12/22/13 Moscone Field

Baseball in December, you betcha!

 65 degrees and muggy?  Nailed it!

Plenty of Parking???  My God!

Quality game, well, depends on who you ask...

It was great to be out again, this time as my early Christmas present from Mrs. Paige.  Luckily it worked out real well.  We came in a couple hours early, lil' Satch exhausted himself riding his trike around the marina, we got an awesome parking spot, and the sun was shining.  Attendance was a little lacking at first but we eventually ended up with 17 which is very respectable considering it was three days before the holiday.

Chris Powell started for the homers, with his lovely fiance Lea in the stands, and he is looking better each time he throws.  We managed to score two runs off him in three innings, and that was it.  Mitch took over after him and it's true these two have become a force to be reckoned with.  Then they brought in AOY 2012 Phelps to close it out.  They all did well, and kept us visitors from ever really stringing anything together.

Satch went the distance for the visitors, and felt really good, 6 weeks of not throwing does wonders for the arm.  I think I had at least 7 Ks for the day, and threw a couple of fastballs that I didn't think I had in me anymore.  The breaking ball was wicked and the change up was equally nasty.  As Greg remarked around the 5th inning, "I don't know how you are losing this game."  But losing it I was.  The homers lit me up for a few, and my defense had a serious case of the bobbles for a while, and next thing you know, it's 6-2 in the 8th inning.

We had a mini comeback, and at least made it interesting for a second, but all of our run opportunities seemed to happen with 2 outs, and much like the rest of the game, we died with men on, and a final of 6-4.

Highlights:

* Sonny came out with his kid Oliver, who played defense with his dad in center and promptly caught my fly ball for the first out of the game.  Give it another six months and he is our new starting right fielder.

* I hit Bob with a fastball for the first time in a while, real scary.  Luckily, it apparently was a skimmer rather than a plunker.  Middle of the back.  I also hit Powell, who tried to duck.  Those were my only "walks" though.

* Jon Carey had at least two hits through the left side, it's like he took the Gasparian hit to the next level.

* JT gave me a real battle of an at bat

* Gaspar made an amazing sliding catch in foul territory.

* Dani was at bat five times, and counting interferences, was out 8 times.  But always great to see her.

* It was another 4 AOY day.  Shine up that Deserter trophy for Will, fyi.

* I had at least two hits that I was proud of.  I was on base four times, and never got past 2nd base.

* Phelps put one down the line at third that sealed my doom.

* The third base fill in for our team left a little to be desired at times.

* Will made two nice plays running from SS to the foul line

* Dani made an amazing catch in right when we REALLY needed it!

* JT hit a ground ball to second that I think was bobbled five times in one play, that time he was meant to get on base.

* There were 4 bums lounging in the sun during the game, but no one really heckled us.  I miss the old bum.

* New guy Joe had a real nice double and a great throw to stop Phelps from trying to score.

* After I hit Bob, I threw a nice and easy pitch and he tattooed it and then said thank you.  When AOY meets AOY, they cancel each other out and become gentleman.

Happy Holidays, Pancha Ganapati, Festivus, Christmas Eve, Dies Natalis Solis Invicti (Day of the birth of the Unconquered Sun), Christmas, Yule, Anastasia of Sirmium Feast Day, Malkh, Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, Saint Stephen's Day, Saint John the Evangelist's Day, Holy Innocents' Day.


S. Paige

12/8/13 Big Rec

The chill was in the air and 14 of us squared off.

All were impressed Phelps arrived with Hawks in town. Powell grabbed the mound for the Homers and Greg for the Visitors. Chris was as sharp as the breeze going 5 strong with 2 or 3 Ks and no runs. Greg was equally sharp giving up just one run. The Homers scored a second run with a sac fly and the game was over in under 2 1/2 hours. Mitch closed it out for the homers. Seems like Mitch and Chris are the new 1-2 punch. Defense and good pitching kept this one low. Not one ball was hit over an outfielders head.

