brookline black sox

Ducks Win. South Oakland 5, Express 1

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, Ducks win, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

James Fago went 3-for-3 with 3RBI and Randy Patton earned his third consecutive win to lead South Oakland (9-6-2) to a 5 – 1 victory over the Carrick Express (2-13-1) Monday night.

Ken Cool and Gwin opened the game with back to back hits, Swartwout scored Cool on a sac fly and Fago doubled home Gwin to put South Oakland up 2-0.

The Express scored in the fourth to cut the lead in half, then Fago drove in two runs with a single to left in the top of the fifth inning.

The Ducks fifth run came when Tony Casale scored from second on a 6-4 fielder’s choice.

***

Some notes:

We’d be dead in the water without Randy and Jared, both of whom we picked up off waivers and have pitched well for us. Randy hasn’t lost in three starts.

Tony Casale is playing the best baseball i’ve seen from him since he joined the Ducks in ’08, and he and Houseman have been fantastic up the middle.

We’ve won eight of our last ten.

It’s probably going to take a 10-2 division record for us to win the division, unless Cranberry beats Clinton in one of their remaining three matchups.

We play Brookline in Brookline Saturday night then Cranberry next wed, before we finish Black Sox-Cherokee-Black Sox.

South Oakland’s magic number to clinch a playoff spot is 1.

quack

Game 15 Recap: Ducks Win

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, Ducks win, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland of the North Side beat the Clinton Cherokee 12 – 7 Monday night to take first place in the Monongahela Division.

I wonder what was discussed in the huddles over there? the pre-game talk, two (I think) during the game, and the post-game speech by Clinton’s manager. Probably either the hollow, “we can’t take this team lightly.” Even though it was clear we were taken lightly, or “There’s no way we should lose to this team, they’re horrible. Look at our pants and look at their pants the don’t all match. I love our uniforms they are so sick!”

Or not. I mean, i could be way off base, but whatever their coach was trying to get accross it didn’t take.

Immediately the game had a weird feel to it.The city actualy fixed the lights and dragged the field.

Ducks catcher Ken Cool threw out a runner to end the first. Clinton led 1-0.

In the bottom of the first, Ducks firstbaseman Bobby Swartwout hit a two-run home run and South Oakland wouldn’t trail for the rest of the game.

The Baumgartel/Fago duel started with Baum almost Baconating one to right center, but Roberts made a tough catch at the track.

We scored a run in the second.

Fago picked off a guy at first.

Jesse Ferko and TJ Morgan started hitting doubles.

We had the bases loaded with 1 out in the third, and got one run across.

after three: Ducks 4, Clinton 1.

Then we scored five in the fourth.

Morgan led off with a double Ferko walked, and Roberts bunted for a baseh hit.

Doyle was pulled.

It gets blurry for me at this point. This game was the best the offense has looked all season.

Tessyier came into the game on short rest.

Casale and Houseman came through with back to back singles.

Ken Cool lined out to the wall in left, Gwin flew out to right and Swartwout drove in another run with, I think, a double.

9 – 1, Ducks after four.

the game was stopped to acknowledge Morgan’s first three-hit game as a Duck.

Clinton scored four in the top of the fifth. Baumgartel walked, I threw a ball backwards, there were a couple walks, but we worked out of it. Lead preserved.

9-5, Ducks through four-and-a-half.

In the bottom of the fifth Gwin lead off with a double, Swartwout reached on an error when Gwin was caught in a rundown and pegged in the back. Fago reached on an error. Jesse Ferko hit a bases clearing triple.

South Oakland led 12-5 after five. Fago retired the side in order in the sixth getting Baumgartel to groundout to end their individual battle for the evening.

They put some other kid in to pitch the sixth, he was effective.

The Cherokee scored two in the seventh but the Ducks held on for a five run victory.

***

From what Ken Cool tells me, the Cherokee coach still gives us no credit for putting 12 runs across in this game, and taking advantage of the numerous, uncharacteristic Clinton miscues.

They may not have given us their best, but that has nothing to do with us.

