Two weeks in a row, who could believe it? Of course the holiday weekend helped salve Mrs. Paige into agreeing to let me play again. This amazing weather we are having was real nice too, it was supposed to be remarkably colder on Sunday than it was, though we did have 3-seconds of rain at one point. We also had 22 people out, including relatives of Ed and Nick W.
Sonny started for the homers and was lights out for the first few innings, we were stymied as usual, hitting the piss out of the ball but right to somebody, or awkwardly chopping it weakly on the ground. I got the start for the visitors, after some well-timed whining and cajoling, cap tip to Lattig for being decent enough to let me throw.
Now there are those that might say that the teams were a little askew. We might want to consider a rule about Chris P, James, and Sean P. being on the same team, since they are all guys that can hit for power, steal whatever base they want, and play multiple positions. And if I wasn't on the same team as all those guys, I would have probably made a fuss about it.
In any case, the homers gorked, dinked, and flopped two runs out of me in the first inning, they were concentrating all their hitting to the gaps, but only to about 170 feet. And it worked. Luckily, that passed, and they never scored again. I had about 6 Ks, though some of those were people who had never played with us before, so taken with a grain of salt. But still, felt like a good workout. Tony came in for one, then Sean for the close, the score being a lopsided 9-2 at that point.
The real story is that I was finally on a team that cracked the Sonny code. It wasn't pretty at times, but dammit we did it. In looking back at the blog, I cannot find an example of being on a team that hit Sonny well, so this could be the first time I was on a team that beat Sonny. He threw the whole game, and earned his stripes for sure, but it felt good to just once have a decent game against him.
The other big story is that Elvin, playing in his third game of the weekend, made an amazing catch in deep center to rob me of a extra base hit, and came up with an injured hammy for his troubles.
This was essentially the play he made:
I would say it was worth it, but I don't have to limp around for a month. It was an official bad-ass catch and I tip my cap deeply and humbly. Sidawi, in true AOY manner, told me that I should protest the play (from his own team!) since Elvin was playing outfield with a left-handed first baseman's glove. To whom should protest to, is the next question?
The game was so crisp, the weather was sunny and warm, jokes and bullshit peppered the conversations, the only thing lacking was that we were missing the Captain, Greg, who is still laid up with knee issues. Get well soon.
Highlights:
* Ed caught the whole game, as did Tim, and both did very well
* Bob continues to hit triples and stay at first base
* JT calculated that he was 0-5 with four walks (if he had taken them he would have been 0-1.)
* The bums sitting in the stands had one of the best playlists rocking, they were all over the map: outlaw country, speed metal, oldies, black metal. Guy was in the zone
* Tony reckoned this game almost ranked up there with the Is this really happening game
* Sean on third, I thought a safety squeeze was in order, especially when I saw Nick W. playing so deep. I bunt, perfectly I might add, and make it safe at first with no play, only to see Sean still on third....
* I had the chance to catch a pop up from Bob, directly in front of him at home
* The game went so quickly that we decided to lose an inning again, and we were still done by 3:45
* The defense was pretty sharp, but the errors that were made seemed costly
* I didn't charge the first ground ball that came back to me on the mound, and it bounced right by. The next one I did charge and threw out the runner by 40 feet.
* Tony almost had his face taken off by a hard grounder at third.
* Sonny fouled a pitch that was 6 inches above his eyes
* We bucked the odds and had Sean at 3rd for a few innings. He made a nice play
* Dennis made a good play in left, after a close but no cigar play on a foul ball
* Loren showed up late, got a nice hit
* We did not make the most of the foul pop ups that we had
* Chris hit the shit out a ball that ended up scoring Tony from 1st
* I was dangerously close to recreating this infamous play, after I stole second in an attempt to get picked off an score the runner from third. Right fielder dropped the pop fly, and I was safe at 2nd, but I was all over the place:
* Tony and I almost pulled off a no-plan squeeze play. He gave me the cap tug from the batters box, and I answered him right back. Unfortunately the bunt went foul, but at least we understood one another for the moment.
Hope that leg heals quickly Elvin, I can write a letter of explanation to your baseball tryouts squad if you need it.
Don't look back.
S. Paige
A
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