Author: mightyeskimo

Game Thirteen Recap. Fletch Lives or "How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Ducks": Ducks 4, Bombers o

2009 Ducks Baseball, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball
On a Day when Kenny Chesney wreaked havok on the Pittsburgh NABA – leading to two forfeits, an 8-man start from the Bulldogs, Depo getting cut from the Ducks, and who knows how many unwanted pregnancies, the Ducks flew high; higher than you were that time in high school when you shared a joint with that weird kid from Bucks County, only to find out after the fact it was laced with PCP.

South Oakland of the North Side won their tenth game of the season playing fantasic defense behind another outstanding, starting pitching performance, shutting out the Bombers on D-Day.

Mike Fletcher scattered five hits over five innings and struck out five Bombers, without giving up a walk, and Rick Whalen drove in what proved to be the game winning run with a two out, 2-run double in the second to lead the South Oakland Ducks of the North side to a 4-0 victory over the Allegheny Bombers.
Adam Smith pitched two scoreless innings in relief, and the Ducks record improved to 10-3.

The game was delayed by fog for a half hour or so, then the Bombers were cleared for take off.


It was a pitcher’s duel early, the guy from the Bombers, who is probably their regular shortstop, pitched well limiting the Ducks to only a few base runners and limiting the number of hard hit balls as the game progressed through the early morning.

The biggest difference was the Ducks defense (error free on the day), and the ability of the bottom of the Ducks lineup to get on base and produce runs.
Captain America, Britton, Slick, and Dr. Jones batted in the 7-10 spots in the lineup and accounted for three runs.

In the second inning,
Captain walked and Britton singled, then Rick hit a double to left center, then it was Jones’ turn
A napalm blast down the first baseline to drive in the 3rd run.

It was 3-0 Ducks when this happened.

It was going to be a brawl the rest of the way.

The Bombers threw it around a bit.
Kirk Gibson would score on a passed ball.

4-0 Ducks.

The Bombers threatened, getting men on first and second a couple times, but they could not get the big hit they needed.
Mike “Tyler” Fletcher got big outs when he needed inducing many groundballs which were fielded and thrown accurately for outs.
Dickey made a great backhand play on what appeared to be a sure hit up the middle in the 5th, securing the shutout.
The Bobmers’ 7-9 hitters combined to get on base once all game ( I think), a single by their last hitter who acted like he had just won the Atlantic City Memorial Day Tournament when he blooped one in front of the Ducks’ left fielder who was playing with a pulled quad.

The Ducks 7-10 hitters got on base 6 of eleven times, including Coby’s sweet hbp and stolen base in a pinch hit appearance for Wojton.
Coby has more stolen bases than Wojton.

Nothing like a guy who has gone 1 for the season talking shit after a 4-0 loss to a team that is six games better in the standings.

Aside from him, the Bombers were solid human beings, and had to be missing some players.
Good luck to them the rest of the way.

bullet points & Mid-Season Notes

  • Defense and starting pitching have carried our team through the month long stretch of one game per week.
  • Remember when we used to play on Monday Nights?
  • The Dr. and I took in some of the double header between the Owlz and the Gray Batz – the Ducks have a better chance of beating the Owlz than we do of losing to the Gray Bats – take that however you want.
  • The Owlz seemed disinterested and still smoked the Gray Bats, albeit not by the 25 runz we may have assumed.
  • You could have been a Duck Sorosky, all those unearned runzzzz – wooooo.
  • The Gray Bats will come out with their guns blazing, ala the guy[s] who shot 50 cent, this saturday morning. If we lose I’m handing over admin of the blog to Larry for the rest of the year – no one wants that, not even Larry. All hands on deck.
  • Slick Rick and the Invisible Hand have been our most improved players this season, their contributions have been noticable, both have embraced and thrived in a reduced roles on a winner after struggling through the Red Scare years. – While Wojton is finding his stroke, and before Captain America got his command back, they have picked up the slack at the plate and on the mound.
  • Kirk Gibson is also playing up to his potential after batting only .260 or something last seaosn – a natural shortstop playing without an ACL he has made a seamless transition to first base, and is a corner stone of our infield – and allows last year’s first baseman an outfielder by trade to get back to his natural position.
  • Depo was having a solid year, until he skipped Saturday’s game to rest for Kenny Chesney and was cut. Sorry, Depo.
  • Our firstbaseman last year was gay anyway.
  • Dr. Jones has taken this team from the scrap heap and turned it into one of the top teams in the league.
  • Dr. Radical for Life.
  • Aside from Jesse Smith, Tony Casale has been our most valuable player.
  • Britton Mike and Mike have embraced the time-share at second base.
  • Watson’s ankle is healing, I hope.
  • Darren Daulton is unreal, when we don’t have to play at 8am he leads the team in Avg. doubles, and allows Jesse to play 3rd, where he imposes a Mike Schmidt like presence.
  • If we beat the Gray Bats (1-12) on Saturday we assure ourselves that we will finish with a better record than them and we will equal our win total from last season with ten games to play.

