Rain= Boredom= Philosophical Analysis

So I have had nothing to do on Sunday but housework and baby taking-care-of.  And it ain't looking good for this weekend either, but I am not going to lose hope quite yet.

In perusing the past few posts, I noticed that this particular shot speaks a lot about the MBC game, and wanted to point out a few of them... because what the hell else am I going to do?

1. Greg pitching- He hasn't done as much of it lately, but I love the sight of him on the mound, working the inside (that's his secret if you haven't figured it out yet.), and ready to throw 19 innings if needed.

2.  Mitch in Center- Where he belongs yes, but his posture is great cuz he looks like he is sort of nonchalantly standing there, and yet we all know he is capable of tracking down balls in either gap.

3.  Sean at 2nd- I love the fact that we can have a lefty at 2nd base, flying in the face of 170-ish years of baseball experience.

4. Satch's bat- Billy Martin is rolling over in his alcoholic grave  Not to mention the obscene 3 inch choke, which is how I manage to not break my bat and sometimes actually get good wood on anything inside

5. The balls behind the mound- Smartest way to keep the game moving, always interesting when they get hit with a come backer.  I wish we had good enough memory's to just leave our gloves in the outfield when we came in, like the old timers used to do.  But I imagine the first week we did that, we would lose about half the players gloves and the other half would have ankle injuries.

6. Dee Dee in the outfield- Our little furry game mascot and 2nd resident ball magnet.  She and Bob should have a contest some time.

7. The weather- It doesn't happen all the time, but some might argue that a nice sunny day in SF is about as close to perfect as we can get.

8. Johnny's cross-step walk as the pitch is released- We all know its tiresome to be all tense and bouncy with the secondary lead.  Johnny is exhibiting the more sophisticated MBC secondary lead.

9. Style- Everyone in the picture is wearing stirrups or hosiery of some sort.  That's awesome.

10. Baseballers of the Future- Out in deep center.  We love it when little kids watch our game, it is great to see how excited they get that baseball is actually being played and they are so close to it.  We have also never had a problem with kids on the field, softball practice on the other hand.....


Yep, we sure do have something pretty special here in SF.

Rain, Rain, go away, or at least rain early in the week and then dry out....

S. Paige

3/25/12 Rain Out

It was actually really nice on Sunday, but the steady downpour on Saturday gave away any chance of a game.  Hope you all got out and got some fresh air at least.

The Rain blues continue....

S. Paige

Some Culture, Mission Baseball Style

Thanks to our very own literary enthusiast Adam Pfahler, here is a poem he found by Bruce Smith from his collection Devotions, on baseball (and maybe some symbolism about other things, but that is for the critics to decide....


Pinetar, a sluice of tobacco, sunflower seeds, and juju.
Lena Blackburne rubbing mud, gum, the glues and salves
for doing things fairly – one out of three
swipes at the ball and a flare to right, a dying quail, a 3-
2 change popped up with a shitfuck, handcuffed, tomahawked
the high hard stuff or took a backwards K when made to look ugly
as we often were:  Humility 3 Arrogance 1 after seven innings. And all
America around is in the sentimental vaudeville.  So not the claims 
of greened paradise and diamonds in the beauty of the sacrifice 
bunt nor the Newtonian symmetries and distances, it was snakes
in the outfield and trances interrupted by the hamstring pill, spit and
chew,
geological time spans between ball one and ball two.  The meditative
silences
likened to prayer were a bus ride where the Latin music blared.
We had a dominant eye.  We had a thought, well, not quite a thought, 
a thought fouled off in the direction of a woman who could hold a 
drink
an oilcan we'd crush like a inside pitch in our dreams.  Fast twitch
muscle and jock itch.  We scratched our names in dirt.

We wiped our hands on shirts.  As much as we wanted to look good,

we were the bullies of our childhood sliding, cleats up a Juan or Bob

with the fury of the psychopath, Ty Cobb (whose mother

blew his fathers head off with a shotgun, so forever playing dead).

I liked best the games no one could see: pepper, shagging flies, BP.

Got picked off first and waited for a ticket home.

