Month: June 2010

Game Sixteen Recap: Pronounced, “James Tisher”

Recap

The first place South Oakland Ducks (11-5, 4-1) evened the season series with their uninspired-uniform wearing, long time, hated, geographic, Capulet-vs.- Montague-esue rival, Brookline Black Sox (9-5, 4-1). James Tessier’s complete game shutout, clutch hitting by Tim Lipp and Jesse Smith, and duck-tastic defensive play rounded out an inspired effort by the flock that kept the Black Sox off the score sheet, and prevent the gang of hooligans from clinching the Wales Conference.

Neither team made and error both Chalfin and Tessyier gave their teams a chance to win.

I think a couple of the Black Sox players missed the game for violating parole.

Either way, the Ducks would not be denied.

The Ducks need to split their double header with the Militia on the 10th to set up a casket match with the Black Sox for the Wales title.

Tessyier surpassed his season high for pitches in one inning when proud father, Ron Florian battled his way to a ten pitch at bat before lining out to Rob Cool.

Congrats, Ron. Welcome to parenthood.

Shane Doan rounded out, and GoldDust K’d to end the inning.

Arguably the two best center fielders in the Pittsburgh NABA battle it out for the intercontinental title.

Defilippo broke up Chalfin’s bid for a no-hitter three batters into the bottom of the first with a Ken Cool-esque line-drive to left.

0-0 after one.

We can't both wear our sleevless shirts. I told you to call before we went out!

After Kenny Rayl hit a rocket shot to third for an infield single, Klayko grounded into a routine double play up the middle. Defilippo  dove for a grounder behind second, flipped it to Casale who got Klako at first.

That play set the tone for the game.

Slavonick flew out to left to end the inning.

In the bottom of the second, Gwin singled with two outs and was thrown out at the plate trying to score on a Casale double to right.

0-0 after two.

Tessyier retired the side in order in the third, including the first of two pop outs by the Sox catcher. Who was 0-3 throwing out runers on the day, but gave us a nice How to Block the Plate Pose later in the game.

Scioscia has a gun.

In the bottom of the third, the Ducks took a 1-0 lead when Cool worked a 2-out walk, stole second, and was singled in by Tim Lipp.

Lipp also had a Brooks Robinsonian day at third, throwing out a couple guys from foul territory, and making a nice play on a bunt attempt.

1-0 Ducks after 3.

Tessyier worked out of a jam in the 4th. GoldDust and Kenny Powers hit back to back, two out singles, then Klayko popped out with runners on first and third.

The Ducks went down in order in the 4th.

The Black Sox would only have one runner reach second the rest of the game.

South Oakland added an insurance run in the 6th, when Lipp singled, stole second and third, and scored on Jesse Smith’s two-out single.

Tessyier retired the side in order in the 7th.

Game. Ducks.

Now the playoff picture could get muddy. The Eagles (4-11, 0-5) are eliminated from title contention.

Don Henley wrote a song about it:

They could dance their way into the role of spoiler. If that lefty throws a good game, they could steal one. Joe Walsh is fired up for the rematch with the Black Sox Wednesday.

No over looking the Militia, despite beating them by ten runs last game. Strange things can happen in 8am double headers, and you know the Militia will be amped up on home made crank and ready for the South Oakland offensive on the 10th.

QuackQuackQuackQuackQuackQuackQuack

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Ducks Win.

Ducks win, pittsburgh NABA

Ducks 2, Black Sox 0

South Oakland (11-5, 4-1) sits in first place in the Wales Conference.

The Ducks seventh straight win prevented Brookline (9-5, 4-2) from effectively clinching the division, setting up a show down for the division for the division title with the Black Sox: time and place tbd.

James Tessyier (4-0) pitched a complete game shutout.

Tim Lipp and Jesse Smith had rbi for South Oakland.

Ken Cool, once again, dominated.

Recap forthcoming.

boobs.

Game three between the Ducks and Black Sox remains unscheduled.

Quack.

Gameday Sixteen: Ducks vs. Black Socks.

Gameday, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks(10-5, 3-1)

vs.

Brookline Black Sox (9-4, 4-1)

9pm

SpringView Field

I updated our about page,(there’s a nice synopsis of our team history there now) and while i thought about the significance of the Ducks, the Black Sox appeared at every run-on sentence. They’ve beaten us every way imaginable.

Last year’s playoff loss to the Sox was probably the best pure baseball game in Ducks history – ten innings, blah blah, Slavonic’s game winning hit etc.

They beat us when I coached, they beat us when Jones coached,  we’ve never won the division (even when we won our lone title when Ken Cool was only ten years old) and we’ve never taken a playoff series from Brookline.

This is the year that changes.

