pittsburgh naba

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.

GameDay 9: Ducks vs Black Sox

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

Ducks vs Black Sox

9pm

SpringView Field

 

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.

Bad News for the Black Sox

Ducks Win

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, pittsburgh NABA

South Oakland 7, Cranberry 3

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.

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 Time Change

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

Ducks at Express has been moved to 8pm Sunday.

How we respond in this game is going to dictate in a big way how the rest of our season goes. This is as important as a non-division game can be this early in the season.

The Express are tough this year. They played our friends in Imperial real close.

We’ve added some new players who will be there on Sunday night.

We’re either going to battle out of this, make the playoffs and have a run at the title, or we’re going to finish like 5 – 17-2, and most of us will never see each other again.

Quack.

The Games Will Matter Soon….

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball

South Oakland of the North Side will open divisional play on the road against a much improved Cranberry team Sunday 5/13 somewhere in Cranberry,

followed by the Black Sox at home on the 16th.

Until then, we play the Bulldogs Wed at 9pm at home,  the Express Saturday night at 8PM and the Militia at home on the 9th.

That’s three games to get our shit together.

Mark your calendars….

Week 5 FTLL Sat 5/19/12 1:00 PM 3:30 PM AA30 CHE DUX
Week 5 FTLL Sat 5/19/12 3:30 PM 6:00 PM AA31 CHE DUX

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

Chris Wojton Sighting and REBELS Watch 2012!!! #2

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

Apparently, former duck standout chris wojton is on the devils in the A Division, and they also have an odd looking website for their team, which is available on the league page, and is not hyperlinked.

that team should have been forced to move up after winning the title last season, or, better yet, done so willingly…

Whatever, I  just want to make use of this photoshop  (hopefully it winds up on their team site)

***

The Shaler Rebels crushed the Senators 8-1 on Wed.

here are the Rebels Stats from the victory.

They have there shit together up there, roster on the league site and stats entered. Someone’s running a tight ship.

South Oakland will take on the Militia in a Sunday doubleheader at Woodland Hills High School starting at 10:00 AM

I expect a battle.

Before the last Ducks/Bulldogs game, fortunately with the advantage of the high ground above SpringView Field, I watched the Militia practice, and they appear to be in midseason form.

Here is an obligatory Militia youtube clip.

The Militia hope to compensate for the loss of Jeremy Barchie with a catcher who looks like he can throw, and not get tossed from games or make his teammates fear for their own lives and the lives of those around them.

They’ll be tough, but losing a talent like Barchie took the Ducks almost 3 season to overcome, and I expect the Militia to have some chemistry issues as a result.

Barchie still holds the Ducks single-game strikeout record with 17.

 Can’t wait to play two on the turf Sunday.

Quack.

Ducks Lose: Bulldogs 6, Ducks 4

2012 South Oakland Ducks Baseball, Bulldogs

South Oakland (0-2-1) trailed 5-0 going into the bottom of the sixth, but rallied for 3 runs, allowed one in the top of the seventh, before scoring another run in the seventh and falling just short.

The game ended on a bases loaded fielder’s choice.

Once again a bad inning – two infield hits, a ball that bounced over our shortstop and a misplayed ball in the outfield allowed the Bulldogs (2-0-1) to get out to an insurmountable lead.

They made fewer mistakes.

It feels like we’re coming together though. We battled, and we still haven’t fielded a full team yet.

Up next for South Oakland of the North Side, a doubleheader against the Michigan Militia this Sunday 10:30 AM, on the turf, at Woodland Hills High.

Quack.