After 2 weeks or more of subpar showings, Greg shamed a lot of us into making the game. It worked, as it usually does, and we had 11-11 for the bulk of the game. That was the good news.
The bad news was that we stood around for an hour waiting for the game before us to finish.
Officially, our permit was for 3:30, so we were a little early, but we were being polite, letting the teams know that we were waiting and anything they could do to move it along would be appreciated. Our inside lane was that Liam and Aiden were playing on that team. That blew up in our faces, and what was promised was not delivered as the minutes ticked by. Supposedly, it was a 1-run game and they didn't want to just quit a good game. I get that. What happens if it gets tied up though? Luckily, they floundered, and the game ended. We didn't start our game until after 4pm, so it was an abbreviated contest.
Sean started for the homers, with Gabe in new catcher's gear, bought off Craigslist by someone giving up the game. I started for the visitors, with Greg behind the dish. Dave scored a run for us in the first inning, which we thought was a good portent of things to come. How wrong we were. The first couple of innings were not bad, the game was back and forth: 3-2, 5-3.
Then the roof caved in on our defense and the homers pushed 9 runs across the board. Ouch.
I was pitching for what felt like a month and we still didn't have an out. I gave up my share of hits, including a Gabe hit that should have been a automatic round-tripper (see picture below) but for whatever reason, no one was fighting for it. Our infield could not make the throw to first base. Anna tried her best, but every throw was 5 feet in front of her, or 5 feet over her head. So it went, on and on. My estimate is that we were about 2 for 10 on ground ball outs in the inning. When we got the first out, it felt like Christmas.
So the game from there out was not quite as much fun as it could have been. I threw 2 more innings, then handed the ball off to Dave for the final inning. He did great, but we could not do anything with the bats, and Sean ended up with a CG and the win.
13-5, Homers.
Highlights
* New guys abounded, and they were all good. One in particular smoked the ball
* My change up was getting cranked and the knuckleball was working but still being hit hard
* JT was robbed of a hit by an overzealous New Guy who should know better than to pick on a old man
* Tony was out, in a rehab start, taking it easy, but great to see him!
* The homers staffed a real Murderers Row of a line up
* Mike N was responsible for some soul crushing RBIs
* Greg and McG and Gabe behind the dish
* Aiden and Liam were not invited to play with us, but wormed their way into the bottom of the lineup
* Diego made some good stops at SS, but had a case of the yips
* I guess the old saying that pitching, defense, home runs, timely hitting, baserunners, and speed win ball games is true.
* So I posited the question to our dugout in the midst of the hitting doldrums: There is no Buster Posey rule in the MBC, so would it ever be OK to truck the catcher at a play at the plate? More to the point, if Gabe was the catcher, and the runner knew what they were committing to. For those that don't know, Gabe is probably a solid-muscle 250lbs and built like a defensive end. There are only a few people I can think of that would create more than a minor disturbance for him in that situation, so that would make it seem like a caveat emptor situation. Greg bought up a valid point that Gabe should be asked what his opinion on the whole thing might be. I admit the whole thing is sort of half-serious, if anyone actually tried to bust the catcher, we would probably all be very upset. However, if the catcher is bigger and stronger than you—by a lot—does that change anything?
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