Quack.

Gameday [13] : Ducks at Bombers.

2009 Ducks Baseball, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball
South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (9-3) vs. Allegheny Bombers (5-7)
8am, John Herb Field.

Bad idea

These guys love Disco.

The Allegheny Bombers dropped two close ones to the Matadors last weekend.
According to my sources they can hit, or at least score runs against the Gray Bats.
They have named their team after either the Yankees,
or death-toting pilots.

I’m not sure which is more offensive.

All bets are off for the 8am start time.
Bomberman (above)

We’ve got a survival plan.
and Abe Lincoln

Bad News for the Bombers.

Quack.

Narrative Prose is Important

2009 Ducks Baseball, NABA, pittsburgh NABA

I have several close friends who are English Major writerly types. My buddy Bryan wrote this.

  • Was gonna post this to your blog…thought it might be a little gay…also wanted to work in how three little black kids showed up at the end of your game on sunday playing with broken bats…ran onto the field to mess around and then they turned the lights off.


There is something about baseball that inclines the written word towards a nostalgic glorification. So often in movies, books, and television documentary’s there is this resonating obsession with the grass, the sky, leather, wood, players as heroes, all the elements of baseball being described romantically, as if a thesis about the best parts of what it is to be an American man.

Some strange feeling that awakens the senses to being alive, as if there is no better place to be alive, spectator or player, than near a baseball field, in all its endless detail and all its possibilities. Each play is a renewal, a challenge of focus and timing, a mixture of curiosity and fear, patience and aggression, a chance for guilt or redemption.

And the tools are heralded, gloves oiled, balls massaged, bat handles meticulously taped and tacked. The debt and gratitude of the wooden bats, breaking one is like breaking a limb, something so precious, so cared for and entrusted to be the conduit of a man’s god given skill, clarity and timing.

I watched a player borrow another man’s bat and line one for a hit. Returning to the dugout he thanked the owner of the bat so genuinely it was as if he had been the recipient of a kidney. Likewise broken bats are smashed to the ground by the handle tested for cracks and fired into a nearby trash-can with furrowed brows, muttered curses, and dark feelings.

And the baseball itself is more than an object. A baseball symbolizes something when you hold it in your hand, the many varied ways to throw it and how someone chooses to and has learned to throw it mean something, it’s like a person’s signature.

“You have to know the feel of a baseball in your hand, going back awhile, connecting many things, before you can understand why a man would sit in a chair at four in the morning holding such an object, clutching it-how it fits in the palm so reassuringly, the corked center making it buoyant in the hand, and the rough spots on an old ball, the marked skin, how an idle thumb likes to worry the scuffed horsehide. You squeeze a baseball. You kind of juice it or milk it. The resistance of the packed material makes you want to press harder. There’s an equilibrium, an agreeable animal tension between the hard leather object and the sort of clawed hand, veins stretching with the effort. And the feel of raised seems across the fingertips, cloth contours like road bumps under the knuckle joints-how the whorled cotton can be seen as a magnified thumbprint, a blowup of the convoluted ridges on the pad of your thumb. The ball was deep sepia, veneered with dirt and turf and generational sweat-it was old, bunged up, it was bashed and tobacco-juiced and stained by natural processes and by the lives behind it, weather-spattered and character as a seafront house”. (Don Dellilo).