• Good to see Tony as all played with heavy hearts for Dee Dee.
• I made the best play I've ever made in the infield. Grounder up the middle, to back-hand flip to Mitch covering second.
• 9 innings at second base by a lefty - 0 errors - phew
• 3 AOYs all played on one team, seems like a theme
• Nero played a great 3B while filling in for the other team
• Lattig wore pants!
• Since this is so delayed, I forget the rest

RIP- Dee Dee Rojas

She was tough, she was scrappy, she was punk, she was our team.

Hope you are enjoying the good life, Dee Dee, Tony misses you, and we all do too.

11/17/13 Big Rec

Thanks to Mike Gaspar we have a blog entry, sounds like it was a gas, a real zinger, stone gone, and fulla piss and peppa! Also, Congrats to Mitch and Chris for a shut out, and thanks to everyone who played for making it a good time. 


 It was another awesome fall day at big rec. we started the game 8-8 with an additional player coming around the fourth inning. mitch started for the homers. the week off must have done his arm good because he was in top form. greg took the bump for the visitors. and due to a chris powell double and a couple of passed balls/wild pitches.

The homers took a quick lead. then both teams settled in. the middle innings were a pitchers duel. with the defenses making all the routine plays with some spectacular plays mixed in. in the fifth inning the visitors made some crucial errors and the homers were able to put another three on the board.

Meanwhile mitch held their offence in check save for a booming double by jimmy. but he advanced no ther. and mitch handed the ball to chris shutout intact. the late innings saw the homers score a couple more. chris pitched well for the visitors including one inning where he threw no more than ten pitches. when the third out of top of the ninth was recorded the score was 6-0 homers time of game: 2:25. that's some old school ball for ya.

Highlights:

 bob making great, over the shoulder catch at second base 

james making leaping catch in foul ground in left

 lattig with several nice scoops at first

 nick with a great running catch in left. sacrificing his body in the process 

greg went all nine on the mound.

duane and ed the same behind the plate. not easy at big rec.

11/10/13 Big Rec

This weeks game was so great that on my drive home I decided that I would tell Mrs. Paige that it could count as my birthday present.  It was a beautiful day, we ended up with 20, and there were four AOY's in attendance.  Will, in true current AOY style, was late., he blamed it on us playing too quick of a game.  Lefty Phelps, Bobby Badass, and Yours Satchfully were more graceful, spending our time throwing strikes, hitting bombs, pulling muscles, repairing wood bats with a steel pole and shaking the one and only Johnny Bartlett's hand.

Yes indeedy, he is back.  Maybe not in game form yet, but come one, give the guy about four breaks.  He drove in the Catalina, threw with Greg, shook hands, ...and the best part of the whole story is that he came out to warm up AND drop off the t-shirts that have now made back their expense, so any extra now goes to  the general fund for fields, Red Man and another bucket of tar.  What a class act!  We missed him a lot, and can't wait to see him again, more and often. Three cheers for our favorite gadabout, Johnny Bartlett!

The game starts, it was me versus Phelps.  This time though, he didn't have the stuff.  Whatever it is that Phelps has had, he didn't have it.  We jumped on him for a couple of big innings, and had a cushion for most of the game.  Felt good to have a few hits along with the rest of the team.  Now Brian can go back to ruling it over us.

Hard to say too much about the game, it was more of a had to be there kind of thing, but the homers made a great comeback in the later innings.  I had bowed out after 6 with the score well in our favor, and no hits yet on the tally for the visitors. Tony Rojas came in to throw a few innings and took a second to settle in ( I had the same problem on a well groomed mound).  Chris Powell to throw his starting to be usual 2 and then Elvin came in, which we all thought was great.  He has been asking politely for a few weeks and we respect that. A gentleman always wins in the MBC.   And he threw strikes.  If he can work on a breaking ball, he's got a bright future.

In the end they took the game back and won it in a regulation 9.  We played an extra one took the extra. Or maybe it was vice versa.  In any case, everyone won.

Highlights:

* An Amazing game.

