Player Profile- Rick Kvoriak

It was brought to my attention that I have never given Rick the respect of a MBC player profile.  I apologize profusely for this oversight.  

Rick was there before I was.  I am not sure how long, but possible from the very early times, in the 90s. When I first started, there was another Kvoriak on the email chain, which apparently is Rick's brother, but I have never met him.  

When I showed up, Rick was in the midst of raising young'uns, twins, and that definitely affected his ability to get away for games on a regular basis.  It was cute when they came out to cheer on their dad, but he was pretty distracted when they came out, something I came to know much more about a few years later.

When he come out, he was known as one of the bigger bats especially if he got out in front and pulled the ball, it could go a long way.  Like, really a long way.  I gave up a hit to him once at the Marina that landed in the softball field in left.  Roughly here.

His bat was wicked fast, and while he wasn't breaking any records on the bases, he was sure footed and knew what he was doing.  The same with his defense, mostly infield, but he could do anything.  I remember him pitching too, I think.  

So we had a Rick hiatus for about 15 years, and then about a year ago, he started coming out again, and his bat is just as lethal as it always was.  The twins are now adults and following the family tradition of being in several bands.  Rick is a prolific musician, plays all kinds of things, and has been in several bands with another MBC legend, Johnny Bartlett.

Rick is another MBC player who started life in Ohio, and agrees that it is a great place to leave.  Lesser known fact that Rick likes to bring up is that Ohio is the only state that has a baseball pennant as the state flag.  

In 2011, a friend of Duane's did a Nike spec shot with our team, and in it you see Rick swing and miss for strike 3 on a inside change up.  How do I know?  Cuz' I threw it, and it was one of the few times I got him out, and it got filmed.  Enjoy:

Three cheers for Rick Kvoriak, a modern day Roy Hobbs, back to prove that age is just a number and power never goes out of style. Cap tip!

5/18/25 GGP

Well, a beautiful day, and a shitty turnout.  

At 3pm there was ten of us.  The best we could muster up was 3-3-3 with Greg as all-time catcher and Sean and I pitching two innings in a row then swapping.  The same thing that we did a few weeks back, but this time Sean didn't get hosed on at bats.

Greg was the rock, catching Top, Middle and Bottom of the innings, cap tip.

The game was all over the place, and when you only have 3 batters, you get ghost runners etc.  The team of HR, Mitch, and Rick was the clear winner, from the beginning. They were a team of doubles.

Django showed up, and was teamed with Sean and Tim, then me and Tim, then Don and Tim, and me and Sean, then me and Sean and Tim.  

Lynch, Nadolny, and Nick Smith were the last team, and also a team of big hits. Cap tip to Mike for playing through a shredded kneecap that occurred on a weird play at 2nd.  Hope it's ok.

Final score was something like 3-8-5.

Highlights:

* Amazing day, plenty of parking, and in case it scared anyone off, let it be stated once and for all that Bay to Breakers does not interfere with the game in GGP.

* Mitch gets MVP for his offensive and defensive skills

* Sean had a triple

* Double play from the defense in a must get an out situation was awesome

* Greg almost caught 3-4 pop up foul balls

* Sean also had an amazing play at 3rd, spearing a ball down the line, keeping the runner at 3rd, and getting the out at 1st

* Don showed up and made it better....and worse

* We asked everyone with a glove in the park to play, and got nowhere until the end of the game

* Rick showed off the lumber

* Greg was still blocking like a champ after his 12th inning in a row

* Roll call of the faithful: Greg, Lynch, Mike N, Mitch, HR, Satch, Sean, Tim, Don (0.5), Nick S, Rick K, Django, Rando Guy

* We had several near misses with foul balls, including a guy that looked to be intently watching our game, but who was clueless when a ball came down right next to him.  

* In other park news, we had a gaggle of 5 year old girls in center field that we stopped play to politely usher out of the way, and the dad told us he would handle it and then threw in the aside that he "hadn't seen any one hit it out there all day, anyway."  Sean took umbrage and asked why he felt the need to be a dick when we were just trying to keep the kids safe.  Dad didn't like that.  The general consensus is that guy was pissed about something else, and we ended up getting the misplaced rage.  Next time we'll just deal with the kids, since they obviously will be more mature than the grown ups.

5/4/25 Cop Field

One of the most amazing days, on a field that is normally a foggy wind chasm.  Once again, field issues abound.  This time it was a playoff game, that was supposed to be at Swampy, but was moved to our field, because there was another game already in progress.  So we get there, and there are easily 100 people watching the game.  How are we supposed to ruin that?  So we start to walk to Swampy, only to see guys setting up a pitching machine on that diamond.  

Welp, that ain't going to work either.

Luckily, the playoff game guys were super cool, and they finished up quick and handed off the field.  We had 16 at our high point, and the game was, well, not pretty.  As Greg says, maybe I need to examine that these recent shit show games have one common denominator, me.  I will be the first to admit that I did not have it yesterday.  The mound was terrible, my arm was sore from little league, and I never felt totally in control of my pitches.  Mike Lattig took the bump for the visiting team, and he was throwing every kind of dipsy doodle curveball that he could, and it was so tempting to swing at, but never good contact.  Needless to say, he had us in the palm of his hand.

The first two innings of the game took roughly 4 hours to play it felt like, and when the smoke cleared it was still only 4-2.  I thought to myself, that wasn't so bad.  But we could not make the plays. I settled down and we got more efficient but the score just kept going up: 7-2, 8-2, 11-2.  

A low point of the game for our team was getting the first two outs of an inning via the infield fly rule. In both instances, our players dropped the pop up too. We literally had to legislate the game to get an out.  It was also a good learning situation, as we were educated on the infield fly rule calls the batter out, but the ball remains live. Runners can still advance at their own risk, just like on any other fly ball.

That was the game, and we all had fun, but I don't know that I would call it a fun game.  John McG pitched two good innings, and Nick W took over for Lattig and then Aiden came in and blew us away in rapid succession in what we called the bottom of the 9th (it was the 7th and we were losing players).

Final- 11-2, visitors

Highlights

* The visitors had a good game

* Poor Gabe, such a mighty swing, neutralized by the softest of breaking balls

* The visitors defense was superb, 3 double plays?

* We did have a great play at the plate to nab Aiden, excellent throw by Alex and Gabe

* JT played 6 outs of defense in a row in right field

* Kenball had a good game at the plate, lacing line drives

* Aiden's fastball is more fun to see now that it is a strike and not at your liver

* Greg, who has been clutch of late, killed our bases loaded rally with a pop up to the pitcher

* Lattig hit three gork balls to left field that all landed in the exact same place

* Gaspar using a wooden bat and driving the ball up the middle!

* Naldony with a heads up play at 2nd to tag the runner and then get the double play

* Not a single foul ball that threatened a car!