To play baseball as a child is like participating in magic. Taking that tense anxious excited feeling before and game and releasing it on the field and seeing what happens. I watched a men’s amateur baseball game a few Sundays ago. Late into the night, the myth of each team’s best player gathering , concealing a deep urge to take the field scoop up a grounder and fire it across the diamond as hard as I could, slam a closed fist into the palm of the glove, grab my nuts, adjust my hat, and spit on the field. The urge to play a game that is not easily played or won, with concise rules, unexpected outcomes, and offers the reward of, both, personal and collective pleasure.

Along these lines I’ll once again link Rob Swanger’s recap of the AC Tournament.

Go Ducks.

BP Today 5:30pm Pitt IM Field.

Quack.

Bombers {BP Rescheduled – Friday 5:30 Pitt IM Field}

NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball
If the Bombers named themselves as such as an ode to Kubrick, they are my heroes.
More than likely they did not.

They are fighting for first place in the Campbell Conference.

Naturally after i post a “sex with ducks” youtube I get a league wide, “keep your blogs clean because other people read” them email.

If you’re that easily offended go read Larry’s Reader’s Digest-inspired Gray Bats Blog
(that’s not aimed at you, commish)

Larry, shocked that the internet can breed anonymous mud-slinging, may be shutting down his blog.

I find managers betting on their own baseball team offensive and negative.

No way did Charlie “Hustle” do this ad to cover his gambling loses.

Mid Season Report on the 9-3 South Oakland Ducks of the North Side up later.

Unless there is a torrential down-pour, BP at 6:30 tonight at the Pitt Field.
EDIT: the rain has been declared torrential enough to cancel bp, we’ll go friday at 5:30.

Quack.

Legalize Sex with Ducks…

2009 Ducks Baseball, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

I have no opinion one way or the other on gay marriage, but I am pro-Sex with Ducks., er, wait that’s not what I mean, that’s not what i mean either, shit.
I like boobs.

thanks for the link Depo.

DUCKS
It’s amazing that we haven’t had more rain-outs this season.

Batting Practice Wednesday 6:30 pm at the Pitt IM field.

LINK TO THE BLUES ATLANTIC CITY TOURNAMENT WRAP-UP

Narrative prose is important.

Quack.

FANTASTIC DUCKS/EAGLES RECAP TWO POSTS DOWN

Lost City of Atlantic..

pittsburgh NABA

This is lengthybut it is a good read. – especially if you’ve played on any of our tournament teams, or have been in the league for a while.

by Rob Swanger

I am now posting the recap in its entirety

On an October evening in 2005, “Pittsburgh NABA” (Our team was technically called The Burgh) took the field, playing in its first tournament ever at the National tournament in Tempe, Arizona. The team was a ragtag group of Ducks, Black Sox, Pythons, Warriors, Rangers and Knights – players who loved the game and had played it hard since the league’s inaugural season two years before. The game would be meaningless – we had already suffered three difficult losses in pool play, including a heartbreaker in extra innings.

We were shocked by the elevated level of play, the Arizona heat, and perhaps by the pristine, Big League Spring Training fields located 3,000 miles from Spring Hill. Our league was still in its pre-modern era, still an aluminum bat league, still a league where former legion players were the most experienced, double digit errors were the norm for any game and many teams were sometimes forced to take the field with only eight men.

I was in centerfield that night, frustrated, and many of our guys had already resorted to goofing off and looking ahead to one last night of partying (in retrospect I don’t hold that against anyone, you have to do what’s necessary to feel better about a humiliation like that one). My legs and arm ached more and more with every gapper I chased after and every desperate hurl from the fence and I distinctly remember thinking that a city whose name adorned the uniforms of Wagner, Kiner and Clemete deserved better.

