2020 South Oakland Ducks

Ducks Win: Face Oilers in Semifinals Tonight.

2020 South Oakland Ducks, NABA, pittsburgh NABA

South Oakland eliminated the South Hill Devils, winning 9-1 in Elliot last night.

The Ducks jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the second before both benches received a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct. The Ducks added three runs in the fourth, one in the sixth, and two in the seventh. The runs in the seventh inning came after the Devils starter beaned the Ducks second baseman after a bunt attempt. That loaded the bases for Pulice who drove in two runs with a fielder’s choice on a botched double-play attempt.

The Devils scored their run in the fourth.

Ducks starter Billy Welsh (W, 1-0) pitched five strong innings, and Fago went the last two to secure the victory.

Morgan and Lombardi had multi-hit games for the Ducks.

The Ducks play BIG OIL tonight, 8:00 at Moore Park. The winner advances to the championship series against the winner of tonight’s Bandidos Cranberry game.

Quack.

 

 

 

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Playoff Gameday 1: Ducks at Devils

2020 South Oakland Ducks

(5) South Oakland Ducks of the North Side

at

(4) South Hills Devils

8:30pm

Herschel Park

Projected Starters:

Ducks: Welsh

Devils: Brodeur

The Ducks travel to Elliot to take on the defending champs in tonight’s first round matchup. The winner advances to play BIG OIL in the semifinals tomorrow night. South Oakland and the Devils split their season series, and finished even in net runs. The Ducks won 14-8 and 6-2, and lost 7-1 and 5-1. Twenty-two runs for and 22 against. The last time these two teams met in the playoffs, the game went ten innings. This appears to be an even matchup.

The other side of the bracket has the Bandidos and Eagles playing tonight with the winner taking on Cranberry in the semifinals. Andy has a preview on their site. Solid work as always. Andy also put a lot of work into our all decade teams, and scraping our league’s all-time stats from the defunct NABA site.

Here’s the AA team.

The Ducks are well represented. We’ve had some great players on this team. I’m fortunate to have played with and against a lot of ball players far more talented than I am over the last 17 years.Other Ducks who made it are Kenny Rayl who was named all decade in AAA for his time on the Black Sox. Ciccone spent most of the decade with the Oilers, but played on South Oakland from 2013-2014. Bandido/Dirty Birds Eddinger, Friend, and Gallagher played with us in Columbus so they’ve logged almost a dozen games as Ducks. Graff played with us for most of the decade.

2014 South Oakland Ducks

It’s been a tough season for a lot of obvious non-baseball reasons. I have a hard time getting too upset about underachieving this year when it’s amazing we were able to play at all. Still, there’s little solace in losing just because we’re in the middle of a pandemic.

I think every team in the tournament can make a run. We have a tough draw, but there’s still a path for us. We certainly didn’t peak too early this year.

We have Billy going tonight, and I don’t think we’re missing any starters.

Bad News for the Devils

Gameday 11: Ducks vs Cranberry

2020 South Oakland Ducks, Gameday, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

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

vs

Cranberry Crusaders (5-5)

9pm

Springview Field

Probable Starters:

Cranberry: Germani (1-1, 12 K, ERA: 3.13)

Ducks: Welsh (1-1, 26 K, ERA: 2.95)

The Ducks open a two-game series against Cranberry tonight in Spring Hill. South Oakland needs a win to keep within striking distance of what is shaping up to be an exciting pennant race.

If you haven’t already, go vote for Player of the Decade at Cranberry’s blog. Andy does good work over there. He was an actual journalist once.

Everyone is really even this year. The Eagles have lost a couple tough games, too, or it could be even tighter.

It will be interesting to see how the first place Oilers fare when they get a bunch of games in a week. How they handle their games in hand will determine a lot. So far they’ve only lost to us and Cranberry.

Bandidos and Devils played a scorcher last night. At the halfway point of the season, Bandidos CF, Eric Friend is making a strong case for Double A MVP. He’s putting up Dustin Winston type numbers.

2020 has had an old school PGH NABA feel to it. Maybe I’m just overly nostalgic and more appreciative of this season after being stuck in my house all spring. There are all-time stats floating around, and  all-decade teams. Moore Park is back in the rotation, the Carrick’s ace took a couple teammates to the Devils, and the heart and soul of the Black Sox is playing in South Oakland. All the games feel more important. I think there’s a different vibe this season. I hope we all get through it safely.

We need to make a pushThis two game series against Cranberry is big, especially if it comes down to tie-breakers at the end of the year.

We always play well at the Duck Pond. Springview is in the best shape of her life.