Drafted or matriculated?  In a one-run game I missed the cut-off man.

Boys my age were dying in Khe Sanh.

3/18/12 Cop Field- Batting Practice

Satch was in Scottsdale, where it also rained, hailed, blew a gale and drained the wallets of all....sorry there wasn't more of a turnout in SF, but it sounds like those who came had a good time, except Liam, who we hope is alright....here's John McG with the recap:

Only 7 showed.  The field conditions were surprisingly good (a testament to how bone dry the ground must be).  We took BP.  Tony worked on his CF skills making some nice catches and looking like the Yankee clipper.  Adam fielded well at sack 3.  Elvin was in da house and Daniel, a pal of his named Adam (who has some BB skills), this author, Greg and Dennis rounded out the attendees.   The sun stayed out and the wind stayed up.  Nearly every caught and nearly every one tossed some BP.

The leprechauns played their own game of pepper and the bigger leprechaun got one in the mouth and the ketchup was real.  He bounced back pretty quick though.

Hope for drier skies and more of a turnout this week

S. Paige

The very last Mission Red

Here is our own Duane with the last surviving member of the Mission Reds baseball team, Rugger Ardizoia!  him and Mitch went to the 160 Years of SF baseball at the JCC last night, and Rugger recognized the hat and lamented that he should have worn his own, man how cool must that hat be!!!!????

For the whole scoop, visit Duane's blog 'o' baseball here: http://90feetofperfection.com/


S. Paige

3/11/12 Big Rec

Ahhh, Spring....

A return to the big time, for some of us it was the first game ever at Big Rec, as we have shied away in the last few years, due to traffic, parking, etc.  It was nice to have people watching our little game, and we had a drunken heckler, which was a first in a while too.  The day was amazing, warm, humid, cool for about five minutes, and then muggy.  Daylight savings made it seem like a long game, but it was a tidy 3 hours, with an extra.

We had 18 show up (19 with a late appearance by Loren), and a nice split of talent between the two teams.  Brian Phelps and Noah started on the bump and did some real nice battling.  The visiting squad jumped all over us homers, and ran up a big lead by the 3rd, somewhere in the neighborhood of 7-1.  Ouch. The drunken heckler had some legitimate points, as we threw the ball around, let it roll past us in the outfield, and in general, had trouble getting the third out.

However, baseball is a long endeavor, and anything can happen, especially in a MBC game.  We homers started our comeback, and with a error and poke rally of our own, we closed the gap to 7-5 by the middle innings.  Satch came in for the long save in the 4th and took it the rest of the way, in an effort at last glory before what looks like a month of "other" time.  We tied it up round about the 6th and then inched forward with the lead.

Noah kept battling, but eventually handed the pill over to Dustin Skiles, who did not do his usual overpowering schtick.  We kept tacking on runs, helped in turn by the visitors turn at throwing the ball around and muffing ground balls.  By the end of the game it was us homers who were ahead by 6 runs, and that's how it ended, just in time for the sun to finally disappear and the chill to set in.  Final 15-9.

Highlights:

* Duane had a three run home run, which was pretty awesome

* Adam Pfahler had a base clearing double that really put the game out of reach

* Noah pitched his heart out

* All the catchers did a great job of blocking all day

* I hit Bob with a slow curve, making it an official game.

* Elvin came out after a long absence and made a great catch, and had a nice hit

* Phil Snyder was out gathering photos and making his brother nervous in the batters box

* Another infield fly rule play, that we all recognized.

* Jay had a big rip on a legit curve ball, should have gone with my catcher

* Phelps took third on a heads up base running play, got to cover those bags people

* Scott came out after a long absence, his throwing style has gotten even more submarine in nature, and he had a nice hit that was unfortunately, Mitched

* Long lost Rob came out too, resplendent in neon green soccer cleats (yikes) and made a nice grab in right and had two hits

* The visitors turned a nice double play and had a home to first that almost worked.

