South Oakland Ducks Baseball

Gameday 22/23: Ducks vs Monsters/Ducks vs Bombers

2014 South Oakland Ducks, Gameday

Game 1: Ducks vs Monsters

6pm

Springview Field

Game 2: Ducks at Bombers

8:30pm

Springview Field

We’re getting down to it. This is the first double header at Spring Hill in Ducks history. Of course we are the away team in game 2.

Here are the Standings:

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If North America beats the Warriors at 6:15 in Etna, they clinch the top spot, and it will come down to us and the WOLFPACK!!! for the other first-round bye. I don’t know how West View is going to get five games played in three days. We are probably going to play them on the 19th.

Today we have two games against teams that have played us tough, but are below us in the standings. We need two wins to get a bye. I don’t know who is going to be available to pitch, or who can still walk at this point in the season. We are really banged up right now. We’re going with throwback unis in game 2 vs the Bombers.

These are the greatest throwbacks ever.

houston-astros-uniform

 

Bad News for the Bombers and Monsters

Game Day 22: Ducks vs. WOLFPACK!!!

2014 South Oakland Ducks, Gameday

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side

vs.

West View Wolfpack

8:30pm

John Herb Field

So far the game is still on tonight. Since it’s the Ducks’ umpire money, and it’s West View’s call as to whether or not the field is playable, I don’t expect to hear anything.

We need to win tonight if we want a shot at a first round bye, and to stay in the hunt for the one seed.

I found this awesome Rambo/Captain America picture in my files, and I think it’s time to re-tread this one. Whoever photoshopped this is my hero.

Go Blues

Bad News for the WOLFPACK!!!

Recaps, 7/2 vs. Senators, 7/6 vs. Titans

2014 South Oakland Ducks, Ducks win, pittsburgh NABA

Our fearless leader, aka Papa Duck, has been at the pond being fed popcorn by infants and the elderly so another fearless Duck was required to take the initiative of informing the fan base of recent transgressions between the South Oakland Ducks and their opponents. As Papa Duck gorges on popcorn and bits of bread, fan favorite ILikeKevinYoung/ILikeKevinYoungEsq will update you on the 7/2 game vs. the Senators and the 7/6 game vs. the Titans.

Benny Photography…

The 7/2 game vs. the Senators presented a shorthanded, 8-man Senators squad versus a veteran-laden, hungry Ducks team. The Senators, however, filibustered the Ducks effort of rolling them over, bringing their bats to the duck pond, a.k.a. the capital of NABA baseball, and thoroughly brow-beating anything the Ducks’ pitchers threw. The game was a back in forth affair between two worthy adversaries. The game ended up going to extra innings, where, Ben Sorosky, aka The Big Sorosky, aka the Dude walked it off with a shot to right-center. In a rage of anger, Bob the Duck bashed ILikeKevinYoungEsq. in the head with his helmet while ILikeKevinYoungEsq. was attemping to revel in the glory of The Big Sorosky’s walk off shot. I don’t remember the score, but there were a lot of runs and the Ducks won by 1 in 8 or 9 innings.

The 7/6 matchup vs. the Titans was another nail-biter between these two teams. On a side note, I generally have a lot of respect for the Titans. They play good ball in spite of being perpetually short handed and don’t engage in any nonsense. The Ducks, however, were pulling all kinds of shenanigans with a QUACK cheer before the game reminiscent of the great Quack Attack of 2008, a fine year for this South Oakland team. Versus the Titans, Gator Fetter, aka Cheddar aka Cheese aka Cheeseball aka Swiss Cheese aka the Big Cheese aka Jason showed the same grit he has all season, starting the game off with some fastballs that caught too much of the zone but preceding to shut the Titans down when it mattered. A timely hit from Brian Strom-Arm Strom broke the game open for the Ducks and broke the Titans’ spirit.

The next South Oakland game is versus The Soviet Union. Or is it the West View Wolfpack? Its on Sunday at 830 PM at John Herb Field. To keep with the consistency of the blog, here is a recent photo of the Wolfpack’s esteemed manager.

 

Game Day 20: Ducks vs. Senators

2014 South Oakland Ducks, Gameday

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (14-5)

vs

Senators (5-12)

8pm

Springview Field

The Bombers forfeited our regularly scheduled game for tonight, The Senators rain out has been rescheduled in its place.

bombers

It feels like we haven’t had a home game in a month.

We have five games remaining, tonight vs. the Senators, a home game played in Bellevue this Sunday against a resurgent Titans team, a home game in West View against the WOLFPACK!!! on the 13th that will likely determine who gets a first round bye and possibly the one-seed, and then a double header at Springview vs. the Monsters and Bombers at 6pm on July 16th. Though, I think we are the visiting team against the Bombers.

We’re a game out of first place. We need to win out and have North America go 3-2 down the stretch to get the top seed. The WOLFPACK!!! and North America have a game against each other that hasn’t been counted in the standings, which will either be rescheduled or it just hasn’t been entered for some reason. At least one of them will lose.

North America has the Warriors twice (pending a forfeit ruling), the Bombers twice, and the mystery game against West View.

The WOLFPACK!!! have to play five games in ten days, plus a potential makeup game against the Senators and the aforementioned mystery game vs the Lions. Unless there are forfeits involved here, they will have to play seven games before the first round games start on the 21st.

The WOLFPACK!!! have allowed 20 fewer runs than us, and I think that’s the first tie breaker after head to head. So It’s likely we will have to finish a full game ahead of them to pass them in the standings, even if we win our game on the 13th.

If we are going to win out, we can overlook anyone. We have to finish on a high note. Peak at the right time, and all that.

Ciccone and Jones are pitching tonight.

saulabout-indiana-jones-4

Bad News for the Senators

 

 

 

 

 

Game Day 17: Ducks vs Monsters

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

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (13-3)

vs

Monongahela Monsters (5-11)

8pm

Springview Field

Assume we’re playing unless you hear otherwise. Hopefully this rain clears and it dries out by 8 tonight.

Your first place South Okland Ducks have won six straight, and look to take the season series from the Monsters tonight in Springview. The last time the teams met was a harrowing 11-10 Ducks win. Hopefully we can find someone to throw strikes tonight. Key to our success this year have been solid defense and strike throwing from our staff. Hopefully this continues and we can go into the weekend a full game ahead of the Lions who are 13-4.

Tonight’s game is huge. A first round buy is key, but if we hold on to the one seed it would allow us to avoid the Lions/WOLFPACK!!! until the finals.

Iceberg will give us some innings tonight.

Iceburgh_

Bad News for the Monsters

 

 

Ducks win: Ducks 8, Warriors 7 (8)

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

South Oakland won on a walk-off fielder’s choice by Matt Limbach for their second come from behind win in as many days. Matt Swetz and Tony Casale (w, 1-0) Combined to hold the Warriors to 2 runs over the final six innings.

The Warriors trailed 1-0 after one, but exploded for five runs in the second off an four walks, and infield hit, a double and an error. Some guy stole home. South Oakland appeared ready to melt down.

The Ducks scored in the bottom half of the inning when Hartranft hit a hustling double to right, advanced to third on Donnie’s sac bunt, and scored on Moore’s single. Moore finished 1-for-4 with an RBI

Warriors 5, Ducks 2 after two.

Swetz entered the game and worked out of trouble for 2 2/3 innings allowing one run and keeping the Ducks within striking distance.

Limbach and Swetz drove in runs in the fifth for South Oakland

6-4 Warriors after five

The Ducks went down in order in the sixth, and the Warriors added a run in the top of the seventh to take a 7-4 lead on Craig Boley’s laser beam of an RBI single to right center.

To start the Ducks half of the seventh, Casale reached on an error, Gwin walked, and Limbach reached on another error. Matt Swetz then singled to right and drove in three when the right fielder’s throw went over the backstop.

7-7 after seven.

With one out in the bottom of the eighth, Casale doubled, Gwin was intentionally walked, and Limbach hit a hard grounder in the hole between second and third. The Warriors second baseman couldn’t handle the throw to second from the short stop. Casale came around to score and end the game. 8-7 Ducks.

***

The Ducks are 4-2 in one-run games this season.

We’ve won a handful of games where we’ve been down or tied after the fourth, if someone wants to count the number of come from behind wins we’ve had this season, I’d appreciate it.

Apparently you can just put a guy on without throwing the pitches for an intentional walk. Several times, Boley called for intentional walks, and basically went with the same strategy Ducks management tried to implement in the ill-fated, botched intentional walk game earlier this season. It’s the right move. However they didn’t go with five infielders, which would’ve been awesome, theoretically, for someone.

South Oakland returns to the Duck Pond to face the Monsters, 8pm Wednesday night. Who wants to pitch?

 

 

 

Gameday 16 and Titans recap

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

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (12-3)

vs.

