Gillette Way @42.610520, -71.163810
P&G Field sits in the middle of a rather industrial area, with trains rumbling by every so often, and industrial-type announcements and sirens blaring somewhat regularly. The infield is covered in light growth, but the outfield is neatly mowed, with patches of brown indicating a shortage of recent precipitation.
This is not what makes the field noteworthy; what makes it noteworthy is a fence around the outfield, at a distance of about 280 feet from the plate. It is over this fence that Brian crushed a ball. That it was a girl's ball didn't matter. Nor did it matter that the ball was pitched by Lindsey; what matters is that it was out of the park. Lindsey was pitching only because the heat and sun had reduced the previous pitcher to lurching around after softballs on the ground, as if Frankenstein's monster took to the field. That pitcher was Eagle.
This was not a game, this was batting practice. The game had been called as we were one person short of being able to play.
To borrow from last year, when we borrowed from TS Eliot:
This is the way the season ends
This is the way the season ends
This is the way the season ends
Not with a game but a forfeit.
Signing off for the last time,
El Capitan
Doo doo doo doo, doo-doo, do-wah!
Sunday saw the Thirds in a bit of jam, as always. No, Mario did show up. He was actually on time. Early, even. But we were down 5-4 in the bottom 6th, and needed a big win to keep in the Silver playoff bracket. Would the Thirds/Teals/Sapphires hold on? Or would they be demoted to the Bronze bracket? Stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion of July 22nd Sunday D-League Coed Softball... but first, we start at the beginning!
Most of the team got there surprisingly early, which meant they were all in time to watch the dismal display that was the Mentos and Diet Coke experiment. What's supposed to happen is that when you put Footos, err Mentos, in a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke, you get a big geyser that looks like this, or maybe even this. But not when we tried at Cabot field. Perhaps it was the lack of goggles and a lab coat.
We saw a lot of unusual happenings in this game. In no particular order, they are:
- The use of the word "ergo" to explain to the other team why a dropped ball was foul... Ump: "The fielder was in fair territory, the ball was in foul territory, ergo foul ball."
- A lack of errors by the Thirds
- A game ball apparently awarded to me by Sean. I think this was a split decision between me and Ryan, who should receive some sort of film award for treating us to the first live slow-motion instant replay in the history of Sunday D-League Coed Softball, as he rounded the bases on his dinger in the bottom of the 4th
Now, back to our recap. The score was 4-4 going into the fifth, including the two penalty runs assessed for our one girl shortage that were awarded to whatever BSSC Indies team we were playing. The Indies went up by one in their half of the inning, with the bottom of the Thirds order, cemented by Basil-Mario-Automatic Out, going oh-fer. But we held the Indies scoreless in the top of the 6th which brought us to...
The bottom of the 6th...
Obviously.
Eagle stepped up to the plate and kicked off the inning with a single. Three batters later, we had tied it up and had the bases juiced. We ended up keeping the bases loaded, scoring six before the Indies recorded the third out, and managed to keep them scoring in the top 7 to end the game. Not to say we were flawless. We almost ended the rally in Yakety-Sax fashion (though we still would have won) when I was following Karen S around the bases and ran through an apparent stop sign by Eagle as I turned second. When I realized he was trying to hold us, I turned back towards second--to many screams of "Go back!"--to see the ball being thrown to third. Which is when I reached second and saw that Karen had left the safety of third and was also heading back to second. But fortunately the gods of comic relief had induced plenty of throwing and fielding errors for the Indies, and we both ended up safely on base.
So yes, we won. An astute reader would have realized we won due to the awarding of game balls several paragraphs up. Sorry if I ruined the cliffhanger. Jen took the victory, giving up just one earned run (1.17 ERA), while Brian gave up two runs in the first inning (0.00 ERA, according to Brian's scoring rules).
At the end of the regular season, our record stands at 4-4, which it would have been last year except for the two games we tied because of two-run penalties. And now, we move on to the Silver playoffs...
Not-so-fun fact:
- The reasons behind why Diet Coke shoots in the air when Mentos get dumped in are many, but boring. I won't recap them here.
Fun, but debatable fact:
Rain Delay!
So, I told Basil I'd blog the game he missed. I don't know if that game was before or after the game Basil blogged about below, as I don't really remember many details.
I know we had a brief rain delay. We discussed playing in the rain, but the team was split. But we ended up playing.
Dave made a really great falling/diving catch (this isn't meant to be a slight, I really forget) and then promptly hit an opposite field homer onto the little league field in right.
I'm giving myself the good sport award for yelling at Sean and threatening to quit, in the middle of the game. Which we were winning. Stay classy, Ryan.
Finally, there was a play where a girl from the other team was running to third and half slid / half barreled into me that resulted in the two of us being tangled up in a borderline inappropriate position, involving my arm between her legs. I've spent a lot of time trying to forget.