* Loren had a nice drive

* The change-up really ruined a lot of people's at bats, I had a couple of innings where the ball never got out of the infield

* The Pink bat got a lot of use

* It wasn't all errors, a lot of people had some real nice contact

* I had a 1.000 OBP, my first four were all hit to the exact same place, with varying degrees of velocity

* The 1st and 3rd dupe didn't work out, as I got picked off on purpose, but then Ed was gunned down at the plate

* Line of the day:
Drunk Heckler- You guys are like the Bad News Bears,
Adam- You're like Walter Matthau in the Bad News Bears....

* The game ended on a screaming line drive come backer...glad I caught it

* I played JT's opposite field line drive perfectly, much to his chagrin

* All our thoughts for a speedy recovery are with old timer and MBC original, Doc Maggrane.

S. Paige

West Sunset- Pictures by Jay

Thanks again to Jay Cellini for the pictures, as you can see it was pretty much the nicest day in SF in a long time.

3/4/12- West Sunset

Wow!  That's all I can say.  What a day, the weather was perfect bordering on hot, nice breeze through out the day, and the mob scene we expected to descend was significantly less than we imagined (12-12 as opposed to 16-16).  The teams were halved on very fair terms, and Sean started on the bump for the homers, Johnny for the visitors.  We breezed through a couple of innings, trading scores, Sean was down in his velocity which allowed us visitors to actually string together some hits, Johnny had some questionable defense at times that allowed for any lead to be a tenuous one.

We once again found ourselves at 6-6 going into the 6th, but we scored to go ahead 7-6, thus depriving us of back to back Number of the Beast games.  However, we did make it 8-8 in the 8th ( My number, so a different kind of number of the Beast) and 9-9 in the 9th which was pretty cool.  As you can tell, it was close game through out, and into the legitimate extra innings, it stayed close, as we both ran the tally up to 14.

However, the homers proved to be stronger in fortitude in the extra innings, and also some how ended up having the last at bats, but I guess the reasoning was that they had already won the game, and it was doubtful that we could get another full inning in.  It would have been nice to try though, final score 16-14.

Highlights Extravaganza!


* Sean and Co. managed to get out of a bases loaded no outs jam, it was a thing of beauty to see.  Unless you were the guy stranded on base.

* Two infield fly rule plays in one game!

* Paul W. came out for his swan song, got a couple of hits, told some stories.  He is moving to sunny Florida in the next few weeks, seeking sun, warmth, and friendly income tax climates.  We wish him all the best, thanks for playing!

* A questionable foul ball that sat on the plate, may have been an fair ball.

* Greg vs. Greg once again proved violent, as Snyder put one between his shoulder blades, again.

* Brian Phelps and Jay both took lots of pics, some of which can be viewed here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bmp415/sets/72157629519175683/

* We also experienced the ill-fate of the dropped 3rd strike, safe at first

* We had some great hits that were a result of batters hustling down to first, that's the MBC heart!

* Jay got a crucial RBI and then almost got picked off while being 10 inches off the bag

* The ol' first and third steal play actually worked!

* Mitch and Brian traded who could be the best center fielder title through the game

* I tattooed one off Sean my first at bat, and I actually pulled the ball.  That made up for a lot of stinker at bats in the last few games

* JT made a couple of JT Snow-like plays at first

* Thanks to Bob, Greg, Gaspar, Ed, Adam for catching and doing a great job blocking the ball in a close game

* Daniel gets the award for best slide and worst delayed steal

* Sean, playing second base, made a strong argument for the basic mechanics of why lefties don't play second base

*  Duane stroked the ball, Adam had a huge drive for a double, as did Mitch, who of course, got a triple

* Will and Carter got to be on the same team and batted back to back

* No one say Dennis' name when he is playing defense, apparently it paralyses him

* The sun proved to be less of a problem this time, no explanation, except that maybe we are headed into spring?

* The wind, on the other hand, made for some real tense high flies

* DJ Greg did a good job of throwing strikes in the final frames, and struck out Sean, but needs to remember that fixing his hat in the middle of his wind up is considered a balk.

* An epic game, thanks to everyone who came out, and everyone who didn't.

Next week, Big Rec, 3pm ( don't forget to set those clocks ahead an hour)

S. Paige