The Most Interesting Man in Whiffle

There is a whiffler, a man, who only makes an appearance when it suits him.  All Star Weekend can be such a time, but it doesn’t have to be.  He silently graces the asphalt, is a model of TPD, and rarely will say, “Non,” to handmade pesto.  His fastballs do not rise, his line drives do not knuckle, his credit cards do not scan.  He is Ent - the most interesting man in Whiffle.

Ent did not play for the home squad in today’s game, though he was there all the same.  Ent did not surrender three straight hits to start the game - single-double-triple - and two runs.  That was Chris Anderson, who’s unblemished ERA shot up to 4.50 after allowing 3 runs today.  There was, however, some Ent in Peter, Ben, Brian and Tim as they faced just one over the minimum from the 2nd through the 5th - flustrating the visiting Brent, Dave (R), Glen, Kurt and Matt.  All the while the home side chipped away at the early deficit.  Doc Simpson hit a booming homer off the Artist; da Commish hit his own (which by the way brings him into a 4-4 tie for the league lead in dingers with the Artist) off Stats’ pitch and Brent’s index finger.  Going into the late innings it was 3-2 Visitors.

Ent could only shake his head disapprovingly as Stats attempted to use the league pitching stats as a guide to set the pitching order (rather than relying on the inventor of the Latin alphabet).  But Ent enforces karmic justice, and Stats gave up one of the two runs the visitors would surrender.  “Who is over-thinking now, Geek?” Ent asks rhetorically.  

In a 5-on-5 game, lasting 8 innings three players will pitch twice for each team.  Why did the home team have Doc Simpson pitching only once?  And Ben twice?  Remember Simpson has now pitched 6 innings total, and has gone 18 up, 18 down, with 16 Ks!!!!  Ben does not have similar stats.  This Ent knows.

In the late innings Ent switched sides, as is his wont.  The visitors added a run off Anderson in his second inning.  Brought Peter to the brink in his second, but didn’t score.  And then Ben (not Brian, not Ent) pitched the eighth.  It was not Ent that allowed two bases loaded hits (single, triple) and four runs.  Kurt followed his triple off Ben with a 1-2-3, 3 K bottom of the 8th to close out the 7-2 win.

Brent, Dave (R), Artist, Kurt, Stats, Ent - 7
Ben, Chris (A), Commish, Brian, Tim - 2

At the post All Star Banquet Ent ordered from off the menu; eschewed the popular Bloody Marys; regaled the Whiffle and Ale All Stars with tales of Whiffle in the day; and reduced a waitress (more bosom than brains) to a giggling mess when it came time to process nine tabs, because he, the most interesting man in Whiffle, is ... Manual Ent.

Notes:
The Visitors' 7 runs and 17 hits represent a true offensive explosion.  Home siders, mustering only 5 hits, albeit 2 solo homers in the mix, provided a more ordinary show with the bat.
Kurt "Country Gentleman" Mosser had more Bloody Marys than hits today - a feat duplicated by no other whiffler.

NEW: League Standings

Check out the newest stat link to the right: LEAGUE STANDINGS!

In the comments below, please provide your thoughts on how to sort the standings.  You will see that the current form uses a soccer/hockey-style points system.  Your suggestions are always welcome (except those regarding tank tops, naturally).

Not a Game of Absolutes

Whiffle games start at 9:00 am.  Unless it’s raining at nine, and then you start at ten.    The Oakwood Whiffle and Ale Club plays on Saturdays.  Unless too many are busy, and then you play on Sunday.  But these are not hard and fast rules.  

For the final week of July, Whiffle got underway a little after ten o’clock on Sunday morning.  The rain had passed through and the sun shone strong on the puddles and made the newly sealed asphalt STEAMY.  Eight players showed up, and were able to play 4-on-4.

Commish Preps the Surface

Brent Mackintosh, as is his wont, volunteered to pitch first for the home side.  After downing his Perrier, he proceeded to give up a double and a homer to the first two batters (Glen, Kurt).  Four singles later it was 3-0 Visitors.

Brent Swills French Water

The score would hold there for several innings.  Kurt, Stats, and Glen held the Home Side scoreless through the first three (though it must be said that Kurt was less than satisfied with the support of his defense).  Then came the fourth.  The Artist led off the inning facing Tim, connecting on a prodigious fly ball over the head of the Commish in left.  It dropped on the asphalt and the Visitors awaited the call as to the bases - would it be three or four?  Initially the call was 4, then changed to three - no one seemed SURE.  A despondent Visiting Team never managed to get that runner home, and never managed another run all day.  

But no matter as the Home Crew managed only a single run off Laura Hume, and then were shut down by Kurt, Matt, Glen in the 5th, 6th, and 7th.  

In addition to her three hits today, Hume only surrendered 1 run on the mound.