* Mr. Bartlett

* Duane did another good job at the dish, with new equipment and some gentle reminders from Mitch on the fine arts of getting hit in the body with a thrown object

* Some damn fine hitting took place

* Another game of close, bang bang plays at first

* Doc came out and umpired one last time before he sets off for his tropical paradise in Venezuela to wait out the winter.

* I was throwing some bad ass knuckleballs in warm ups, too bad I can't pitch 80' from the plate.

* JT was once again the victim of a outfield force assist, this time at second base.  He was rightfully upset, we swear we aren't singling him out, it just happens that way.

* I think I counted three hawks in the area

Thanks to everyone for a great game, sorry if I missed some of the exploits, its hard to remember in the midst of all the fun!

S. Paige

11/3/13 Big Rec

It was a fantastic day for a baseball game, it was sunny without being overly so, no wind, no fog, a little haze, and best of all, no Niners game to wreak havoc.  Yet, for some reason, there was still traffic.  I just don't get it.  

We celebrated the glorious return of Sean Paul Presley  who has been out on tour with some musicians, playing this thing called rock and/or roll.  In any case, his hair was short, his mustache was trimmed and his arm was ready.  And the full nine he went, he had probably been dreaming of pitching for quite some time, in fact, I am sure of it.  For not having a blazing fastball, he did great, and he had a weird fork ball thing that he was throwing a lot.  When it worked it was nasty.    

Greg started for the visitors, and was his usual shut down self.  I got there in the top of the 2nd, so I missed the derring-do of the first inning, when my team apparently scored a run.  I was razzed as being late and not being Mitch, which was who they hoped would show up.  So I hit myself a infield single, took second on a fielders choice and scored on a hit to center, testing Elvin's arm early.  After that the team left me alone (for a little while....).

We see sawed a bit, the visitors were leading for most of the middle innings and then the homers took an opportunity and tied up the game.  It didn't last long, as we shut down the scoring and went on a scoring spree of our own to fix the score at 6-3.  We were feeling pretty proud of ourselves.

Satch came in the 7th and was throwing pretty good, after figuring out how to pitch around the 9 inch hole in the mound.  And by pitch around I mean, just accept the hole and land in it and try not to sprain your ankle.  

We closed in on the bottom of the ninth, 6-4, and with Sean up with two on, he hit a pop up to the infield.  I called for it, as I moved closer and closer to the foul line.  And then, a'la Snodgrass, well, I dropped the darn thing.  The question was had I been in fair territory when I muffed it?  My team was insistent that I hadn't been, the homers were equally insistent that I had.  I threw the ball to Lattig in case there was a chance, but everyone seemed to think that I had been in foul ground.

Hey, we still had a lead, what's one more chance, I thought?

Well, Sean singled home two runs, and tied the game.  We eventually got the second out, but there was still a man on third and Bob strode up and hit a ground ball to the right side.  Nick was there to pick it up, oops, never mind.  And the game was over.

We played an extra inning to have a little fun, although about half of our team left, so the homers were good sports about defense.  Chris Powell came in and pitched for the homers, and we managed to score two runs in our half, so you could say that it was a day that everyone won.

7-6 Homers in Regulation 9.

8-7 Visitors in Fun time 10th.

Highlights:

* Sean pitched a great game

* JT hit the hardest ball in a long time, however, Lattig and I had conspired on making the SQ right field play, and we got him.  Bummer.

* I struck out Will with the heater.  Felt good to have that available

* Two new guys showed up and one of them hit a triple off Greg to tie the game.  Greg claimed he was going easy on him for being a new guy.  Never again.

* Will strapped on the tools of ignorance for the first time, and did a great job of blocking the plate

* I caught a line drive from Chris that about took my glove off

* Nick tried to get the new guy to slide in shorts.  It may have been a hazing incident.

* Lattig hit a nice single up the middle, but felt his back tweak before he got out of the box.  Hope it wasn't serious.

* Elvin had a frustrating day at the plate, and was throwing his helmet all over the place.  He lacked his usual exuberance, hopefully we aren't getting on his nerves.

* Some guy on the other field was hitting bombs all day

* Dee Dee didn't get hit by anything, and seems to be healing finally!