This, no joke, is all I remember from this game. And I only just remembered the girl who humped my arm this morning, and that may not have been from this game. I suck.
Have you seen my softball... game?
Nine of us showed up at the field for a 3:00 game against the Empty Pitchers. Eight of us showed up at right field (Forte). One of us (Mario) showed up at the wrong field (Filipelo). For those who might not remember, or weren't around, Filipelo was the site of our doubleheader game, where we tied two games because of the two-run penalty for missing a girl. This is also the field where Mario ran in circles in the outfield to get away from a bee. Just having fun with you, Mario! For the record, Mario did eventually make his way to the field.
You knew it wasn't going to be a picture-perfect game--not that they ever are--when the lead-off hitter was: Me. The game went downhill from there when it turned out that our 10th man was lost. Again. It took three of us, including the first base coach on the other team, who decided to help out when Sean tried to direct our wayward teammate while playing first, to bring Joe to Forte field. Which brings to four the number of people involved in getting Joe to a softball game, the first being Rebecca at Connell. When Joe arrived, he immediately contributed by taking to the field at second base. By actually standing on second base. Just having fun with you, Joe! For the record, Joe did eventually make his way to the correct position, between first and second, with a little help from Sean.
But our second baseman delivered... Joe was featured in a dramatic play--involving dust and a lot of spinning--that consisted of a dropped infield-fly, with Joe applying the tag to the baserunner advancing from first. Or he might have caught it... there was a lot of dust, and this was a while ago, but hey, double play!
Meanwhile, over at third base, I had let a sharply hit grounder by me, and then--proving what a well-oiled machine we are--I ran to the outfield as the cutoff man, where I was met by Sean and Ryan. So we had three fielders, starting at each other in shallow left, while third base was uncovered. That'd be scored E5, if scorers could somehow count mental errors.
In closing, I could have made this write-up a lot shorter by just linking to another clip featuring Yakety Sax... (Note: this clip is just plain bizarre).
Fun fact:
- The notion that carrots improve eyesight was the result of a British disinformation campaign intended to prevent the Germans from learning about the development of radar during World War II.
Very Disappointing...
Two Sundays ago was a disappointing day. Very disappointing, in fact. I'm talking, of course, of the 60% turnout for the drink-up following our softball game. I think we may have lost the game as well, but I haven't finished tallying the other team's runs. If the final count for them is more than two, then we lost.
We also had two surprise visits at our game... the first was by LoCo, who stopped by early in the game to walk her dog, and stayed to watching the spellbinding drama of Sunday D League softball unfold. The second was by Mario, who apparently showed up in the bottom 6th to play softball, though his attire (jeans and a polo shirt) would indicate otherwise. This is a contrast of sorts to one of last year's games, when he came en route to a skateboarding party where some generic punk-pop band (Sum 41, Blink 182, etc.) was playing.
A quick rundown of the other team. First, central casting called, they want their plumber back (second Google result, really!). Okay, that's all I got. It turns out this was an independent team (BSSC Indies 2) who seemed to all have been extremely modest on their application forms. But this didn't stop them from playing with the eye of the tiger, for the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of their rival. They came face to face--out in the heat--hangin' tough, and stayed hungry. Alright, I'm done. Anyhow, they thwarted our planned 43-run rally in the top 7th by drawing walks and taking extra bases to keep the game out of reach.
Unfortunately for us, the game seemed to consist almost entirely of the other team driving the ball into the gaps in our defense, which appeared at times to encompass the entire field. For this week's highlight reel, we can focus almost entirely on plays at second base, where we saw Lindsey roll the ball on the dirt to second to make the out, a batter on the other team fall off the bag and get tagged out by Derek, Jon drilling a baserunner in the back on a throw from first on at attempted double play, and a base running error by Brian which ended in Sean getting thrown out at first. Yep, I'm assessing you a pitcher B. Finally, we had a batter stretch a single to a double when the second baseman on the other team forgot that a tag needs to be applied on a non-force play.
On the plus side, we did see Derek make a Coco Crisp circus catch. We also saw Ryan move from third to left-center to rest his arm, which also meant that we got to see him run to and around the outfield... "like a gazelle," as one Thirder put it. I'm sure there were some more great things that our team did, but those probably happened on this past Sunday's (July 8th) game, which I'll let Ryan blog about.
Fun facts:
- The moon is never really full. You can read the article, which uses words like "diametrically," "gibbous," and "terminator," or take my word for it.
- The largest living rodent is the capybara, which can grow up to 55" long and weigh 140 pounds. From a theological, Lent-related perspective, they are equivalent to fish, in that they can be eaten when other meat can not.
Discussion question:
