2014 South Oakland Ducks

Ben Hartranft’s Clean Game at First Base Leads Ducks to 6-4 Victory

2014 South Oakland Ducks, Ducks win, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland improved to 2-0 on the season with a 6-4 win over North America.

The Ducks scored 3 in the bottom of the first. Casale and Gwin Singled to start the game putting runners on first and third with no outs. Casale scored on a double steal. Culp singled in Gwin, and advanced to third when Swetz singled to right. Ben Hartranft scored Culp with a sac fly to center.

The Lions scored an unearned run in the top of the second. Ben Hartranft threw out a guy at the plate.

The Lions ran into some outs. Runners on first and second, there was a past ball and only the runner on first tried to advance and the Ducks got an out on a 2-5-4 putout.

With a runner on second in the third, a ground ball to the left side resulted in a 5-6 putout.

After taking a 4-3 lead in the fifth after a dropped fly ball by the Ducks, North America had runners on first and third with 2 outs  and tried to get in a rundown between first and second to allow the runner on third to score but it didn’t work.

Some guy tried to stretch a single and was thrown out at second.

North America threw two good pitchers, and the starter settled in after a rough first innings. South Oakland trailed 4-3 going into the bottom of the fifth.

Faust singled to start the fifth, and took second on a past ball. After a pair of strikeouts, Gwin walked. Then the Lions pitcher went from the windup for some reason, allowing Gwin and Faust to advance. Ciccone drove in 2 with a single to right. Then Culp chased their starter with a double off the wall in right center.

The Lions would only reach base once in the sixth and seventh. Ciccone struck out their 2-hitter to end the game.

Some stats:

  • TC Jones: 2IP, 2H 3BB, 2R, 0ER, 2K
  • Culp: 2-for-3, 2B, RBI, R
  • Ciccone (W) 2-for-3, 2RBI, R, 5IP, 3H, 2BB, 4K, 2R 0ER
  • Faust: 1-for-3, R, SB
  • Hartranft: 0-1, sac fly, HBP
  • Swetz, 2-for-3
  • Gwin: 1-for-2, BB, 2SB, 2R

Notes:

  • North America will be tough this season. I can see them and the Wolfpack getting into a fight over which is the more dominant land mammal.
  • That win felt good.
  • Where are these 3 pitchers I drafted?
  • Moore made a sweet catch in right n in which he pinned a ball of his chest. the bruise is spectacular.
  • Faust had his first hit as a Duck since 2006.
  • This is South Oakland’s first 2-0 start since 2009. I think. We’ve won games and everyone has played in every game. We still haven’t had our full compliment of players yet.
  • It’s a real good atmosphere in our dugout.
  • Gotta love how their pitcher bitched out their shortstop in the first inning for missing a tag, then went from the windup with guys on first and second in a one-run game in the fifth.
  • So much kitty litter. There’s probably a Lion joke there
  • WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

South Oakland plays next on Saturday at 12pm up at Pie Traynor. Might be scrambling for guys over Easter Weekend.

Follow us on twitter @duckpond2014

quack, quack.

 

 

Game Day 2: Ducks vs Lions

2014 South Oakland Ducks, Gameday, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side

vs. 

North American Lions

8pm

Springview Field

South Oakland opens at home tonight against the North American Lions. After a 9-4 win over the Wolfpack, the Ducks look to start a winning streak in what will probably be wet conditions.

Follow Michael Brandt @Duckpond2014 for in-game updates while you watch the Pens.

The Lions finished 14-9 last year. I have no idea what to expect, but I love how they claim a whole continent. It’s North America’s first game so we’ll probably face their ace.

Dr. Jones will get some innings on the mound tonight.

about-indiana-jones-4

Bad News for the Lions

 

Ducks Win. 9-4

2014 South Oakland Ducks, Ducks win, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland won it’s first game of the season defeating the West View Wolfpack 9-5.

Tony Casale went 4-for-4. Brandon Culp went 3-for-4 with a double and four RBI. Matt Swetz hit a sweet double over some kid’s head. Jason Fetter pitched four innings allowing 1 earned run. Brian Strom allowed 1 run over three strong relief innings. Ducks pitchers combined to strike out nine wolfpacks, nine wolves? nine wolfpack? Whatever. I think West View only had four hits, depending how loose their book is.

We made fewer mistakes than they did, and looked pretty good all things considered. We’re going to score a lot of runs this season.

West View is a basically the old Matadors/Sharks. I don’t know how they scammed their way into that 8:30 John Herb time slot.