* Rally Hawk!

* I finally hit a ball I could be proud of my last at bat.

* A great day of baseball.  

10/13/13 Big Rec

Sorry this entry is a wee bit late, not enough time in the day to keep up with the old dispatches.  Needless to say the game we had on Sunday last was a real beauty.  The day was amazingly beautiful, clear, no wind, sun and warmth all while taking in Golden Gate Park, and all with plenty of parking.  Sure the federal government had been shut down, Bart was planning on another strike and there is no end to the depravity, misery and pain in the world, but for a few hours at least, we all forgot about those things.

Brian Phelps started for the homers and continued his dominance that has been his calling card for the last few months.  maybe its the impending fatherhood that is putting the extra fire in his belly, but whatever it is, HE HAS GOT IT.  He pretty much coasted his way through six innings, helped by the pinpoint accuracy of his pitches and the convenient placing of his defense to exactly the spot that we all hit the ball to.  One inning in particular, all three outs were recorded by the center fielder, and I don't think he had to move more than three feet to catch any of them.  Amazing.

Greg started for the visitors, and pitched his usual game, but when the offense doesn't score any runs, it makes the pitcher look like he isn't doing his job.  Throwing errors, legit hits, bloops and bad breaks, they all cost something, and heading into the middle innings, the score was something like 6-1.  Satch came in to relieve Greg and was throwing with some fire, the fastball was there, and it was being used.  We tried to stymie the run scoring and give our team a chance, but Phelps' ability or our lack thereof kept us from too much of a rally.

Mitch came in to close things out and we fared little better, our own deficit being raised when Satch gave up a big hit to Powell to widen the score to 7-4, which is where it ended.

Highlights:

* Phelps had our number all day

* My team and myself included, once again committed the grievous error of the line out double play, multiple times.

* Several close plays at first, which lead to some horsetrading on later plays and calls.

* It was strange to have a pop fly actually stay within the trajectory it was supposed to and the person catch it without looking like they were on roller skates.  If I was a teenager (or an asshole) I would probably add #wherewasthewind?

* Duane did a real nice job behind the dish, a spot he is getting accustomed to

* Phelps somehow stroked a single to center on one of the nastiest knuckleballs I have thrown as of late.  Seriously, had to be an eyes closed swing.

* Coney Island James came out again and did some fancy work with the leather

* The mound was in real bad shape, the landing zone was a crater about a foot wide and 9 inches deep

* Ed did a good job of blocking the ball

* Milo served as bat boy with aplomb and got to hit a few times, before Tony put the kibosh on it with his "I hate all children and the fun they have" attitude.  I get it, Tony, and Milo might be a little young to be scurrying around the bases, but a middle ground is probably attainable.

* Good to see Lattig et al. out again, although he didn't go his customary 5-6.

Yesterday's game at Cop Field, outcome not yet known.

S. Paige

9/22/13 Big Rec

Sorry this is a bit behind the times, but things have a way of getting away from Satch sometimes.  It was a great game, well, if you were on the home team anyway.  Satch had been saving up mojo since the San Quentin game that never was, and that plus another three weeks of not playing baseball put me in a good position.

For the first five innings, I had a no hitter going.  Adam was calling a hell of a game and I had some pep usually not present in my shoulder that helped make the fastball look strong enough that everyone swung at the change ups I was throwing.  Either way, I got throw the full 9,  which was an honor.

It was nice to have some really solid defense, I think Sonny at SS, Mitch in center and new guy from Coney Island, James, accounted for about 90% of the put outs.   All I had to do was keep throwing strikes and they did the rest.

Greg started for the visitors, and he did fine, as he always does.  But holes in the defense were found, and we scored some runs and then some more.  The game was never really lose, and Tony came in to mop up after Greg, and seemed unusually wild, I think he hit Ed two-three times in one at bat.  Or maybe he jsut doesn't like Ed....