I missed the team’s first tournament in Virginia last summer, but was pleased to hear that the fresh-faced Pittsburgh Blues had made a strong showing, winning a game and earning its first national points. But it wasn’t until Saturday morning when the current incarnation of the team took the field and I saw Scott Dunn warming up that I realized that Pittsburgh baseball could actually compete on the larger stage.

When I think about everything, I find myself dividing it into Saturday’s low-scoring double header, the Sunday morning must-win, and the last two games.

Three separate sections, three separate baseball teams. The first was a team of unfamiliarity, everyone knew at least someone else, but it was a team largely divided by the fact that a lot of guys had never played together before and didn’t even know each others’ names.

Baseball is unlike football or basketball in that there are no elaborate plays, no special defenses or offensive packages that need to be learned and rehearsed repeatedly before a team can play a real game.

With the exceptions of maybe first and third situations or pickoffs to second baseball is always the same – a shortstop always has the same responsibilities – any variations are governed by the situation itself, not a game plan or playbook. Any nine guys that know the game can function in a game situation, but in any team sport, knowing and trusting your teammates counts – especially in baseball. In baseball it breeds that thing that makes rallies happen, it makes it possible for players to motivate each other, to calm each other, to come from behind to win in late innings. It’s what makes a mediocre player come through when destiny has decided that it’s he who is up with two outs and the winning run on third. It’s what we call chemistry and it’s what makes a good team great.

Those first two games, we didn’t have it.

Defense and Dunn won that first game for us against a tough Ghetto Goats opponent, a team I thought was one of the best we faced. We hit the ball well up and down the lineup but when it came to driving those runners in, we just didn’t do it. This failure is indicative of a team that does not trust itself. Perhaps demoralized by this, or maybe just worn out from a long day, our poor offensive play caught up with us in game two and we were defeated in an anti-climactic low scoring game.

We played more than half of that game down just that one run without being able to so much as manufacture an equalizer and what were we facing all that time? Not an ace, not a fireballer who located four pitches for strikes at will. We were kept at bay inning after inning by a junk-baller who grunted as he topped his fastball out at 75 MPH, stole a pair of socks from a court jester, and modeled his hairstyle after the late great goofball, Mark Fidrych. Spirits were less than high. The future, as it often is, was uncertain.

Hope, of course, is found in strange situations. Later that evening nine of us sat together at Hooter’s and in a bizarre, almost Mennonite uniformity, we all ordered Buffalo Chicken sandwiches. More than a few were vocally appalled by the lack of fries. I found this odd display of team unity eerie but exhilarating. Suddenly, I was looking at things differently. We had played two consecutive games as a team of relative strangers without an error, without throwing the ball around, and with exemplary pitching first by Dunn, then a no less dominant duo of Ben Sorosky and “Buddy” Skeels. The defense was better than solid.

In two close ball games Jeremy Barchie and Dunn at third and Anthony DeFillipo (sp.?)secured the left side so thoroughly that I can remember only one ground ball making it to me in left. Nate Heath made a number of fine plays at second and Vinnie Gala was bulletproof at first despite a pulled hamstring. As for the outfield, they remained largely untested in light of the brilliant pitching but when called upon, they made the plays.

Sunday, we arrived at the field, with an air of relaxation. The isolation into groups of players who knew each other from regular season teams had faded and in its place a more singular, collective joviality. DeFillipo hit our first home run, and we put up runs quickly and constantly. The little concern I had was that our scoring seemed to bottom out in the middle innings, but that was alleviated by the strong pitching of Barchie, the first of several pitching performance that can be labeled as nothing short of heroic. I roomed with Barchie, and that morning he told me that he was in no mood to pitch.

Aware of his situation, I was worried; Barchie is due for rotator cuff surgery and is forced to throw with his arm at an awkward forty-five degree angle. (Perhaps this unconventional delivery provided just the deception he needed.) Behind him, the almost flawless defense had his back through it all. The exception were some shaky reads and lapses in coordination by this leftfielder, which I later (sort of) redeemed by making a couple difficult catches. Nevertheless, Barchie battled through nine innings, some of them difficult, but through it all, we maintained our lead.

