James Fago

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.

Ducks Win:

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

South Oakland 6, Cranberry 1

Bobby Swartwout (sp) drove in three runs, going 3-for-3 with two doubles and a single off the wall to lead South Oakland (4-1, 5-5-2) past Cranberry Wednesday night. Ducks pitcher James Fago allowed one unearned run over six innings, holding Cranberry to 3 hits and recording an estimated 9 Ks. I have now gone from spelling out numbers to writing them as numerals.

Cranberry scored their run early on a walk, a hit batter, a past ball and an error in some order.

The Ducks tied the game in the third when Ken Cool doubled and scored from second on an infield hit by Gwin who reached third on a double by our new utility infielder. Fago walked and scored on Swartwout’s bases clearing double.

South Oakland added another run on a sac fly by centerfielder TJ Morgan.

I don’t know where we’d be without Morgan this season, and I’m at a complete loss as to how we scored our other run. I think a groundout.

Robert Patton pitched a perfect seventh to preserve the victory.

There are still players on our team who haven’t met each other. There are at least four guys whose names i don’t know, and may never know, but after a brutal start that included a 17 – 1 loss to the Bulldogs, we’re playing better baseball.

We have another important division game against Cranberry Saturday 2pm, at North Boundary Park.

Quack.

Happy Memorial Day: Practice Tuesday, 6:30 at SpringView Field

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

It looks like the league this year is incredibly balanced. That, combined with the meaninglessness of the non-division games, has lead to a lot of decent but not spectacular records.

Cranberry beat the Black Sox last weekend making our division race much tighter, and the games this week even more important.

The Cherokee play the Black Sox in what looks like a home and home double header on Saturday 3:30 in the twilight zone and 9pm at Moore Park. Wild scheduling – Kenny Powers does not want to fall to 0 – 4 in divisional play, and Ken Cool’s brother definitely wants the Cherokee to bury Brookline. I guess it’s in our best interest to root for a split there. I don’t know.

There will be intense baseball down the stretch for sure.

Thank god we won’t have to go back to Findlay in the regular season. The field is fine, but the lack of shade makes me dizzy thinking about it.

Two Big games this week vs Cranberry: Wed, 9pm at SpringView, and Saturday, 2pm at North Boundary Park. We’ve got a chance to get over .500 overall and go to 5 -1 in the division.

quack.

Game Day 10 and 11: Ducks at Cherokee

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland Ducks of the North Side (2-0, 3-4-3)

at

Clinton Cherokee (0-0, 5-2)

1pm and 3:30pm

Middle of Nowhere (seriously, according to this yahoo maps link, we’re playing in a parallel dimension)

In this alternate universe, all teams want pictures like this taken of their summer league teams.

They look like they mean business – and check out the sick piping!

This is probably just some art students’ school project, but whatever.

If Ken Cool’s brother had stuck around we might have Ducks pics like this: I’d want a silhouette  of Guth holding up that cigar on top of the Cool’s picnic table right before he blacked out and fell on the driveway after we won the championship, imposed in front of Dan Marino field in Oakland with a drug deal taking place in the background and some little kids playing with a broken 40 bottle.

Sadly, me and Fago’s inability to provide our team with posters of ourselves led to the loss of some quality players.

Our pitching situation is gonna be touch and go, but we should have most of our lineup.

Bad News for the Cherokee.

Ducks Win

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland 6, Brookline 3

We’re all part of the tribe.

Ducks pitcher James Fago went seven innings, allowing 3 hits, and 2ER, while striking out several and walking few.

The Ducks scored 2 in the top of the first on  TJ Morgan’s bases loaded infield single. On the play Black Sox third baseman Kenny Powers made a spectacular barehanded catch on a well-placed roller down the line but could not throw out the hustling Morgan. Gwin scored from second on the play also hustling.

Brookline answered in the top of the third when with two outs their two hitter fouled off a pitch that hit his hand, then after he struck out swinging, Ducks catcher, Ben Gwin, misplayed the pitch in the dirt and hit the kid in the hand again with his throw to first. He would later score on a ball up the middle, on the play, however, Ducks second baseman Ken Cool hit the kid in the back.

Later in the inning, Kenny Powers scored after he stole second but was nearly thrown out.  Ball beat him there, but he slid around the tag.

Fago handled himself with composure and calmness in the dugout after the Ducks allowed 2 unearned runs in the inning. It was as if it didn’t phase him.

The game remained tied.

We caught the second baseman in a rundown between third and home in the top of the fourth when we executed the first and third play we’ve been working on all season. He was out.

To end the top of the fifth, Kenny Powers was thrown out at home at one point trying to tag on a shallow fly to center.

in the bottom of the inning  Brian Strom recorded his first hit as a Duck, after we saved the ball for enshrinement on his mantle, Strom  stole second and advanced to third on a groundout by Gwin. Strom scored on a Fago single.

The Sox starter was pissed. He was pulled for another lefty.

In the bottom of the sixth, the Ducks scored three runs on a walk, 2 bunt singles another infield hit and a linedrive to right by Ken Cool’s friend Brian.

The Sox scored a run in the top of the seventh, on a double by Florian and a single by their really intense catcher.

Fago struck out Goldie swinging to end the game.

***

South Oakland is 2 – 0 in division play heading into their Saturday double header against Ken Cool’s brother’s team.

We are in first place.

quack, quack.

Ducks and the Sopranos

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

I started  watching the Sopranos from the beginning a while back, and i’m on the second to last episode.

The Ducks did so much to add sympathy initially to Tony’s character. Very well done.

South Oakland opens division play at Cranberry, Sunday, 2pm.

quack

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

Season Opener

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, pittsburgh NABA

Ducks,

Practice Wed 6pm at Olympia Field.

We will open the season against Elliot. 7pm, Wed April 18th at Herschel Field.

If you haven’t already,

send Fago your league dues.

Immediately.

607 greenfield ave apt 1

Pittsburgh, PA 15207

The first few weeks of the schedule are up on the league site.

We’re in a division with the Cherokee, Black Sox, and Cranberry.

I’m pretty sure only the top tree in each division make the playoffs.

I’m not sure if it’s based solely on division record, or if it’s overall record or what.

Barring the inevitable rain, we will play the bulldogs twice and then a double header against the Militia to round out five games in the first eleven days of the season.

Quack

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.