It was such a beautiful day that when the regular nine innings ended, we thought hey, why not keep playing, give the visitors a chance to hit, stretch out the day.  Well, sometimes you play a little too much, the bottom of the ninth for the homers ran on and on and by the time the third out was in the books, half the visiting team had gone home, and the other half didn't give a shit about batting again.

So in theory, the game might still be open, they deserved their final at bats.

Score: 13-2?

Highlights:

* Not too much I can remember, other than it felt good to have command of my pitches

* Elvin showed up in a Red Sox uniform, and was threatened by each and every A's fan out there

* The day was amazingly beautiful.  The parking was amazingly awful

* At bat, I twice hit balls that resulted in inning ending double offs.

* Bob swung at a knuckleball

* I had one nice deep drive that felt very good

* Adam and Ed were great for me behind the dish.

* I can't say enough about my defense that day

* James did a lot with the glove and the bat

* Gaspar had a perfect Gaspar hit

* The A's clinched and we played a ball game, end of story.

8/25/13 West Sunset

It was a long time getting across the bridge, the 49er's opening game, the Giants, the whatever the hell happens on Sunday's around that time.  But eventually, we all made it out to West Sunset and had enough to start a game.  We were without a number of the stalwarts of the MBC, which was odd, but it didn't stop us from having a good game. 

Mitch started for the homers and looked good.  The danger, as we quickly assessed was that when Mitch is on the mound it means he isn't able to contribute in his usual way defensively.  There were more than a few dropped pop ups, and mixed with the hits, add one ugly inning and the visiting team had a commanding lead going into the middle frames, something in the neighborhood of 9-2?  After five innings, Mitch was done watching his team try and get the outs, and started playing defense and hitting bases-loaded triples.  The ball went to Chris Powell who pitched in relief the rest of the game (maybe his longest stint so far?).

Satch started for the visitors and worked with Noah the whole game.  It was a good combination, once we got our rhythm going.  Change of speed was the name of the game, and helped by a generous strike zone at times (you are supposed to swing, people....) we were holding it together just fine.

Round about the 7th, Satch was cruising, got the first two batters with two pitches.  Then all of a sudden, the homers came alive with an amazing two out rally and the next thing you know they had closed the gap and then taken the lead!  13-12.

We battled back to a tie game, and the homers took a one run lead again in the bottom of the eighth.  It looked like curtains for the visitors, but a hit, and bobble, and drop and we the tie runner on third. 

A ground ball to Jimmy looked sure to be the end of the game, but then, for reasons we are not clear on, Jimmy went home with the throw rather than first.  The play went awry and we were tied up.  A play later, we had the lead.  Satch came in for the final frame and saved his own affair.  Which was satisfying.  But I kinda wished the homers had won, given the amount of heart they put into the comeback.  Oh well, that's the game we have chosen to love.  

Final score- 15-14.

"Lurking behind every baseball game, is the knowledge that a play will occur in which the game is decided and someone will fail.  We know this because statistics are kept, records are examined.  It's the spooky undercurrent that runs through baseball."- Daniel Okrent

Highlights:

* A great game, warts and all.

* JT's younger daughter Sarah came out, went 2-5 (same as JT), made a great play in left, as well as a couple of amazing throws and looked like she belonged out there from the second she took the field.  Come out again anytime!

* Daniel's new guy had two home runs that were both brought into question ( first one he might have missed third, second one the ball got lodged under the fence)

*  The homers were popping up the change up all day

* John McG had a hard hit ball to the gap and explained "FUCK YES!" as he ran down the line.

* I struck out Bob for the first time in while with a slider I found in my back pocket.  I also found some Vaseline, sandpaper and a razor blade back there, but those were unrelated.

*  We had two news guys that showed up to hit batting practice with their friends who all flaked on them  We recruited them in, and hopefully they came out again this week.  They both appeared to know what they were doing.

* Elvin was thrown out twice at the plate, because he refuses to slide.  A long Garcia-Nero-centric argument ensued about the second time, as Elvin went waaaaaaaaaay out of the baseline to avoid the tag and Noah called him out without tagging him.  MLB rule book says:

7.08 Any runner is out when—

(a) (1) He runs more than three feet away from his base path to avoid being tagged

unless his action is to avoid interference with a fielder fielding a batted ball. A

runner’s base path is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight

line from the runner to the base he is attempting to reach safely

Sorry Elvin, just slide next time.

