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.
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.
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.
Trying to write any more about this rivalry makes me want to puke. It’s all redundant at this point. Brookline is always tough. Somehow, we always seem to absorb players from teams who have a history of fighting (whether in the stands on the field or whatever) during games against those guys. The Hurricanes beat the Sox to win the ’09 title, after the Sox beat the Owlz in the semis. We beat the Sox to win the ’10 championship. I think they’ve got some big time pitching this year. Our field is so slanted towards first base after all that rain, it’s a joke. I wonder what the all time Sox-Ducks series is at. I think Kenny and I are the only two players who’ve been around for all those games.
We’ve got to keep our momentum going within the division. We’ve already allowed more runs than we did all of last season. We need to reverse this trend. Defense and pitching need to be more consistent. If so, we can play with anybody.
Paul Emig (1-o-1) earned his first win as a Duck since 2007, allowing 2 runs over 4 innings, to help South Oakland (1-0, 2-4-2) open divisional play with a 7 – 3 win over Cranberry (0-1, 2-5).
Trailing 2-0 in the top of the fifth, Fetter led off the inning with a double, followed by four singles by Roberts, Emig, Ken Cool, and Gwin to put South Oakland up 3-2. With two out in the inning, Swartwout doubled in Ken Cool to give the Ducks a 4-2 lead.
In the Sixth Fetter singled to lead off the inning, and advanced to third on a wild pitch and a fielder’s choice (not sure in which order, the book is a mess). Fetter would score on an overthrow back to the pitcher.
In the seventh, Ken Cool and Gwin hit back to back singles to start the inning, Ken Cool scored on Swartwout’s second double of the game, Gwin scored on an rbi groundout by Houseman.
In the bottom of the 6th, TJ Morgan and Houseman teamed up to throw a guy out at third attempting to stretch a double into a triple.
Fetter may have picked up a three-inning save, allowing 1 unearned run in relief. Not sure if that’s possible.
We really needed this one.
South Oakland will face the Black Sox wed night, 9pm at SpringView Field.
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.
South Oakland looks for their first win tonight in a rematch of saturday’s 4-4 tie.
The Ducks still have players who haven’t met one another, and figure to play the opening weeks of the season with the goal of getting everyone playing time, and figuring out our most effective lineup before divisional play begins in May.
When Ken Cool gets back in town, he will give the Ducks a welcomed boost at the top of the lineup, as the team has only scored 5 runs in two games.
No idea who’s pitching tonight or what the lineup will look like, but it will be good to be back at the Duck pond, and get a win on our home field.
hopefully our gang-neutral color scheme will benefit us. To this affect, i’d recommend the bulldogs go with their black hats.
For some reason i have this rambo pic saved in my ‘ducks blog images’ file.
South Oakland Ducks Baseball 