This game would be our turning point, not only because it marked the first time we played team baseball, but also because it marked the first of several instances of individual success which were the difference between a strong showing and championship. Clutch pitching, clutch defense, clutch baserunning, and timely hitting proved as always to be a winning combination. We would not look back.

The semi-final was one of the weirdest games I ever played.

The team we played did not expect to lose.

They in fact refused to lose.

We beat them anyway.

The pitching game plan of resting our top two after getting ahead early in the first games had gone out the window and it would be up to veteran Brian Strom keep a hard-hitting team at bay. Strom is fine pitcher who has gotten the better of me countless times, but he is a hitter first and a pitcher second. We were going to have to get him some runs.

At this point the specific details get a bit hazy. Everyone, literally everyone made something happen at the plate that night so it’s hard to keep track of who did what. Things started immediately as Joe Graff beat out a single, getting on base for what seemed like the millionth time of the tournament. I have now had the pleasure of playing with the A.E. Spalding of the Pittsburgh NABA on two separate occasions and I believe he plays the game the way it is meant to be played – hard and aggressive with a “by any means possible” approach.

After that, well, Rob Cool hit a bomb, a grand slam I believe. Scoscia [sp?] hit a bomb. Dunn hit a bomb. Everyone hit the ball, and hit it hard. Before the sun even went down we were up 10-0 and their starter was gone. They brought in Superman from centerfield. Dunn homered again, his third of the tournament. Inspired by this, I felt obligated to his a solo shot of my own in spite of my lousy tournament at the plate. On my way to the outfield after another round of mashing, their centerfielder asked, without irony, if we took batting practice every day. I told him

“no, we’re just sick.”

The shit was contagious.

Strom pitched great, better than anyone could have expected given that he hasn’t pitched since last season. He provided five solid innings before a few miscues with the catcher, which then carried over to reliever DeFillipo. DeFillipo settled down, and got us through a couple of innings. But by the seventh we were holding on to something like a two or three run lead, which given the pace of that game, seemed tenuous to say the least. This game was up for grabs. We added some much needed breathing room in the eighth with an important RBI single by Mr. Duck [edit: apparently this is me, Ben Gwin]. Then Dunn came in, the very definition of relief pitching.

There was talk that the other pitcher had thrown seven innings or nine innings or whatever the game before. And maybe what I’m about to say is pure speculation but I think that pissed Dunn off. I think the second he heard that, he decided he would pitch two games in two days, only he was going to win both of his. He shut them down in the eighth, he shut them down in the ninth adding a save to his previous win. Game Blues.

That game was incredible. I cannot describe the feeling I had after that, it was as if there was absolutely no way we could lose. We did everything well, as we had for each game, but now we were rallying, now everyone was chipping in at the plate, in the field. We were getting stellar pitching performances from the most unlikely sources.

But we were playing not for ourselves, not even for our team mates but as representatives of something bigger. This was Pittsburgh baseball – sometimes brilliant, sometimes ugly but always hardcore – tough and gritty. We could hit bombs, we could manufacture, we didn’t give a fuck. We were going to score runs, then we were going to shut you down. Battle back in middle innings if you want to, but we’ll score a couple more on top and we won’t let up. Then we’ll bring in Dunn, just to make you feel bad.

This game was a collective effort, with the Owlz representatives the obvious standouts. If the defending champions are any indication of the league’s future, then it is a bright future indeed for Pittsburgh baseball. Rob Cool’s Brian Cashman-like ability to bring talent to the league is what creates the competitive atmosphere that carries over into tournament play.

I won’t be surprised to hear that that pitcher from the semi-final that can also run like a gazelle and hit like a tyrannosaurus will be an Owl in ’10. If anyone cries foul on Cool’s tactics, it’s nothing but jealousy. I received reports that in my two years away from the league the level of play had increased – after seeing the ways these guys play, I believe it. Teams like this make the league better.

