5/24/26 GGP

 Another amazing day in San Francisco. A little cooler, and by the end of the game very gray and cold, but for most of the game spent in a nice sunny breezy day. The best part was that we had a total of 20 players which meant instead of constantly jumping off the bench to fill in another defensive role when you're trying to get a drink of water, you can actually have that drink and more when you sit out your inning that's the way baseball should be played

Thanks to everyone who showed up.  We were little worried with the Memorial Day weekend upon us that there might be no one to play, but the true heroes came out and they came out to play.

Brian Phelps started for the visitors, Sean for the homers­— it was a lefty-on-lefty situation for sure. We had what looked like a good roster, but ultimately not everyone was able to string together the hits that we really needed to be a viable threat.

I know for my part the only time I got on base I shouldn't have and the only time and then later proceeded to not run out another infield fly ball which was ultimately dropped and could have resulted in me being safe.  So, it was bad decisions all day at the plate.

Others fared much better, such as good Aaron who launched a ball into the left field stands or where the stands would be if there wasn't another 1000 feet of lawn.  A new guy who I never quite got the name of who tattooed a really good-looking knuckleball also in the left for a three-run home run —that was one of a series of knuckleballs that looked really good from my perspective but must have also looked really good from the hitter’s perspective. I think I tallied about five extra base hits on knuckleballs I threw so that was how the game went. Sean pitched his heart out, gave up the mound earlier than usual so that HR could come in and proved to all of us what we think we know, which is HR can be a very competent pitcher when it's all going his way.  Unfortunately, yesterday's outing proved not to be the case and the game slowed to a crawl. HR being the good guy that he is, took himself out after one inning of work but that inning stretched the game it felt like well into the darkness of the day.

We shaved off an inning at one point because we felt like it had been going on too long already and we needed to hurry it along.  We ended up gifting back that same inning once the game picked up and we all started to feel as though we shouldn't cheat ourselves out of nine innings of baseball.

The story got worse and worse with my pitching though we didn't suffer too huge of a casualty in any one inning, the damage was definitely done and no amount of moon-shot home runs from our best hitters was going to change that. I came in to mop up with the score being relatively close, at that point I then gave up the aforementioned bomb and then another home run to Mitch, who tattooed one and still is speedy enough that it wasn't even close by the time our outfielders got to the ball. Our own bench went quiet other than a few people who continued to make solid contact.

Mitch took over for Phelps and that was the way it ended, final score 12-4 or 11-4 , depending on whose math you want to believe.

Highlights

* Thank you to everyone who came out and played it was a very enjoyable baseball game.

* Three home runs in one game might be a new Mission baseball record, cap tip to all those who got one

* Brian Phelps, Mitch, Sean all pitched great

* Special thanks to Mike Naldony, Nick Wirthman and Greg for doing the catching

* The Long-Lost award of the day goes to Tim who I don't think any of us have seen in quite a while, who came out great to see you Tim—don't make it another three years before you come out to play again

* Usually I hit Mitch decently, but he was dealing, keeping everyone off balance

* Anna had a really great hit and a couple of beautiful picks at first base

* Mike lynch had a couple of amazing plays at third base and was doing some damage with the bat

* Patrick and Jacob being on the same team might be too much youth for any one mission baseball team to have

* I think the defensive highlight for us for our team was throwing out a runner at home, something that rarely happens given that arm strength in our outfields has declined a lot over the years, and usually we can't be counted on to catch the ball, even if the throw is there.  But all worked out and we made a great play at home.