* For a not very sunny day, it was muggy as hell out there

Here's to all those who played!

S. Paige

7/28/13 Cop Field

A little late, but lots going on outside baseball these days.  The game was great, classic old school Mission baseball, complete with replacements, late team changes, complete games and people on injured appendages making plays.

The teams seemed a little lopsided, and indeed they may have been, given that we had five pitchers and four catcher on one side, out of 16 people.  After the first inning, we swapped out an AOY for a player to balance the sides and that seemed to kind of be ok.  As you can see, the exact memories are a litte murky for me right now, but gimme a break, I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.

The best part of the day was that Jen and Dani came out and both played, and I believe both had hits and RBI's!  Dani was sporting her fancy Terminator-like knee brace that apparently is to protect and support her knee reconstruction.  So of course the logical thing to do in that situation is play 9 innings of hardball.  Glad that I was warned after I threw a pitch that bounced close to the leg.  She also had a bunt that would have been perfect if she had actually bunted it rather than chopping it, it was fielded by D. Skiles who is coming off his own knee rehab assignment, the glory of Mission baseball, hobbled warrior against hobbled warrior.

I think it was Phelps pitching for the homers, with Sean as his relief, starting how the lefties seem to stick together, some sort of cabal I think.  Whoever it was, we had a real tidy game going into the first few innings, your classic score and scratch a run. Satch was pitching for the visitors, and Satch closed the game too, after more than a few weeks off, it was a pleasure.

Round about the 5th inning, we had "the inning."  Suddenly, we couldn't get an out to save our lives.  More dribbled and bobbled balls than we knew what to do with.  But as all bad innings must, this too came to an end eventually, and we made back the difference an inning later when the homer had their own piece of bad luck.  The score and the inning was a little hard to track at times, but I think we did alright.

The final- 14-7?

Highlights:

* The defense was stellar for most of the game on both sides

* Sean called his damn shot and then put it right where he said he would.  I guess as long as you do that, you can't be punished. Or can you?

* I had a nifty slow motion catch of a pop up in no man's land behind the mound.  Glad I didn't step on a spare ball

* First game in a while that Greg didn't catch at all

* My last inning was 95% knuckleballs

* Jen had a knack for stepping way out of the box on her first swing, and then the second swing stepping right at me and slapping the ball.  The whole game, I kept being on the verge of saying something, and then she kept stopping me by doing the right thing without any advice.  Great job, hope this means you will keep coming out.

* We had a situation ripe for a squeeze and no way to communicate beyond yelling down to the runner, "Hey, SQUEEZE play!" We need one sign, just for that.

* Mike Lattig was unstoppable at the plate

* Tony has to work the next few Sundays.  Major bummer.

* Hardest hit ball of the game was right to somebody. 

* AOY attendance was high, and discussion of next year's inductee is already underway.

* Elvin was blamed for a few things.  Too bad he wasn't there to defend himself.

* We are hopeful with each passing Sunday that we are closer to the reappearance of Johnny Bartlett, who is doing great by all accounts!  Hooray!

S. Paige

More pics from Double Header 2013

7/14/13 Big Rec

A game was held, that is all I know at this point.

S. Paige

7/7/13 Doubleheader- Big Rec

One of our best traditions here at the MBC is the doubleheader.  In recent years, we have added awards, speeches, kids activities and plates and silverware, and non-meat grill options.  Its really something now.  I added a few new tunes to the playlist and the first song was a rare surfing song for Johnny, who we all hoped would make an appearance.

This year was no different, we started bright and early at 11 am in the east diamond of GGP.  Thanks again to Bob and Greg for securing our permits, and to every one who came out and supported the games, brought food, enjoyed themselves.  We had a PA address system, per Mr. Sidawi's request, and we took turns making the calls, some of us with the quiet dignity befitting the national past time, others like it was Wet T-Shirt night at the Monster Truck Rally.  The hardest part was trying to remember everyone's last name.