Brookline beat us by 8 or something in May, a game we played without Duffy, Casale, Scioscia,  Berdine, Ken Cool, Defilippo, Tessyier, Fago,  Lipp, Alex Harsh and…

Rob Cool Jr.

(pictured above with 2008 PGH NABA Championship Belt )

Subplots rip through seasons like scars, there’s a story behind each one. Adam Smith left for the Eagles, but no one really cares because the Eagles are still stuck in the cellar, despite the myriad of chart-topping hits they put out in the 70’s, Joe Walsh’s solid but inconsistent solo work, and the odd obsession with Don Henley among  several generations of adults with otherwise normal taste in music.

Smith and TC are best friends compared to Kenny and Rob.

I’ve taken anonymous comment heat for bringing in 4 players from the team that went 22-1 last season, and also  filling spots vacated by Spagnola and Adam Smith with Tessyier and Fago.

Our roster is big, but ask the Eagles how they like playing with eight guys and forfeiting every third game.

They only had four show up vs. the Militia, a division game and they can’t put a lineup out there. They should add Depo and Bob Faust.

What a joke. There are guys who want to get in the league and still, teams forfeit.

[Congrats to the Bulldogs for beating the Canes.

Vinnt Gala is the best first baseman in the league by a mile.]

Winning turns question marks into exclamation points, hyphens and other fun punctuation marks which can be made into faces and things, and the .079 hitting, ex-Ducks fourth string first baseman who was the most vocal in his closed-mindedness and unwillingness to take a back seat and welcome new teammates in order to win more games, is no longer a Duck.

The cancer is gone.  It’s ironic given that the way we’ve been blowing out teams, that the nameless douche bag would have played a decent amount of ball had he stuck around, but boy did he show me what a dick I am by not playing ball this summer, despite my attempts to get him on another team.

Transition.

***

V-neck City next year.

It is if some smart ass blog spent two years fucking with the best team in the league creating odd conspiracy theories about bird worship in an attempt to rally an undermanned squad against a superior opponent, and some retard took it seriously.

I shouldn’t say retarded.

Anyway, last year  Sox upset the most talented team in the league in the Wales Finals, swept them 2-0. No one expected it.

Imperial disbanded, and those players who didn’t flee to the fed league and parts unknown, joined either the Ducks or the Black Sox.

Warren, Sloan, and that other pitcher went to Brookline.  Ken and Rob Cool, Scioscia and Defilippo are Ducks.

The rivalry will reach new heights at 9pm tonight

This game is the culmination of eight years of South Oakland Ducks Baseball and seven years of futility against the Sox. This is the best shot we’ve ever had at a title and it hinges on winning tonight at the Duck Pond, and beating the Sox again whenever we reschedule that rain-out.

Ducks ace James Tessyier brings his perfect record and 0.37 era to the hill against Sox ace Peter “Pan” Chalfin who we beat once last year, and twice lost to by one run.

The Ducks have won six straight. The Sox won 20-1 or something today and beat the Eagles 6-1 over the weekend they have won four in a row.

Bring the Hate.

It’s time for a new order in the Wales Conference.

Bad News for the Black Sox.

game fifteen recap – Bring on the Black Sox: Ducks 7, Knights 2

pittsburgh NABA, Recap, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

Rob “Baconator” Baumgartel pitched five scoreless innings, Ken Cool had two blistering hits and the South Oakland Ducks made short work of a second straight A opponent, beating the Knights 7-2 on Monday.

The game we’ve all been waiting for is on the horizon. Our team was assembled with the goal of overtaking the Sox and winning the various titles at stake with the league’s current format.

Monday’s game is a playoff game.

Ducks/Knights recap:

After Baconator retired the side in order in the first, The Keymaster had some trouble throwing to second early in the game. The ducks sent nine batters to the plate in the first inning, and scored five runs in the opening frame.

Cinefra started the five inning first with a single, then he stole two bases, during Duffy’s at bat, and Rob Cool singled him home.

DeFilippo loves running for Fago and leads the nation in steals. He also gave us this quote during one  of the last two blowout wins:

“I wish we could just play the Black Sox every game.”

The Ducks stole seven bases in the first inning.

Rob Cool took home on a past ball or something.

Lipp drove in two, Ken Cool had an RBI.

Baumgartel worked out of a jam in the second, striking out three batters in the inning.

5-0 Ducks after two

In the third, Rob Cool doubled, Fago drove him in.

6-0 after three

If there is a sequence I’d like to define my career as a Duck, it would be one in which I am hit by a pitch, then break up a double play with a boarderline slide, allowing a run to score later in the inning.

That happened in the fourth when I was beaned in the head to load the bases with no outs.

Cinefra drove in a run with a sac fly.

7-0 Ducks after four.

Wojton would throw his helmet after he was caught stealing.