In retrospect, the championship game against the Hated NYC Metros was a foregone conclusion. We were riding high on momentum and there was no way were headed back west without the synthetic polyester championship shirts. As I said, I missed the ’08 Virginia tournament so my hatred of the Metros was limited to proxy although they did seem like arrogant jerk-offs one morning when I saw them at breakfast. I hoped we’d get a chance to play them. But, song-singing in the dugout? Chanting? Pitcher heckling? This was too much.

The only way a team like that wins is if you actually listen to them and then allow them to get the momentum. Skeels wasn’t going give them the pleasure. He pitched well without an initial lead and with the Metros chirping away at him like a jayvee softball team. He kept his composure all the same. Once we started scoring, the Metros had quieted to a whisper and in the sixth, one of them even emerged beyond the first baseline to begin his training for UFC. Arribe indeed. Once again, Dunn came in in the eighth, if the Metros still had it in them to heckle him, he only fed off it.

The Metros wouldn’t get another runner on base. The synthetic polyester shirts were ours.

I live in Central Pennsylvania now, and I can tell you that people who don’t know, people that suck off Philadelphia like it’s the greatest city in the world and in the state don’t think of Pittsburgh as much of a baseball town. The Pirates suck, therefore it’s automatically a hockey and football town. If we achieved anything last weekend, I think we disproved that erroneous conventional nonsense. We presented ourselves as sportsmanly, in victory and in defeat, and despite early hardship, we won a championship. I was proud to play on this team among the veterans of my day and the hot shots of the tomorrow – nothing has made me miss Pittsburgh more.

The league in Harrisburg where I play has similar talent to the league I left, but the thing most missing is the camaraderie, the passion – competition in the purest sense. In Harrisburg, we play hard, but it’s as if it really doesn’t matter. It’s a subtle thing – the way a player sighs as he arrives at the ball field, or the way a pitcher complains about a sore arm or a hangover. Baseball players should want to play ball. We don’t even have a league website, much less team blogs. People care about things in Pittsburgh, it isn’t that way everywhere.

Looking at the league standings, it’s going to be a very interesting, very competitive second half and I look forward to following it, wishing I was out there. Watch out for the Ducks.

Quack.

Editors Note: Rob Swanger, P/OF played on the Ducks from ’05 to ’06, his number 9 hangs from the imaginary rafters on the blog. He was a dedicated Duck, and holds the Ducks single season batting average record of .608 one strike out that year is pretty solid, I think Strom got him.

Rob Swanger’s 2006 stat line.

PA AB R 1B 2B 3B HR RBI BB Sac SO HbP RE FC SB CS OBP Slg OPS Avg.

54 51 24 20 7 4 0 15 1 0 1 2 3 2 8 3 .630 .902 1.532 .608


Quack.

Game Twelve Recap. Bird Song: Ducks 3, Eagles 2

2009 Ducks Baseball, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

The South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (9-3) continue the best start in team history. Mark “Captain America” Guthrie hates easy listening, and he owns the Eagles (2-7). Captain pitched 6 scoreless innings, striking out 7, walking 1, allowing only 3 hits.

The Ducks scored two in the first off a Kirk Gibson single, and an error on a ball hit by Chris Wojton.

Dr. Jones knocked in the game winning run in the bottom of the sixth.

Eagles pitcher Joe Walsh has historically given Ducks aging outfielder Ben Gwin fits. On the day Gwin went 1 for 1, with a walk, hbp, and would score two runs, on a day when the Ducks recorded only 3 hits. (Casale, Gibson)

Jesse Smith is a beast.

Strong starting pitching and defense complimented by timely hitting and unreal blogging have bouyed the Ducks to a .750 winning percentage. Despite their record start the Ducks still trail the 8-2 Black Sox (despite defeating the BSOX earlier this season), and the 7-0 Owlz in the Whales Conference.

With a first round bye awarded to the top two seeds in the Conference the play down the stretch is sure to be heated, despite the new rules which grant all teams a pass into the post-season.

The Gray Bats are 1-10.

***
Arguably the only two truly American contributions to the world, are baseball and rock ‘n’ roll – blues-based rock ‘n’ roll.
As someone who could not live without either baseball or such music, it should come as no surprise that I can not stand what the Eagles did to rock ‘n’ roll in the 70’s.