V - Glen, Kurt, Laura, Matt
H - Brent, Chris D., Peter, Tim

Final Score

What was the final score?  Hard to be sure.  Some wish to debate it.  Did the Visitors win? Absolutely.

Game Notes:

Welcome to Chris Diodoardo (new guy).  Chris can brag about his accomplishments on the asphalt - 2 innings pitched, no runs allowed; 3-for-8 at the plate.

Chris D. Strikes Out Kurt

Laura Hume’s three hits today (one each off Brent, Commish and Chris D.) raised her batting average to 0.128.  Nice work.

A young Master Huxley job shadowed the Official Scorer during today’s contest and learned the fine details of strike outs, fly outs and that Stats is indeed taller than his mother.  Huxley also learned that throwing one’s bat is not sportsmanlike.

Cebulash Wins Under Protest

Blog and Stats will be delayed - upload after 10:00 PM.  Stay tuned.

Stayin' Alive (the pitchers, that is)

Well looky here, guess who done showed up today? Brian Simpson! As best I can tell, Brian is here on a re-hab assignment from a higher league, because he sauntered onto the asphalt, went 3-for-7 and pitched two (more) hitless innings to raise his season's streak of PERFECT innings to 5.

Both of Brian's teammates, Eric the Bandit and Kurt the Thinker, pitched into and out of trouble all morning; however, let me not leave you in suspense - this game ended in a Nil-Nil draw (more on that below).  In Eric's second and fifth, and Kurt's third and sixth the final out was recorded via the K with runners on.  So were these effective pitchers or ineffective batters? I'll let the eyewitnesses decide.

Given all that, it was pretty much a strike fest. A couple of players reached bases but after the dust settled, there were 28 strikeouts vs. 8 fielding/flyouts and 14 hits (only one extra base knock, courtesy of Kurt's third inning double).

Peter, Tim and Dave pitched well, scattering 7 hits over six innings, with only two coming together in one inning - the first off Peter.

One inning the visiting team neglected to fill in the complete stat sheet, so all that can be concluded is that they didn’t care and they didn’t score.  The records are unclear as to who hit the last out and if any players were on base!  This is an unpardonable offense for which the Commissioner is considering suspensions for the remainder of the season in the best interests of Whiffle.  Stats has construed the scoresheet in the worst possible light for these "gentlemen."

Now what to do about scoreless ties??  We need your suggestions in the comments below.  Thanks for helping make a great game greater.

Batting a Thousand

A milestone was reached yesterday as the League reached the 1,000th at-bat of the 2010 season.  In the bottom of the third, with Kurt Mosser on the rubber, Peter Berwald stepped into the batters box and became Batter 1,000.  The game was paused for a brief ceremony, as pictured above.

It is very appropriate that da Commish be a part of this scene.  At this moment, captured above, as the League celebrated the 1,000 at-bat, Peter Berwald was either the batter or the pitcher in 325 of those at-bats.  Just under a third of all matchups involve him.  Amazing.

In this particular at bat, da Commish got a single.

This Confounding Game

I had a conversation with an American recently, and he proceeded to voice some of the typical solipsisms Americans hold dear about Football, or as he called it, "Soccer."  "How can a game that doesn't care who wins, doesn't even care if someone scores, be a sport, really?"  This statement was delivered in stereotypically American fashion.  No recognition that it might not be the majority opinion in America.  No acknowledgment of its hypocrisy.  As if American "sports" have no internal contradictions.

Take this game of Whiffle, for example.

In yesterday's action at Nance Brads, our Commish and Matt hosted Kurt and Tim in a six-inning game.  The final score -
Kurt, Tim - 1
Peter, Matt - 2
- does not reveal the confounding inner workings of this game.

First, there is no way to say this nicely, Stats was totally useless at the plate.  (Someone should tell him - his head is flying out on every swing.)  The home side took 5 turns at bat - 15 outs.  Matt made 11 of them.  ELEVEN.  There were two innings, TWO, in which Matt made all three outs, a height to which Kurt could not dare dream.  It was as if the Commish was playing 1-on-2 and he only got 1 out per inning.  He had to be perfect.

And he nearly was.  The Commish went 8-for-12 on this day (7 singles and a double).

But with all that, Matt drove in the team's 2 runs, with 2-rbi triple of Baker in the second.  How, I ask, is that possible?  Can that be right?

Then there was the pitching.  Peter entered this game with an ERA just above 1; Matt with an ERA of exactly 6.  Six is a watershed level for Whiffle ERAs.  It's a dividing line between pitchers and throwers, like the Mendoza Line is for batters.  It needs a name - so please send your suggestions for the name of this line in the comments to this post.

Peter and Stats pitched with little trouble in their first rotations, and stranded five runners total in their second times pitching.  But it was Peter, da Commish, who surrendered the visitors' only run in the sixth, when Kurt lashed an opposite field triple to drive in one run.

