We are the Thirds

We returned to that field in Newton to play the Team in Grey That Was Undefeated (not their real name). As it turned out, they didn't need to change their name, fictional as it was. And our team nickname (the Thirds) is somehow more fitting given our record (2-4). At least until next week's double-header...

TiGTWU brought some pretty strong batters to the field, which found gaps in our defense and ran up the score in the bottom of the first. Unfortunately our bats weren't as heavy as they have been in past games: Sean "Bueno" McElroy went oh-fer; "Sloop" John B struck out swinging, which many people might have missed, but which I have captured for posterity in the blog. Even Brian ended a two-out three-hit rally:

The outlook wasn't brilliant for I Gave My Word that day,
The score stood 10-5 with but one inning left to play.
And with one out left to go in the top half of the seventh,
There stood no chance of the Thirders scoring their eleventh.

Mario came up to bat, and Basil would come after,
The rally cry soon faded, into halting laughter...
But Mario let forth a single to the wonderment of all
And Basil hit one too, into center it did fall.

Emily soon would join them with another hit!
And who came next but Brian (who thought he was the sh*t),
And Brian settled in the box and pounded on the plate;
He then stepped back a little, just to make the pitcher wait.

And now the pitcher holds the ball, and he now he lets it go
And now the air is shattered by the force of Brian's blow...

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,

but there is no joy in Newton --
mighty Brian has popped out.

But there were some bright spots from Sunday's game:

• Meredyth learned her lesson from last week's game (click link for Brian's haikus, or Bri-kus as he likes to call them) and ran down the first base line on a ball that dropped in fair territory about a foot from the plate... and was safe!
• Mario won the Rudy award for tripping/sliding into first base. Well, actually, not so much for that play, but rather for repeating his trip/slide into third to convince us that the first time was deliberate. Rudy! Rudy!
• Apparently, Eagle was able to sell his $50 Radio Shack-special to a Newton resident, who tried several times to get the plane airborne. A soft toss resulted in it... crashing into the ground. Another attempt at a soft toss resulted in it... crashing into the ground. A hard toss resulted in it... making a graceful loop. Then crashing into the ground. After trying for ten minutes to fly the plane (accompanied by Sean's soothing laughter) our friend retreated. And came back with his family. And this time, when he tried a soft toss... it crashed into the ground. So that was amusing at least.
  

Some statistics:

• 82% of the team went out for beers after the game (Derek and Emily, we're coughing and looking in your general direction)
• 0% of the team could say with any authority what the difference between a homophone and a homonym were. The internet was no help here, as it seems that no one agrees on what a homonym is
• Alan Cooper has at least 73% too much interest in homonyms
• 33% of the team admitted to using their T Pass to floss
• 67% of the team are either liars or don't ride the T
• Sucking on a T token is 6.25x as lucrative as eating one of Sean's nose hairs
  

Fun fact:

• Polish and polish are Capitonyms (there's a bunch of them). I'm not even going to guess if they're homonyms.

Helpful fact:

• You can send text messages to Google (466453) to find the address and phone number of bars, etc. For example texting "Buff's newton, ma" returns the location of our last drink-up.

Did you know?

• Brian and Sean both have web pages. Check them out, they're pretty sweet. As a warning, Sean's gets a little weird.