42 degrees, wet with a 15-20 MPH northern wind gust and two games to play.
Roundhouse traveled to Martin Road last night to take on Big Stix in the first of a doubleheader. With an 8:30 game time, we knew our discomfort would only worsen. Big Stix proved to be anything but out of the gate while we jumped to a pretty healthy lead.
Scary moment early in the game when, when fielding a ball at third base, I came up firing to first where Steve who is a pretty big dude. The ball pulled him across the front of the bag and this kid who was running down the line at full speed (and was about a quarter the size of Steve) smacks right into Steve. Their heads collided with the runners's jaw hitting the top of Steve's head and this kid's glasses col' get crushed. Steve's a gamer. We still had our healthy lead.
But, c'mon, this is city league softball.
As the visiting team, we managed to take the game to a comfortable lead at 16-8 when time expired. All we had to do is make sure they didn't score 8 runs. Pretty easy task, yes.
But we couldn't do it.
They scored 8 runs to tie up the ball game. It's a pretty classic Roundhouse move. So it's 16-16 and time has expired. We'll go extra innings until it's settled and, in extra, you only get one pitch. If it's bad, watch it and walk. If it's good (or anywhere near good), lock in and let 'er fly. In an epic clash, we took that game to nine full innings before we'd hang up seven runs and drive the score up to 23-16 and would end up securing the win by locking them down in the bottom of the inning. Roundhouse giveth. Roundhouse taketh away.
And that was just our first game.
We duck behind the dugout and shotgun a beer and then take the field for our second game versus New Breed II (I suppose the "II" suggests that there were improvements made to the first model). Now, New Breed had forfeited our first contest by a failure to draw one person to the ball field so we were kinda hoping the same would happen in this game so we could go home and call it a night. But they showed up--all nine of them. Now, rules state that if you don't field a team of ten players, the ten-hole in the lineup is an automatic out. Crucial to know that.
New Breed (or New Beer'd) apparently made good use of our extra innings in the first game because the whole left side of the infield were half in the bag by the time the game started and this Jason Bateman-lookin' muddah had a hard time keeping his pipe closed. Also, crucial to know.
Overall, these dudes were a pretty decent team, but too bad they couldn't keep their drinking in check because they're pupils. As home team, we would have last at-bat which usually provides you with pretty good comfort going into the game because we play to win.
We'd go back and forth in the opening and then, in the top of the third inning, they hit two homeruns and, in a league that restricts teams to only hitting one homerun a game, the second was an automatic out and, everytime that kid came up to bat, he was out. So, if you're counting at home, they have two automatic outs in their lineup. We knew it'd be hard for them to mount any sort of comeback given the fact that our defense had been locking it down all night and they had two automatic outs in their lineup. I guess this didn't fit well with them because then it descended into a dark and embarrassing display of drunkeness and dirty play. It started when Kool Aid, who can't stop running, came trucking into third base and got tangled up with the third baseman and then shoulders and elbows started swinging.
The dugout almost emptied out onto the field. But we vets of this muddah. We built this league and we ain't going out like that. So we just kept running. The umps clearly warned against foul language. Not a problem for me, but always a problem for Angry Tim and the word "shit".
We took a pretty nice lead and, from there, the game just began to descend into an embarrassing and uncomfortable growl of poor sportsmanship and drunkeness (not at all on our part, mind you). Of course, realizing an opportunity when we saw it, we just kept hitting line shots to the drunk shortstop until he would just give up. We kept up with our automatic outs and just kept hitting and running because, at this point, these dudes weren't taking this seriously at all and it was miserable out there.
Turns out that, being home team, all we had to do is run the time out by stalling out one minute with one out on the board. Basically, step out of the batter's box after every pitch and make him pitch perfect pitches. Chances are, with only one out, he'll be lucky to get ten good pitches over the plate in that time. Just pitch the bat on your shoulder and make that pitcher work. We had a runner on first and, whaddya know, we just can't stop swinging and on the second pitch, David takes a hack and sends a fly ball into left field along the line. It hugs the line and the third baseman, in foul territory, makes an attempt at the fly ball and it drops in fair territory. He rifles it into second base for a force out on the runner at first and then they continue to throw it to first where there's only a first baseman waiting on the throw and David's making his way back to the batter's box. Double play?
Well, technically, no. Since it was touched in foul territory and then, off of his glove, went fair, it's a foul ball in the same way that if you touch a ball in fair territory and then it goes foul, it's fair. At this point, the game has ended (and I continue to wonder why in the hell we can't just cooly run the time out in those circumstances). Their entire team comes alive with a fury of obscenities and hollered comments at the field umps wondering why the don't get credit for the double play and, in turn, don't get to go another inning in hopes to mount an 8-run comeback with two automatic outs in their lineup. These dudes had to all be drunk to think they could do so on The Roundhouse. Dude, this ain't a game to us.
Jason Bateman made a comment on his way back to the bar he crawled out of like, "No offense, guys, I just know the rules and those umps don't." Nah, bro, you're the only one that doesn't know the rules and you should stick to something your good at like losing and public intoxication. Dude must have thought this was intramural league.
Anyhow, we were victorious and move to 5-1. For those who don't follow sports at all that would mean we have five wins and one loss.
A photo surfaced this last week that had Mayhem, Angry Tim and I a little shocked and puzzled. I mean, we knew Harley was a bit of a punk-ass, but we really had no clue it was this bad back in the day. Harley was a straight up Slim Shady cat--flipping the bird, sagging the drawers, posing in front of red vehicles. Yeah, Harley, yous'a sucka, but we still love ya, homie. Eat some food--you look like you're starvin'.
1 comment:
ouch!
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