9/13/26 GGP

 I started the day at the USS Hornet, for my son's birthday, and concessions were made to assure that I played baseball, after a spirited discussion the week before on the Labor Day weekend.  After gaining a lot of information about WWII and nuclear fission fusion, I was on my way to the game!  Hooray!

Worst fucking parking in quite a while.  Turns out there was a neighborhood festival going on at 9th and Irving.  Everyone had the same problem, so the game started late.  The SF Pacific's of the olde tyme league had won their championship game just before us and they were partying and having fun at the other dugout area.  Which was fine, except that we starting sending rocket foul balls their way and they refused to move or keep themselves out of danger.  

And then they were kind of dicks about it.  So, a weird vibe.

We ended up with only 15, so a lot of swapping defenses and at bats for all.  Sean started for the homers, and pitched a beauty of a complete game.  The day was hot and Sean was sweaty by the first inning and soaked by the third. I started for the visitors and Greg had announced he needed to pitch a few in preparation for the SQ intramural game.  So I knew I wasn't going the distance, and could throw a little bit harder. I ended up with 4 innings, 4Ks, and probably 4 ERs.  The homers had 5.5 lefties on their team, which was a record.  The lineup had 8 hitters and all of them were no fun to face, starting with Colt, the new young guy, who I think had a 1.000 OBP for the day. So not only was it all tough lefties, they were all spray hitting, so we had no way of planning for outs.

We thought we had a pretty good team, however, Sean handled us pretty easily.  Jacob and Patty provided some pop, and Naldony is always a danger, but on the whole, we could not compete with homers.  We also had some issues early on finding the handle on the ground balls, and I fucked up the pitcher cover first at least three times.

By the time I left the game in the 4th, the score was 6-2.  Greg took over and did well, as did Jacob and Nico after him.  The damage was done and by the time the 8th inning rolled around, we were down 13-5.  We managed a decent comeback but failed, and the homers were triumphant

Final, 13-9, Homers.

Highlights

* Thanks to everyone that came out to make it a game, hopefully our parking struggles will be karmically repaid.

* Great job Sean, you're a big, sweaty, pitching somamabitch.

* Poor Nick Smith ended up in left field for most of our game, rather than 1st base since that was one of the positions we were swapping defense for.  He deserves better than that

* James came out since his olde tyme team didn't win get to the championship, it was great to see him again

* I will just leave this here:

• Hat Trick: Three strikeouts in one game.
• Golden Sombrero: Four strikeouts in one game.
• Platinum Sombrero: Five strikeouts in one game.
• Titanium Sombrero: Six strikeouts in one game.

* From a team speed POV, James and Colt should not be on the same team

* Knuckleball count for the day was 1 awesome, and 2 horrible.

* I had a pretty good day at the plate, 1 double and 4 singles, 3 RBIs.  The double was a surprise to everyone, including me.

* Jacob had the big drive of the day, an amazing triple to deep left center

* Sean had the backbreaker hit, an opposite field double with the bases loaded

* With the influx of youngun's to our game, we are seeing plays that I thought we had long ago retired, like the ground ball to first try for the double play, and the go home on a ground ball and runner on third. So far, we aren't failing completely in execution

* It was a foul ball kind of day

* One of the drunker of the revelers tried to keep a foul ball of ours after he retrieved it, Lynch got it back