You’re better than that Whittaker, why the Eagles?

Why not just call your team the Electric Light Orchestra and be done with it.

Jack White quite possibly hates the Eagles.

“Can you give me number nine?”

The Ducks got off to a quack start when Tony Casale singled before Gwin was plunked for his team leading 3rd hbp of the season.
one batter later…
Kirk Gibson drilled a shot to right, scoring Casale and moving Gwin to third.
Larry tried to censor the single but failed.
Gwin would score on the mystery rbi, which should have been attributed to Chris Wojton
(REMINDER: BRING YOUR UNIFORM MONEY, THIS IS RIDICULOUS)

2-0 Ducks for five innings.

South Oakland of the North Side hit into three double plays, it seemed like everything was hit right at left handed shortstop Don Henley.
The Ducks can field ground balls extremely well, and the Captain kept the ball down recording ground ball out after ground ball out.
“Tyler” had a great game at second base.
(We aquired Fletcher via Rob Cool who hates the Black Sox so much he’s willing to help us out by pointing quality players in our direction.)


Meanwhile…
Don Henley was everywhere.
snaring a hard hit line drive by Mike “Tyler” Fletcher, and doubling off Keeper of the Helmets after another great play on a hard hit by Murphy.
A left-handed shortstop, that’s about as cool as the song “End of the Innocence”.

Captain America had his good stuff on this day, a peacefull easy feeling enveloped Pie Traynor Field as Guthmanzadeh didn’t allow a hit for 3 and 2/3 innings.
that hit in the fourth was Heartache Tonight, so it only counted with frat boys from the south and old women.

In the bottom of the sixth with South Oakland leading 2-0 Walsh loaded the bases with Ducks.

Jones drives in the third run, but the Ducks fail to capitalize further on the bases loaded no outs situation.

The Eagles make a comeback in the top of the seventh.
Thanks to an error and a single the Eagles had runners on second and third with no outs.
Some guy hit one to left and Chris Carter tries to score from second.
As performed by the Black Crowes

Chris Carter is immediately traded to the Vikings.
Mixed Metaphor City.
Ducks lead 2-1, with a runner on second and one out.
next guy singles to center, Wojton throws to Smith at the plate, Jesse ruins the batters life as he tries to take second.
That’s the type of throw an MVP makes.
Depo catches a pop-up and the game is over.

9-3.

  • After twelve games you are what you are, the picture is becoming clear in the Whales Conference. Owlz, Black Sox, Ducks and then everyone else, with the Gray Batz and the Eagles battling it out for last place.
  • You can not win without good defense up the middle, the defense this season has taken so much pressure of the starting pitching.
  • We still haven’t played our best baseball.
  • Jones is still just as concerned with getting everyone at bats than he is with winning. Our depth allows him to do this and continue to win, everyone is contributing.
  • Will the Eagles lose their playoff spot if they forfeit another game?
  • It looks like the Black Crowes are playing Mighty Eskimo regularly this tour.
  • Haven’t heard from Kenny Powers in a while.
  • The Eagles now play the BSox and Owlz back to back. how about taking one of those two, Don?
  • Kirk, what did you write on Larry’s blog he felt so threatened by he had to censor?
  • The response to the Ducks blog has been phenominal this season, thank you all, seriously.
  • Go Sabres.
  • Where are you Darren Daulton and Mars Volta? – the games not even close if Daulton is there to go 5 for 5 with 3hrs. (projected stat line)
  • Dr. Jones for coach of the year, do it.
  • Commish, we need a coach of the year award to award.
  • The Bulldogs blog is phenominal check it out oif you haven’t already.
  • Now that Larry has his college kids back why is he losing, it’s so unfair, isn’t it?
  • Sorosky deserves better.
  • The Eagles appear to have regressed, I think Glenn Frey is back on the H-train. – yes, I will say that after a 1 run victory.
  • Realignment.
  • Bombers this Saturday in a Hair of the Dog 8am match at John Herb.
  • Bad news for the Bombers.