Tonight we write another chapter in the history of a storied Pittsburgh NABA rivalry. There are a lot of guys on our team that haven’t played Brookline, or haven’t played them as Ducks. But I think they’ll learn quick. In 2007, I think, The Sox split and the Rebels were formed. From the Rebels came the Gray Bats and then the Militia. This current group of Ducks has several former Militia players. Last year when we moved down to Single A, several Ducks went to the Black Sox. Former Ducks manager and current outfielder TJ Morgan played on the Sox last year, current Sock, James Fago won a title as a Duck and managed the team for a couple seasons. Skovron was a Duck for two seasons. In 2010, Mark Guthrie shut down the Sox in game three of the finals to capture the Ducks 2nd championship.
Arguably the two most successful franchises in league history, the Ducks and Black Sox have been playing each other for nine years. This is likely the last season for the Sox, before they disperse and Rob Cool starts stalking Fago and that lefty they have.
There’s something about playing in Moore Park, with the terrible lights, the cigarette smoke and spilled beer in the the concrete bleachers, trying not to break your ankle in that gully on the first base line that brings out the best in the Ducks.
The single A teams that moved up are getting massacred. The Pirates are surprisingly bad so far, and the Express off to a solid start. Other than that, it’s about as expected. West End apparently won’t play in April. Good luck with the pitching down the stretch when you have 4 games a week.
Standings as of May 23rd. Look at some of those run differentials. Jesus.
Ashely Shaffer Kia of Northern West Virginia (6-0) is undefeated, and has only played one close game, a 3-2 win over the Black Sox (5-2).
The Cherokee are once again dominating the regular season. I predict a 22-2 record before their annual playoff letdown. At least a bunch of those guys still have a 2010 title to their credit.
Such an odd mix of fonts between the hat, jersey, and lettering on the picture.
The Bulldogs Blog was off to a decent start, but has been quiet lately. They’ve had Christmas pictures up for the last 3 weeks. I can’t figure out how to link their site in our blogroll, or even where our blogroll is or how to make it visible. Sorry, guys.
18A
Standings as of May 23rd.
The Warriors are off to a slow start but I expect them to pick it up.
They were missing some guys when we played them earlier this week. They also have Starting Lineup figures made for their team.
The Senators managed to beat the Bombers 3-2 last week.
The Lions and Monsters, I assume, lack pitching depth given some of the scores of double headers they’ve played in.
The Titans score about 5 runs a game and allow just under 7. When we play them, it may look like a football score. They took 3 of 4 from the monsters, but have lost to the senators and warriors. Kerry Collins is my favorite Titan.
Before they were the WOLFPACK!!!
they were the Matadors
and the sharks
That one side-arm pitcher was on our team for half a season. Effectively wild.
The Matadors were part of a ridiculous scandal involving an attempt to bribe the Owlz into forfeiting a game so the Bulldogs would miss the playoffs. Matador management was certain the Commish was out to get them, but I don’t think that guy runs the team anymore.
There was some bullshit involving the Sharks one year and some other team, but I forget what it was exactly. Maybe the Hurricanes were involved.
We play them Wednesday at our place. We need to get some Ducks fans in the seats that night. Tell people we have the bathroom key now. That may help.
Your South Oakland Ducks (7-2) are in first place. The team has come together pretty well. Nothing helps chemistry like winning. If our pitchers keep throwing strikes, we should remain competitive. We will see how we handle a stretch in July when we have like 8 games in two weeks.
Iceberg will give us some innings at some point.
I’m still waiting for Culp, Swetz and Faust to be added to the league site so I can get their stats in. So far our stats are pretty good.
Strom has hit six batters in 21 innings pitched.
Also:
This site outlines how to build your own bobble head doll.
I think we should get stirrups.
It was great when people used to leave comments after these posts.
The last time we played the Pirates we were pulling guys off the street to play, and we still put up 10 runs before an epic collapse in the top of the seventh in which Pour House scored nine unanswered and went on to beat us 14-10.
It would be nice if West End got nine together on Friday to at least force Pour House to use up some pitching. They play three games in four days and are one game ahead of us in the standings. This weekend is huge for playoff implications as we get down to the wire. We have almost all our starters available Saturday morning, so we don’t have any excuses if we can’t hold them under 14 runs.
Ducks Pitcher, Mark Guthrie, earned his first victory of the season Saturday going five and a third strong innings, before giving way to James Fago to recorded the 1 and 2/3 inning save.
Matt Johnston had 4 hits to lead the resurgent Ducks’ offense. Stahl and Skovron both hit doubles and had multi-hit games, and there were a lot of singles and walks. Goering drove in a run. 8 Ducks starters recorded hits, and everyone in the lineup reached safely at least once. I wish I could offer more specifics, but i don’t have the book and I was half asleep during the game. We got out to an early lead and held on. The Bulldogs had the winning run at the plate in the bottom of the 7th.