Nothin’ to #u&% with

In the top of the fifth there was a shot  towards the gap between first and second; Berdine was there:

Hands.

The Knights scored two unearned in the sixth.

Fago struckout the side in the top of the seventh.

7-2 Ducks. Game.

Our season is on the line Monday. We have to win our last two games vs. the Black Sox to have a chance at the Wales Division and the AA title.

To win the AA title we have to finish first in the Wales, then beat whomever finishes first in the Campbell in a best of three series.

The division winners each receive a bye and the # 1 and 2 seeding respectively in the league wide tourney at the end of the season.

Quack.

Gameday [15] Ducks vs. Knights

Gameday, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

Let’s get this going again. It’s time.

South Oakland Ducks (9-5, 3-1)

vs.

Allegheny Knights (1-13)

9pm

SpringView Field

Back in the day, the Knights were stacked, but could never get over the hump: Barchie, Fago, Guthrie, Cool, Sorosky, Tremel, a bunch of kids from the Rakers, they were solid and constantly took the last playoff spot from the Ducks.  They played in a historic two-site playoff game involving rain delays and power outages in what amounted to a three day loss to the eventual league champion, Confederacy. They were the Orioles for a season, causing my dyslexic brain to hemorrhage whenever i had to differentiate between them and the Oilers (Phantoms, Pythons was also a toughie).

The Knights are one of 16 teams that has folded (in this case they’ve re-manifested as an expansion team ) changed names, or merged with another team since 2003.

The original Knights lineage since ’05:

Knights-Orioles-Knights-Rakers and _wlz-Gray Bats-Militia.

It’s not easy to keep a team going for eight seasons.

We should all take some pride in playing on the only team that’s been around since the league’s inception.

(Ducks all-time record now stands at 75-80-2, but are in the process of recording a third straight winning season.)

The 2010 Knights’ lone win is against 18A Division leader, Big Oil.

Since James Fago and James Tessyier have joined South Oakland prior to the Oilers game, the Ducks have won five straight.

Bad News for the Knights.

Game 14 Recap: Kenny Cool Coaches Magnificent Third Base En Route to Ducks Trouncing of Titans. Ducks 10, Titans 0

pittsburgh NABA, Recap, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

Ducks 10, Titans 0 (5)

This game doesn’t deserve a full recap.

It was hot and muggy. Pittsburgh in July.

The South Oakland Ducks of the North Side  (9-5, 3-1) cruised to victory over the North Shore Titans (0-10) by a score of 10-0.

After an eight-run top of the first for the Ducks,  neither team seemed very interested. The exception being Ducks starter, Pitcher of the Year candidate, James Tessyier, who has allowed one earned run in 18+, and has pitched eleven consecutive shutout innings while playing a significant factor in the Ducks resurgence this season.

Tessyier (3-0, 0.38 ERA) pitched a complete game three-hit shutout striking out nine, walking none.

The Titans were half dead when we got there, and played like a blind man in a sauna: sweatily and with brail or something.

Their catcher almost died, literally, I think, of heat stroke or exhaustion; I suppose we can laugh about it now that he lived and played a decent game at first.

The replacement catcher ate sandwiches between innings and the game didn’t end till midnight.

What a shit-show.

I don’t know a lot about pitching, but the best coaches I’ve had always told our pitchers to work fast: Get the ball and get on the rubber.

It was like watching miniature giraffes fight over a bottle of Boone’s Farm out there.

The Titans can hit a little but defensively, several balls were misplayed- like a blind man in a sauna.

Kenny Cool coached his brother Rob to a 2 for 3, 4 RBI day at the plate that included a bases-clearing triple and a double.

DeFilippo (2), McCray, Baumgartel, and Fago had RBI for South Oakland.

Player of the Game: Kenny Cool.

South Oakland has won five straight, outscoring opponents 48-7 during the streak.

The Ducks take on the Knights at Spring View Field, Monday night at 9pm.

The Black Sox game can’t get here soon enough:

Gwin vs. Powers

Captain America vs. The Hulk

Les Gies vs. Randy

Rob Cool vs. that loud guy in the stands

Abe Lincoln vs. Vampires

Fago vs. Chalfin.

Ducks vs. Black Sox

Thick with sub-plotz.

First place and a shot at the AA title is on the line.

Monday, 6/28 at Spring View Field

That will be a baseball game.

Quack.

Gameday 14: Ducks at Titans

Gameday, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side

at

North Shore Titans

5:30 pm

Bellevue Field

Ducks: We will wear our yellow, weekend day game away jerseys.

Titans footage:

I have no idea what to make of that.

Tessyier is on the hill.

Guth and Jones are reportedly in Vegas.

Godspeed.

Happy Father’s Day.

Bad News for the Titans.