8/8/10- West Sunset

We showed up at the field and there were a lot of baseball players there, which ordinarily would have been a good thing except that it wasn't our team, and they had the field already. Strangely, we talked it out with them and while they were not too happy with giving up the field, they did so pretty easily. It seems they had come from Hayward to play a doubleheader to determine who would enter the playoffs, and the first game had decided that, so they second was going to be just for the hell of it anyway. With one exception, they were all fine with letting us use the field, and while we warmed up, the winners took off, and the losers started drinking in the parking lot. On the drive over, the windshield wipers had to be employed due to the nasty fog and mist that covered all of the Sunset. Yet somehow, it wasn't really cold and it wasn't really hot.

Johnny dashed out to the bump and started for the homers, backed by a team of sluggers that rivaled some of the best lineups we have put together. We tried our best to get something started and we scored one in the first, but then as Satch settled in to the bottom of the first, we quickly realized that we were grossly overmatched. The line up for the homers was formidable, they had Nick Smith, Johnny, Sean, Lattig, Chris, Bob, Mitch, Cagle. And they quickly made us sorry, starting the series of long innings for us.

By the time we had played through five, we were down by quite a few, and Chris and Sean and Mitch and Bob had doubles and triples, some of them had more than one. We were doing our best to keep it close, and at one point we made a some pretty great plays to stop rallies before they got embarrassing, including a relay play at the plate from a long ball in the outfield.

However, it just wasn't meant to be for us, and as we got into the 9th, and needed to mount a rally, but we weren't quite able to conjure up a comeback. So instead we talked the homers into sticking around for a 10th inning. Unfortunately, our team pretty much left us, so we had to rely on the homers play defense for us, and damn if they didn't lock it down. We got three quick outs and then got another chance. Sean comes in to throw his extra inning of work, and gives us the nasty stuff, and down we went, with one extra out for Tony so that all four of our remaining players got a chance to hit, he got a single, and then we packed it in.

The ballers in the parking lot were still there, listening to a pre-season football game, which showed what kind of guys they were. The captain of the team had progressed from surly to very drunk and surly, and mad dogged me as we left the lot and headed back into the rainy mist.

Highlights

* Johnny pitched a great complete game, and kept us off balance with his mixture of guile and locations.

* Cagle and Chris made some amazing plays on ground balls at third and short, simply amazing.

* Girgus made for a very reliable center fielder for the whole game, with a few exceptions in the getting out of the way of the falling fly ball rather than blocking it

* Richie stole second, stole third, stole home. Easy.

* Sean killed the fucking ball all day

* Cagle was caught in a baserunning play again, not a streak we like to see continue

* Girgus had a great bunt

* JT came late, got out to right field and promptly made a much needed catch

* Nick Kinsey returned from the great beyond and had a couple of hits

* For a beat up of a game, I think may have had 6 or 7 strike outs, including Sean and Lattig, who I have not struck out since roughly 2004.

* Anthony made a great catch, and then later got caught short when Bob lambasted a change up into space

* Mitch grabbed the short flies and long drives, and as usual, made it look easy

* Nero made a nice grab at first, and scooped up a shovelful of dirt in the process

Next week, Cop field, 3 pm. Dig it, man.

S. Paige