I don’t have the book, but I think six Ducks starters had multiple hits in this game, Ferko, Morgan and Houseman each had 3.

We have three non-division games before we play the Black Sox on the 23rd.

Game Day 14: Ducks vs Elliot

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side

vs

Elliot

9pm

SpringView Field

Elliot (9-2, 4-0) is separating itself from the rest of the Allegheny Division and has the best record in the league. The Ducks are looking to avenge an opening day 7-1 loss to Elliot.

This league has a very high percentage of teams not ending in ‘s.’ – elliot, militia, cranberry, black sox, cherokee. Five out of eight in the AA division. However, in the A division all of the teams do in fact end in ‘s.’ interesting. The Chris Wojton-led Devils won 24 to 9 over the weekend. That game couldn’t have been fun for anyone, certainly not the umpires. I can’t imagine how big the strike zone must have been in the fourth or fifth inning.

The Black Sox dropped three straight to Ken Cool’s brother’s team this weekend (with a ruling on a rain-shortened game pending).

It’s like someone died in Brookline.

I don’t think anyone would have  thought Cranberry and the Black Sox would be battling it out for a playoff spot.

There’s a lot of baseball left, but at 5-1 halfway through our divisional schedule the Ducks are in a good spot.

We’ve had different guys come up big in key situations, and the pitching has improved greatly.

We still haven’t played our best baseball yet.

South Oakland and Elliot both have division games coming up on Wed. We’ll see how this plays out tonight.

Bad News for Elliot

Ducks Win: South Oakland 4, Cranberry 3

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, Ducks win, pittsburgh NABA

Ducks pitcher Robert Patton (2-0) earned his second straight victory, allowing 1 ER over five innings, to lead South Oakland of the North Side (5-1, 6-5-2) past Cranberry (1-3, 4-8) Saturday afternoon.

Cranberry scored a run early with a two out rally in the bottom of the first on a walk and two singles. South Oakland took the lead in the third when with two out, Guthrie singled, Ken Cool was hit by a pitch, and a past ball moved the runners to second and third. Gwin singled in Ken Cool and Guthrie to give the Ducks a 2-1 lead.

In the fifth, South Oakland scored two more runs on an  almost identical series of events. Guthrie walked with two outs. Ken Cool singled and Guthrie advance to third. Ken Cool stole second and Gwin singled in Guthrie and Ken Cool to put the Ducks up 4-1.

Cranberry made it interesting with 2 unearned runs in the bottom of the fifth, the inning ended when Fago threw out a guy trying to steal second.

In the sixth, with runners on first and second and no body out, Ducks first baseman Bobby Swartwout threw out a Cranberry runner at third on a botched sacrifice attempt, then made a nice over the shoulder catch on a pop-up and doubled off the guy at first to end the inning.

Cranberry stranded runners on second and third to end the game.

Ducks outfielder TJ Morgan went 3-for-3 on the day.

***

Earlier in the year we were letting leads slip away into ties, and ridiculous 11-10 losses. It’s good to hold on and win tight games.

Yesterday the Black Sox dropped both games to Clinton, and fell to 0-4 in the division, with another game against the 3-1 Cherokee today at 3pm.

With the Black Sox at 0-4, and Cranberry at 1-3 and those two teams still facing each other three more times, we’ve almost clinched a playoff spot.

I’m really surprised to see Kenny Powers and Brookline in last place.

South Oakland plays Elliot Monday night at 9pm before a huge game against the Cherokee Wednesday night at home with first place on the line.

quackquackquack.

Game Day 13: Ducks at Cranberry

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (4 -1, 5-5-2)

at 

Cranberry (1-2, 4-7)

2pm

North Boundary Park

As of 9:42 we’re playing, I imagine the field up there has dried out, and will be playable at 2pm.

I’m sure the infield will be quick…

After a season and a half Cranberry still doesn’t have a mascot, I think that could be holding them back.

We can put some pressure on the rest of the division today with a win. To the amazement of others around the league, our team is in first place going into our sixth division game, and competing for a first round bye.

Despite our 2 – 0 record against Cranberry, they’re a tough team that has definitely improved from last year. The lineup they put on the field wed was almost entirely different from the first game we played this season, so we’ll see how it plays out.

