4/19/26 GGP

 

On a day when I did not hold much hope for a good attendance, the MBC really came through. I-80 was closed for a substantial portion of the freeway, yet, the Bay Bridge was open, so I take a look at the traffic, it seemed like I might sneak between the problems. The good news about massive road closures is they do seem to scare off much of the weekend traffic.

We had exactly 18 on a crisp sunny day, the park was full of olde tyme baseballers and looky loos.

Brian Phelps started for the homers, a first in quite a while, and unfortunately, only lasted one inning after succumbing to a hamstring injury, probably a result of his lack of playing lately. Mitch took over after that and took the homers the rest of the way, an impressive 8 inning relief appearance. 

I started for the visitors and was pleased to see that the mound at GGP had undergone some basic maintenance and was no longer the grand canyon of landing zones. It was fastball placement and a working curveball that got me through most of the game.

The story of the game had to be the domination of Good Aaron, who is quickly being promoted to Great Aaron. He totaled about 11 bases including a towering HR to left center, three doubles, and a single. In addition, he pitched the last three innings for our team and collected about 6 Ks with the mastery of 4 different pitches. Truly impressive, cap tip.

Scoring-wise, we took the early lead with the aforementioned player leading the way, and the homers responded in kind, but were unable to catch up. The score was 5-1 for most of the game, and then it ballooned to 7-2, which is where it ended.

Defensively the game was pretty clean, including a much-needed double play when I was stuck in a bases loaded hole.

Apologies to Mitch, who I was informed was angered by my laggardness and ineptitude of knowing where I was in the batting order.  

Highlights

* Good Aaron doing it all day with the bat and from the mound

* Mitch made several more foul outs racing off the mound, Pitched and Mitched is a real thing

* Patrick and Jacob formed a formidable youthful duo

* I threw a couple of changeups that were crushed....foul, just like it is supposed to happen

* Mitch took out his anger by creating a Ricky run, capping it off with a stylish slide into home

* Ana hit the ball hard all day

* Kenball insists he didn't try to get hit on a 1-2 looping changeup that he backed away from, then lowered his shoulder to. It looked suspect, but Greg smelled honesty and gave him a new count. 3 challenge fastballs later, the inning was over. Sorry Ken, I 65/35 believe you.

4/12/26 GGP

 I missed on this one and I'm sorry but it was a great game we had 16 people which was awesome compared to the 14 that we had two weeks before.

When it comes down to is Sean pitched a hell of a game, complete, and lost it in the 9th with a tied up score and Chris Powell hit a ball that may have been a presumed home run but in any case was enough to make the game.

Everything else is secondary, we had some hits , we made some plays, we made some errors.

 Sonny started for the other team and I came in and completed. Sean pitched the whole game and really deserved to get the win but was not the case.

3/29/26 GGP

The less said about this game, the better, with two exceptions.  

We had 12 people total.

One of the fields at GGP was undergoing emergency plumbing repairs and was unusable.

The team that was on our field went over the time limit, by a lot, playing the longest "We're almost done" game in history.

We decided early on we were going to play 7 innings, best decision ever.

Sean and I pitched the whole game and I also decided that it was going to be 1 gear above batting practice speed, since I didn't want to put any strain on myself on a 6-6 game.

The mound sucked, the chasm in the landing zone was wide, deep, and treacherous.

The game ended in a 9-9 tie, no winners, which was appropriate.

Highlights

* Jesse had a hell of a day at the plate and behind it: 2 HRs, 1 triple, 1 single, at least 6 RBIs, a bunch of well blocked balls and an amazing foul ball catch.  Gaspar in his infinite wisdom sent our borrowed 2nd baseman out to left center for the final at bat, and sure enough, caught what would have been Jesse's 3rd HR.

* Sean also hit a HR to right that was a towering drive.  He also pitched well but we sent endless balls to the unmanned right field as our only way of scoring.