James Fago pitched a complete game for the victory in game 2. South Oakland scored 2 in the top of the first. The Bulldogs answered with a run in the bottom half of the inning. The score remained 2-1 until the top of the fifth or sixth, when South Oakland scored six runs. Skovron and Fago walked, Gwin singled to load the bases and Matt Limbach doubled to make the score 4-1. Then Guthrie, Fetter and Goering singled in succession. Garret Moore drove in a run with an rbi ground out. Fago doubled in the top of the seventh and scored on an rbi ground out by Limbach.
The Bulldogs were 10-2 coming into the double header. With the victories, South Oakland raised it’s record to 6-11, and is a half game behind Monroeville (5-9) and Carrick (6-10) who sit in 8th and 7th place respectively.
South Oakland has a tough 3-game stretch coming up in which we play the artists formerly known as Day Toyota, and then a double header against the Bulldogs at John Herb the following weekend.
Standings as of 6/3:
Upcoming games:
(click to enlarge or just go to the league site.)
There is some serious separation going on here between the haves and have-nots.
It’s going to be a shit show at the bottom of the bracket. Conceivably we could see the militia, Carrick and pour house drop a few games coming up.
right now, Elliot, Clinton, the Bulldogs and Ashley Shaffer are battling for position in the top four and then it’s everyone else.
Elliot is good.
Cranberry sucks.
that’s my expert analysis.
Unfortunately our team is constructed as such that we can lose 15-1 to teams that suck because we lack pitching depth and infield depth, and sometimes our players don’t show up.
The winable games we dropped to Carrick, Pour House and Cranberry and the forfeit to the Militia really hurt right now, but at least we’re finally putting up runs and winning games.
We have to steal a couple against teams that are above us in the standings, which is almost everyone.
We might be able to jump in the standings before we play this sunday.
We need all hands on deck Sunday. Jefferson Davis Hills is good. If we have to throw out a patchwork lineup with random single A players we will get embarrassed.
We can give them a game if everyone shows up.
This is most likely the last season of the Ducks as a Double A team, we at least need to make the playoffs and give it one final run.
South Oakland jumped out to an 8-0 lead after three innings, and held off a late Brookline rally to win 9-5.
James Fago pitched a complete game for the much-needed victory, and added an RBI single.
Ducks right fielder Zach Skowvron literally knocked out the Sox starting pitcher with a line drive to the groin area that went for a bases loaded, rbi single in the third.
I hope that guy isn’t pissing blood. it looked like it really hurt.
The Ducks did a good job of stranding Black Sox runners, and getting timely hits.
For the Ducks, Baumgartel hit a triple, Anthony Ciccone was 2-for-3 with two doubles, Stahl 2-for-4 with a double, Gwin was 2-for-4 with a double and 3 rbi, Skowvron was 2-for-3 with a walk. 8 South Oakland starters recorded a hit, and all nine reached base safely at least once.
The above might not be 100% accurate, I don’t have the book, but we hit well.
For the Sox, Kenny Powers and Goldie hit triples.
Florian hustled.
A win against the Black Sox, in Brookline, is always big.
South Oakland has scored 26 runs in its last 3 games and looks to keep the momentum going throughout the weekend.
South Oakland next plays a double header at Cranberry, Saturday, 1pm.
These two storied franchises enter tonight’s game at Moore Park with a combined 3 wins between them, in a battle to gain ground on the 8th and final playoff spot.
The Black Sox sit at 2-6 in ninth place, while the 1-9 South Oakland Ducks look to climb out of the cellar with a win.
These games used to be for first place in the division, now we’re fighting for our post-season lives and the season isn’t even halfway gone.
Sox 3rd base coach, Randy, is already getting mentally prepared for the game tonight
We’ve lost in every way imaginable, blown leads, close losses and ten-run drubbings, we’ve hit and not played defense, we’ve played defense and not hit. We’ve forfeited.
We can still make a run at it, but there’s not much margin for error. Luckily there’s a logjam at the bottom of the standings and we still have to play the teams in front of us.
One of the most fun seasons i can remember was 2008. We had a huge turnover in our roster from 2007, and it took a while for us to come together. TC just took over as manager. We started 3-9, got on a roll and went on to finish 12-10-2 and sneak into the playoffs on the last day of the season.
Tonight is the start of a four game road trip that will determine whether we’ve been underachieving, or if we’re just bad. Maybe we’re just bad. That’s a definite possibility, but i still think there’s enough talent on our team to compete.
Tonight we face an old nemesis in the unfriendly confines of Moore Park and there’s no better place to turn our season around.
We’ve dug ourselves a hole as deep as the mosquito filled woods behind the visitors bench.
South Oakland Ducks Baseball 