 

The game ended on a dropped third strike with the bases loaded. After the strike out,  the Ducks catcher, Anthony Ciccone, picked up the ball and stepped on the plate, to end the game, but  the Wolfpack batter ran to first for some reason and tried to run over our first baseman. Nice.

South Oakland plays next on Wednesday, 8pm at Springview Field.

Mike Brandt is going to live tweet the first few inning of the game before he leaves for work. I’m expecting great things. Also, we’ll have our uniforms.

Quack.

 

 

 

 

Contraction and Field Permit News

2014 South Oakland Ducks

News is the AA Ducks couldn’t get enough guys to commit, and wont have a team this season, which pretty much blows.

I want to thank TJ Morgan and Fago who helped keep the team afloat the last two seasons when it really looked like we were dead. Honestly, it’s a miracle the team didn’t fold in 2005.

There’s only so much you can do as a manager of a team to get players on board. You can’t make guys send you a check, and when you start fronting cash in this league, it’s a slippery slope.

I didn’t want to form a Single A team at the expense of the AA squad, and maybe that’s not exactly how it worked out but it feels like it, and I don’t like it. Basically, me and former Gray Bats legend, Ben Sorosky, put together the Single A team from scratch, working within the parameters of Single A eligibility. The only Ducks from last year that we had rostered throughout this process were myself, Gator and Garret Moore. I figured 3 guys wasn’t the end of the world, but who knows.

So there’s a new chapter in the poorly written annals (that’s annals, Trojan) of Ducks history. We’re joining the Warriors in Single A and prioritizing equal playing time above all else, and I’m excited to get started. 

Still, I’m going to miss playing against the Black Sox a lot. A whole lot.

After a brief hiatus, we have a permit for the Duck Pond again this year, however we won’t have to use the 9pm time slot, our home games will be Wednesdays at 7:45 at Spring Hill.

quack.

Quack Quack. Two Ducks Teams in 2014?

2014 South Oakland Ducks, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball, who names their team the Rebels?

Fuck this winter.

It looks like TJ Morgan is running the AA Ducks, and I’m running the single A Ducks. I’m still trying to find a loophole to allow me to play on both teams, but I’m not sure that’s going to happen.

The split should’ve happened in 2010, but no one on that team was going to step down and play in a lower division. Instead, a bunch of guys quit rather than take reduced roles. And, really, who wants a reduced role in a fucking summer league? No one. I strained some friendships over that mess, and I probably deserve it. Maybe I shouldn’t give as much of a shit four years later, but I’m obsessed with narrative–the story in this mess, and without conflict there’s no story. So I think about it.

This weather is making me sound depressed. Here’s a photoshop to lighten things up. Some of my best work!

2007WorldChamps-Rebels_photo_poop_2 copy

The A Ducks are shaping up pretty well. We have a bunch of guys from the Militia, and a few ghosts of South Oakland past returning. I think it’ll be fun. We will be competitive. If the pitching holds up, we should contend with the other sandbagging teams for a title. I think those are realistic expectations.

Morgan’s Ducks, will be nasty this year, too, if the pitching holds up. The Fightin’ Ducks, is what it looks like since everyone still has Ducks jerseys. Morgan does things the right way, and helped the franchise through a rough patch last season that saw a near folding of the team, and a collapse down the stretch and a ton of games in the middle of nowhere. It sucks to run a team without a pitching staff, and guys who won’t commit.

Teams that left in the offseason: The Militia. Elliot. Maybe one other one. This will be the Ducks 12th season.

If it wasn’t for Elliot, we could conceivably have won two or three titles in the last four years. We’d have won in ’11 maybe ’12. What would have been awesome, is if we played the Cherokee in the finals or semis two years ago. But this is some space time continuum shit. Whatever. Elliot made the league better. Not upset I don’t have to face Barnes again. They beat us 20-3 one game, the year where only divisional games counted towards our record so we punted that one and got slaughtered.

The Militia broke up, the team that was the Orioles, Knights, Gray Bats, and Rebels who left the Black Sox who were the Stampeders.

militia

With Monroeville disbanded, who will defend the league?

Not Captain America.

Guthrie retired. The last holdover from the TC Jones era, Guth beat the Black Sox to win our most recent championship. Guth went 6 1/3 innings on the mound in a 5-3 win in the clinching game then blacked out and split his chin open that night celebrating. Blood and cheap whiskey everywhere. That’s always how it ends.

Goodnight Captain.

Quack.