The first game was a grudge match turned laugher which pitted Phelps against Satch, the ingredients for a real barn burner.  And it was a classic pitchers duel for the first three innings, we were dealing.  Then, someone hit a ball to the outfield and that was it.  Hit after hit, error after error, we couldn't buy an out for a while.  Meanwhile Brian was pitching like he had dedicated the game to some kid with cancer, we couldn't touch him.  The homers kept piling up the runs and we kept hitting weak balls right at people.  We both bowed out after the 7th, to keep it fair, and by then the damage was way past being done.  Final score 17-4 ( very soft 17-4, I might add.)

We started the grills in the 7th and began to cook up the good eats that people had brought, Brian had his infamous pulled pork, Bob brought steaks, Nero purchased a new mini-weber and deemed all meat products as personas non gratas (my latin is terrible and ill used).  There were salads, and sides and beer and more beer.  And Johnny!  And Lynn!  And his boudin sausages!  And a little red wagon!  What more could one as for???  He looked great, he played catch, he cooked sausages, he looked ready to throw 12 innings if needed (Lynn made sure to caveat that he was there as a spectator only! Understandable.).  Definitely our MVP of the Day!

The awards ceremony began, and I was unable to catch all of it, as Mrs. Paige and Lil Satch were showing up and needed to be out of the car, so I volunteered to park for her.  Here are the 2013 awards winners:

Most Improved- JT Tiemann
Best Dressed- Daniel Dotterer
Toughman Snyder Award- Greg Snyder
The Deserter- Carter Rockwell
HSCS- Horseshit Cocksucker Award- John Nero
AOY 2013- Will Rockwell (accepted by by his brother, who can share the honors, as WillorCarter)

For those who might be confused, many of our awards are tongue in cheek, or goofy ways to celebrate our rag tag group.  Please don't take offense, obviously we can't give Asshole of the Year to the person who we actually think is an asshole, so we give it to someone who can take a joke.

The take home message here is learn how to take a fucking joke.

Game 2- The teams were mixed up, and Dustin Skiles, fresh off 6 months of knee rehab started, and looked like he was making a great recovery.  He and Noah were a battery, which of course means that every call was in thier favor and there was no questioning.  Luckily, Doc showed up and kept the game in check.  Dustin did the smart thing and stopped after a few innings, so as not to aggravate.  Noah came into pitch, as did Greg, Mitch, Tony, Chris Powell.  Sorry the memory fades a little on the second game.  I know that it was a much closer affair, and that the homers won.  Happy to add anything that people remember.

All in all a great day, the first game was hot and sultry, the second was a bit chilly, but such is a standard day in San Francisco.

Happy 4th of July Doubleheader to all!

Highlights:

* Food and drink were excellent

* Robin came out and had both a hit and an RBI!

* Dani and Jen also made an appearance, though in a fan capacity only, it was great to see them

* John Carey was 4-5 against me, including two doubles (one that may have been foul, but his old man was calling the game, and I would have done the same thing.)  Either way, great to see him, he has learned well and superseded his teachers in the MBC in all levels, except maybe in alcohol consumption...but that is a good thing.

* Jay came out and shot pictures, before his hot date, and Phelps also caught some great snaps

* Brian and I both struck out looking in the first game, against one another.  Fair.

* Dennis appears to still be juicing, and we suspect there may be a portrait in his attic growing old as we speak

* Richie caught for the first time in quite a while

* I made two pretty nice defensive plays at SS, one barehanded that was completely egregious, but looked oh so pretty.

* Elvin once again was in the midst of it all, he is shooting for AOY 2014, me thinks.

* Thanks to all who caught, catching during a double header is rough sometimes

* Mitch made a number of plays where he didn't really have to move.  He knows exactly where you are going to hit it.

* In the midst of a very long inning I caught a foul ball that was between me, Duane and Bob.  Luckily the collision was mild.

* more to come....?

S. Paige