Let me state that again for emphasis.  KURT LASHED AN OPPOSITE FIELD TRIPLE.  I venture that there has never been a ball hit in this league that was farther away from the defending players than this triple.  With Stats right around the doorway, this ball landed just fair in the triples area right down the left field line.  I guess real men hit it where they ain't.

Glen's Poetry - as interpreted by an eye-witness

Of Mere Whiff

The scoresheet at the end of the mind
Beyond the last inning, reads,
In the bronze distance, 10-2. [Brent, Glen, Kurt - 2  |  Peter, Dave - 10]

A bald-headed bird
sings over the scoresheet, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a four-run song.
[Brent loaded the bases in the first, and da Commish hit a liner over two fielders for a grand salami.]

You know then that it is not the final score
That makes us happy or unhappy. [Kurt hit everything in sight for singles or more.]
The bird sings. Its head shines. [Peter had the bases loaded on him but somehow got out unscathed.]

The scoresheet stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly above and below its numbers. [Glen struck out the side in the second inning to cool down Peter and Dave.]
Dave Eldridge gave up two runs. [Dave Eldridge gave up two runs]

Of Mere Whiff

The cherry at the end of the mind
Beyond the last inning, looms
In the bronze distance.
[Glen was basically giddy with excitement over the night game - grill out evening. Rachel and the kids were away and he was acting a like a kid with a new bike!]

A well-heeled Republican
Swings his arms on the asphalt, without human meaning,
a foreign dance.  [There was a great grill-out, complete with good imported beer at Glen's - Dave had to leave fairly early because he planned on getting up around 4:30 - 5:00.]

You know then that it is not the score
That makes us happy or unhappy. [Dave and Peter touched up the Artist for three runs during Glen's second time pitching.]
The Republican swings. His pitches glide.

The perfect ERA stands on the edge of space.
The pitches move slowly down the pike.
The two crushing doubles pop the cherry.
[Dave gave up two runs on a single and two doubles which of course became the talk of the night and week.]

-- Wallace Stevens, 1954 

Pesto!

There is an expression in Whiffle: "One bad inning."  Most applicable to today's whiffle action.  Innings 2 through 5 today were taut affairs, with the home side scoring one run and the visitors scoring none.  But as luck would have it, the game didn't start in the second inning.  No, there was a first.

Stats took the ball to start the game facing a team of Kurt, Commish and a placeholder for Glen if he ever showed.  Glen did not show, so there was no let up in the lineup.  It looked to be another of Stats' "bend-don't-break" kind of innings.  Kurt's 2-out single loaded the bases, following up Peter's single and Kurt's double.  Peter worked a long AB, found one he liked and lined it straight at Dave (R-OH) in the triples area.  The ball found asphalt AFTER finding Dave's right hand AND his left hand.    The three-run triple opened the floodgates as Stats labored through 5 more singles, allowing 3 more runs. 

Not surprisingly, Stats is thinking about adding UN-earned runs to the stats next season.

So, down six before they touched the bat, Dave, Chris (the overgrown boy scout) Anderson, and Matt struggled to make up the deficit.  Dave led off the game with a blast that Kurt caught on the "run" about a foot off the ground well past the HR line.  Dave later created the only run for the day, with a double and a triple off the Commish in the third.  A 1-out bases loaded rally against Kurt in the 4th was snuffed by strikeouts of Chris and Matt. 

So even though they never scored after the first, the visitors were winners:

Kurt, Commish, ______ - 6
Dave, Chris, Stats - 1

All players received a jar of pesto for participating in today's game.  Thank you, Kirsten!

Notes:
Kurt's uncharacteristic hustle to run down Dave's bid for a homer in the first proved quite significant: Dave ended the game only a homer short of the cycle!

Allowing 2 runs on Wednesday raised Dave's ERA to 1.06.  He has been back to his old self and at the close of today's game, his ERA is down to 0.95.

King Whiffle

The new fun ball!

Artistry from Glen

Of Mere Whiff

The scoresheet at the end of the mind
Beyond the last inning, reads,
In the bronze distance, 10-2.

A bald-headed bird
sings over the scoresheet, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a four-run song.

You know then that it is not the final score
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its head shines.

The scoresheet stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly above and below its numbers.
Dave Eldridge gave up two runs.

Of Mere Whiff

The cherry at the end of the mind
Beyond the last inning, looms
In the bronze distance.

A well-heeled Republican
Swings his arms on the asphalt, without human meaning,
a foreign dance.

You know then that it is not the score
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The Republican swings. His pitches glide.

The perfect ERA stands on the edge of space.
The pitches move slowly down the pike.
The two crushing doubles pop the cherry.

-- Wallace Stevens, 1954