Warriors (2-8)

6pm

Stoneridge

This will be our first game at this field. We are the home team. 6pm starts are the worst.

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Bad News for the Warriors

Titans Recap:

South Oakland defeated the Titans in a come-from-behind 7-6 victory yesterday in Bellevue. The win keeps South Oakland tied for first with North America, and a full game ahead of the WOLFPACK!!!

After a frantic start by the Titans who took advantage of a few questionable calls by the umps and some missed opportunities by the Ducks, South Oakland settled in and scored a bunch of runs to erase deficits of 2-0, and 4-1. The Ducks lead 6-4 after 5 but the Titans tied it in the 6th before the Ducks scored the go-ahead run in the top of the 7th on Ciccone’s RBI double.

Doubles were hit by Casale, Ciccone and Gwin. Hartranft had a sweet single to start a big inning in the 5th, and Mike Brandt walked twice to bring his OBP up to .453.

***

I’m really glad we won and I’m not here trying not to blame the umpires that we lost. This was the first time I’ve tried to file a complaint with the league office about the umps. They were admittedly out of position, and generally didn’t give a shit. Which is a shame because the Titans played us tough, again, and I don’t want to take anything away from their effort in what was a good game.

This is what I found when I tried to log in to the umpire association’s page today to file a complaint:

Screen Shot 2014-06-23 at 10.15.08 AM

 

Looks about right.

The Ducks have won five straight games.

South Oakland plays tonight and Wednsday before traveling to Munhall for a double header against North America with first place on the line this Sunday.

Who wants to see if they can pitch?

quack

There are a lot of people I’d like to bean, but none of them play baseball.

2014 South Oakland Ducks, Ducks win

iceburgh

Rob “Iceberg” Galvanek pitched a scoreless 7th inning and went 1-for-3 with 2RBI as the Ducks beat the Warriors 14-2 in Etna last Wednesday.
Brian Strom pitched the first two innings on short rest while our attorney was stuck in traffic.

No word how much Warriors management may or may not have paid Ciccone to get stuck in traffic and arrive in the second inning.

Ciccone played an inning at first base, which means he has played all nine positions for South Oakland this year. Then he pitched four innings of one run baseball to earn the win.

This was a solid team win for the Ducks. South Oakland has won 5 straight and is now in first place with a record of 11-3.

The Warriors (2-8) are having a tough season. Newman had a sweet game for them, and Boley played well behind the plate.

***

Notes:

Starting with our game on Sunday, South Oakland plays three games in four days (five in seven), and we still have a make-up game against the Senators to reschedule.

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Who wants to pitch?

It looks like there’s going to be a three team race between the Ducks (11-3), North America (11-4), and the WOLFPACK!!! (9-4) for the top 2 seeds and the ever-important first round bye in the playoffs. It should be an exciting pennant race. We have a big double header against North America next weekend, and one game left against the WOLFPACK!!!

It was the former head coach of the Matadors, who is no longer in the league, that tried to bribe teams to throw games. For more on bribery, see the previous post.

South Oakland’s next game is this Sunday, 3:30pm vs. the Titans.

quack

 

 

 

 

 

Ducks Win

2014 South Oakland Ducks, Ducks win

Ducks 10, Monsters 9

South Oakland (10-3) held on to beat the Monsters 10-9 at the hidden field of Brentwood on Sunday. The Monsters fell to 5-8 on the season.

Here’s a cheap bulleted recap

  • Ben Sorosky returned to the mound after a 3 year hiatus and recorded a 2-inning save for starter and winning pitcher Brian Strom. Both Ducks pitched well despite combining to allow 9 runs.
  • Strom has been great for us on the mound this season.
  • Jason Fetter had three hits and added 2 huge insurance runs in the seventh
  • Galvanek also had three hits
  • We stole bases.
  • We made some odd base running decisions.
  • South Oakland turned a sweet 3-6-3 double play with runners on first and second and nobody out in the sixth.
  • We won without five starters. I think the Monsters were down a few guys as well, so whatever. We still have good depth.
  • Mike Brandt leaned into a pitch and was told to stay at the plate. I am now not the only Duck to have done this.
  • All ten Ducks reached base safely or drove in a run. Lots of productive outs.
  • We’re tied for first with North America (11-4) who beat the WOLFPACK!!! 9-7 Saturday night. The WOLFPACK!!! is 9-4.
  • We either play Wed at 6:15 in Etna, or we have a double header at home at 6:15 on Wed. I’m not sure which. Management will text everyone when the location is confirmed with the other managers and the league office.

quack.