Bad News for the Crusaders

Gameday 9: Ducks at Oilers

2020 South Oakland Ducks, Gameday, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (4-4)

at

Hebrew Oilers (3-1)

7:30pm

Moore Park

Probable Starters:

BIG OIL: Pearson

Ducks: Welsh

South Oakland travels to historic Moore Park to play the Hebrew Oilers tonight. This is our first game played under “yellow” conditions. If I did anything right as manager, it was quitting before this season. What a mess. The last game between these two teams played at Moore Park ended in a 6-6 tie. It was so long ago, I still had enough of an arm to throw out a runner. Those were the days. Outfield assists and no pandemic.

BIG OIL lost to Cranberry 13-3 on Sunday, but they only had eight guys. We’ve had a good rotating cast of villains in this league (including the Ducks) and our share of rivalries. The Oilers are right up there in both categories.

They have always beaten us when it matters, though, and as evenly matched as we’ve been over the years, they have a title and another finals appearance under their belt. Both years they beat us in the playoffs after we beat them in the regular season. This is kind of how it was with us and the Black Sox for years. We could never get passed them until we brought in Fago the first time. Since 2010, we’ve made most of our personnel additions from within the league. Usually when teams fold (Hurricanes, Owlz, Militia, Bulldogs and most recently the Black Sox) or their manager pisses off a bunch of players like the Bulldogs. Longevity has benefitted us in this regard. The Oilers don’t add many guys from within the league.

This is a big series for both teams.

We have a few former Black Sox who will feel at home in Brookline tonight. Hopefully that gives us the edge we need.

Bad News for the Oilers

Gameday 5: Ducks vs Bandidos

2020 South Oakland Ducks, Gameday, NABA, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (1-3)

vs

Bakery Square Bandidos (2-0)

9pm

Spring View Field

Projected starters:

Ducks: Patton

Bandidos: Friend

South Oakland looks to start a winning streak tonight against the resurgent Bandidos. After a thrilling extra inning win against South Side last weekend the Ducks are back in the win column and feeling confident. Tom Pulice earned his first win as Ducks manager. He’s the fifth coach to win a game for South Oakland.

Ducks managers by year:

  • Gwin: 2003-07
  • Jones: 2008-09
  • Gwin: 2010-11
  • Fago: 2012
  • Morgan: 2013
  • Gwin: 2014-19
  • Pulice: 2020

Based on this pattern, I’ll be back in 2022. The Billy Martin of the Pittsburgh NABA.

Last year the Ducks swept the Bandidos. In 2019, Bakery Square had a statistical anomaly of a season, winning like five games and suffering a bizarre defeat to a short handed Eagles team in the playoffs. But it looks like the odds may have swung back in their favor this season as the Bandidos are off to the best start in team history.

These teams have been rivals since the days of Zack King and the Mon Valley Dirty Birds, when the aforementioned King tried to fight our whole team for some reason. 2014 was a great year. That season, the Dirty Birds played at West Field before the renovation.

After a two year hiatus, the South Oakland Ducks of the North Side are returning to the North Side. We will play our home games at Spring View Field.

West Field was nice, I guess, but the borough was impossible to deal with, and the seeds/maintenance situation was ridiculous. The big dugouts were a nice change of pace, but the lights were impossible there. We tried to get a couple early season dates there this year, and after they charged me for them, they said they were cancelling the whole summer, and turned around and gave a DNL team a permit. I’m still waiting on my refund.

Tonight is a homecoming for the Ducks.

Bad News for the Bandidos

 

 

 

 

South Oakland Completes Injury-free First Batting Practice Session

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We had eight guys come out for BP last week, which is encouraging. Management is still figuring out what to do with the last few roster spots. Hopefully we have some pitching on the way.

We are still in the process of confirming our home field for the season. We might return to the Duck Pond full time this year.

The next league meeting is coming up on 3/1.

Quack

First Pittsburgh NABA League Meeting

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Not much happened to today. It looks like neither Sheraden nor West View will be back this season. I think they should merge and form the most likable team in league history. It’s also possible we will have to play a handful of games vs AAA teams. This isn’t a huge deal, and would prevent the AAA teams from having to play the same four teams six times a season.

There’s a possibility the league will add a team of seventeen year olds. I thought I’d have to wait a year to play against kids who weren’t born when I started our team, but here we are. There are some potentially bad outcomes with this, but we need to add teams if possible.

In Ducks news, 2018 AA MVP Tom Pulice is now manager, but I’ll be around to help out and blog. I think we got a few pitchers from the Mariners along with their former manager.

As always we need arms, but should have a good hitting lineup.

The meetings will heat up when we start discussing rule changes, and player eligibility stuff. I think we will probably look for more cut and dry rules for current college players and former pros in AA. The college exceptions, which were originally pushed for by Shaler (who also might fold) so they could sandbag in Single A a few years ago are too easily exploited. I imagine this will be a point of contention.

Anyway, I am excited not to manage.

Quack