Every year, Bay to Breakers shuts down the middle corridor of the city, as 100,000 costumed and "wacky" people try to traverse the city. Many don't make it, choosing to drink, boot, rally, repeat and eventually collapse somewhere around the panhandle/Stanyan. Now, I have done B2B, and it's fun with a group, but the city establishment has become disenfranchised with this tradition and there are more calls each year to ban the race, much like they have Castro Halloween, and every other party that used to be a reason that we lived in the best city ever.
So the rule now is you can't have any alcohol, backpacks, trailers, floats, or anything that may be seen as a problem. Yet, they still drink, they still vomit, they still collapse. So banning all the fun stuff doesn't really change much, and I am torn as to whether the race is a good thing anymore, since a flaunting of conventional wisdom was kind of the point and watered down anything is just well...not very fun.
But in the middle of all this, is a baseball field, and that is where the real action was on Sunday.
We were worried with all the traffic and such that we might have a dreaded batting practice day, there was ample parking, as no one in their right mind would try to go to the park or the museums on Breakers day. But getting through the mess took a while, and we started a tad late with 16. Not too shabby. We were helped by a great pitching match-up between Greg (who had caught 9 innings the day before in SQ, 12-3 loss to the Giants) and Satch, who had been at home squeezing a baseball for the last month, and dreaming. For six innings, we both put up a hell of a fight, and while the win may have gone to Satch, I think the Cy Young goes to Greg. Through the doldrums of the middle innings, Greg was averaging about five pitches an inning. Pretty impressive stuff.
We were knotted at 1's after two innings, and then the homers scored an scored again, and that was pretty much the way it went for the rest of the game. Satch was able to stem off a bases loaded one out situation and the defense held together well, Tim at SS got a number of plays, as did Lattig at 2nd. Our defense was solely focused on not allowing the visitors to score runs, sometimes engaging in plays that weren't necessarily the best bet (especially with a MBC type defense) but each time it kept working out. The visitors might have a legit argument that our fill in defense in left field left a little to be desired, but hey, we made a few outs too, so what else can you expect?
After feeling a tightness here and the beginnings of a strain there, Satch decided to make the adult choice and bow out. Ryan, a new guy from Elvin's league came in a did a fine job in the later innnings. Sean came in to mop up as we finished our game in record time and played an extra inning and a half. Ed did us all a favor by catching for the visitors and the homers in the end, to speed things up, truly a team player.
Final Score- 7-5
Highlights:
* Greg was the apex of efficiency.
* We have decided that the new MBC motto is Some of my best games have been losses.
* Or in Latin if you prefer, Quidam id mihi damno ludos.
* Elvin managed to pop up to Lattig four times in a row. With his girl watching. Luckily, he had a decent defensive game, so she saw that too.
* For a nice manicured infield, it was full of bad hops.
* I fouled out, flied out, popped out to the pitcher, texas leagued a hit to center, grounded out. Real stellar.
* Gaspar once again proved that no shift can keep him from getting a Gasparian hit
* My buddy Howard came out and managed to avoid the "first game in 10 years" strikeout.
* Thanks to Mike, Ed and Bob for catching
* For a middling scoring affair, I can't think of too many big hits, the biggest fly of the game was Sean to right, but they had him played in the 430 range. If you feel slighted by this statement, email me and remind me.
Happy Trails.
S. Paige.
