserunner, but he advanced carefully to each sack, and we kept getting runners behind him. Satch came up with the bases loaded and two outs, and I am here to tell you that was a bit of a high pressure at bat. Not to mention I had struck out the at bat before, and the cons on the wore were giving it to me the whole at bat. Telling me I was done, and that I was afraid to swing....1-2 before I could even figure out what the hell I was doing. I fouled a couple of picthes off, kept wide and low and sent a pitch to the right center gap, that allowed the bases to clear. A great feeling. I stayed at 1st to enjoy it, and also so I didn't get thrown out at 2nd and be a shit heel after being a star. Wise choice.
Sean gave way to Satch in the 6th, and in hindsight, I should have warmed up a bit more, I didn't throw a strike for the first 8 pitches, and when I did it was hit well. A misplayed ball at 2nd was all it took to get the Giants on the board, and the score stood 5-2. But we held them, Satch started throwing strikes, the defense capped the rallies, and made the plays that were needed. I got sweet revenge on Red, the guy who had hit the monster shot off of me, and who our entire bench was happy to remind me of when he came up again. Yeah, I recognize the guy. I employed the slower and slower defense against him, throwing changeup after changeup, and getting him to flail off balance. He battled, but in the end, I got him to swing at a dying quail of a pitch, and the danger was over. Stretch himself complimented me after the game and said he liked that approach to aggressive hitters.
Somewhere in the middle of the game, Stoner came up and got plugged in the back fo the neck, which was not what we wanted to see or hear. It was a meaty thwap, and Stoner went down, yelled FUCK! and then laid on the ground. As concerned as we were for him, his reaction was also slightly amusing, in a gallows humor sort of way (hey it's prison). He stayed down and was checked out, and the Giants got him a leaky icebag that got him more wet than anything. But we were all very relieved to see him get up and walk. And he didn't even miss his next at bat. That's the MBC spirit, play in the face of all medical advice!
We came to the 9th, they got a man on, but it was too little too late, and Johnny "Bad Ass" the catchers who looks like he could take on a Abrahams tank, flied out to Sean in left to record the final out. We had won. It didn't sink in for while, we shook hands, met for a prayer at the mound, chatted for a few minutes and then were herded out. The beer flowed at the Marin Brewing Co. and toasts were handed all around. Freedom and victory never tasted so good.
Highlights
*Sean gets the game ball for excellent pitching and hitting and fielding, all on his first outing
*Greg caught the whole game, and framed some excellent pitches.
*Noah, who kept a clean scorecard and played some soccer in right field
*We had a lot less strikeouts then we usually do, thanks to some more aggressive swinging and no Stretch
*Johnny Bartlett got a hit after being robbed at the plate, and made a great stop at 3rd.
*Brian, Mitch, Stoner all had important catches in the outfield.
*It was fun to have all the inmates against us in the game, usually they want to see the Giants lose, but they were cheering pretty good for their own guys this time.
Thanks to everyone who made it out. 1-9 BABY!!!!
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Moscone. Well, it was a nice day. 11 people showed up, then 12, then 11 again. We played Reykjavik 11, glad that we were able to do something but man, it sucked not having a game after the high the day before. Thanks to Vivek for bringing Matt! Other wise we might have had to have batting practice! Ouch. The game as it was, went about 6 innings, and the final was 14-8?
Highlights
*Gaspar hit one through my legs on the pitchers mound. Not used to that.
*Sean had two homeruns.
*I pitched more, and needed some serious ice afterwards. And booze.
*Vivek had a monster shot.
*I finally broke the Old Pete bat, it served us well. I am taking it camping and will burn it ceremoniously.
*Thanks to Greg, Gaspar, John Spack for catching, and extra thanks to Gaspar for pitching as well
*Sean had a crafty hidden ball trick
*Finally got some good hits with the Nike bat
*Nick Smith's grunts when he hits are getting more pronounced, and more intimidating
Well, hope to see us back up to 19 on Sunday, Cop Field, 3 pm.