We can’t look past this game.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Sox/Cherokee marathon doubleheader goes today, how Clinton handles their staff with 3 division games in 4 days.

Patton and Captain America will see give us some innings today.

Bad News for Cranberry.


Game Day 4/5: Ducks at Militia

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, pittsburgh NABA, who names their team the Rebels?

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side

at

Monroeville Militia

Sunday, April 29th

10:00AM & 12:30PM

Woodland Hills High School

(Former Gray Bats mgr. Larry Z.)

The Militia are primarily a combination of two storied PGH NABA Franchises: The Gray Bats, and the Original Rebels – The Rebels formed when the Black Sox split in ’07.

A handful of Militia players also played for the old Knights/Orioles franchise, their Manager, PGH NABA Legend John Tremel played on the Warriors for a season, their best player of all time, Jeremy Barchie, was a Duck for half a season. They also have a Hurricane defector from last season, and a player from the old Phantoms.

Kenny Powers says fuck the Rebels.

  • Aside from the Kenny Power’s Black Sox, and Craig Boley’s Warriors none of those other teams exist anymore – the Gray Bats went out in a flutter after one season.
  • While the Sox and Warriors are two of the Original 3 teams still in existence, they existed in 2003 as the Stampeders and Piranhas – respectively. (The Ducks, Maulers and Arthropods also played in ’03. Yeah, we had a team called the Arthropods in our league, once.)
  • The South Oakland Ducks is the only franchise that’s been around since 2003 with the same name. We just won’t die.
  • We’ve absorbed players from the ’08, and ’09 Championship teams (OwlzZzzz, Hurricanes) and still have a core of hold overs from our Championship team of 2010 (when we beat the Militia to advance to the championship) , and our team that reached the 2011 Finals.
  • The  ’07, ’08 and ’09 Champions have all folded. That’s odd. You’d think winning a title would make a guys want to stay together and build on that success. Additionally the ’06 and ’07 runner ups (Colonials and Matadors) have folded.
  • Gone are the Oilers and Sharks.
  • Guthrie and Fago played on the old Knights at one point, so on Sunday we have multiple grudge matches of former teammates.
  • We should all be proud to wear Green this season (preferably green, but whatever color you have is fine since our uni’s aren’t in yet).
  • Pending weather, the Cherokee, and Black Sox open up today – it’ll be interesting to see how they fare.
  • If I had a choice to have Fago up with the bases loaded, down by 2 runs in the bottom of the seventh every game, I’d take it.
  • Ken Cool and several other Ducks will make their 2012 debut on Sunday
  • No idea how or why this blog post degenerated into this.

Our team is full of players who know how to win.We’re coming together, but we need to go on a run (one game at a time, obviously).

Let’s get two on Sunday and get some momentum going before we get into league play next weekend.

The Michigan Militia and other extremist groups operate under principles formed by the misinterpretation of pieces of our Constitution that have been taken out of context.  They think they know what’s best for our country.

But Captain America knows better, and he’s on our side.

Bad News for the Militia

The Roster

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, pittsburgh NABA, South Oakland Ducks Baseball, who names their team the Rebels?

The South Oakland Ducks of the North Side will rol out a roster featuring the top players from the 2007 team, and members of the Fightin’ Ra 2009 League Champion Hurricanes.

Everyone is excited to get the season started. It will be the Ducks 10th.

Realignment was discussed last league meeting, no clue how that panned out.

Big time rivalry with the cherokee. Bring your smallpox-infested blankets to that one.

Godspeed flip, berdine and tish, etc.

I put the over/under on how long that team lasts at 1.5 seasons.

And there’s a new rebels team apparently, who we will not play as they are in the A division.

quack.

South Oakland Looks to Sweep Brookline for The First Time in team History

League Champion South Oakland Ducks

We’ve never finished the regular season with a better record than Kenny Powers and the Sox.

A win Saturday will assure that and all but clinch us the 3 seed in the end of season tournament.

Now some extended East Bound and Down highlights.

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.