Friday, November 24, 2017

Dingers!

Ladies and Gentlemen and Dewey, your 2017 Oakwood Wiffle & Ale Club Home Run King:

Hansoo Ha
It is no small feat to lead this league in round-trippers, and Hansoo's total of seven homers is an impressive tally. He even had a Ruthian blast off Kurt (during our one game at Budget Field)! His moon shots represented 37% of all four-baggers hit this season. I'm adding this sentence because I have one more word for home runs: Bombs.

Here is the complete list of all the long-ball-sluggers from 2017:

  1. Hansoo - 7
  2. Andy - 4
  3. Peter - 3
  4. Dewey - 2
  5. Three tied at 1
    • Kurt
    • Matt
    • J.D.
Congrats to all the guys swingin' for the fences, 'cuz remember...


Recognition

Ladies and Gentlemen, your 2017 Oakwood Wiffle and Ale Club Batting Champion!

Dr. Kurt "Krash" Mosser

Stats put up a valiant effort to catch him at Black Friday Wiffle, but 9-for-13 wasn't enough to catch Kurt's 0.528 / 0.653 / 1.181 slash line. To pass Kurt, Matt would have needed to go 11-for-13; the four outs he made today were all strikeouts from J.D. So blame him.

So while we're recognizing Kurt let's recognize a few more people...

The 200 AB Club:
Peter, Kurt, Bob, Adrian, Matt, Hansoo

The 100 AB Club:
J.D., Eric Z., Dewey, Andy, Mark

Rate stats win awards, but counting stats make a league. These wifflers, gentlemen ballplayers all, showed up. And to be clear, that doesn't just mean they climbed in the box a lot. That means they took the mound a lot, and threw a lot of innings. Good on ya all.

And here is everyone else who strode the asphalt, even just a single time:

The rest:
Tim Y., Eric Kn., Ryan, David W., Jeff, Greg, Tim B., Fred, Andrew

Oh, yeah. There was a game today. Peter hit for the cycle in a losing cause. J.D. brought his dad and there were some tear-jerker Kodak moments. Zamonski composed the wiffle rock-opera while in the on-deck circle. In other words, a typical day at Nance Bradds Field.

Adrian, Eric Z., Matt - 10 runs, 24 hits
Dave W., J.D.W., Peter - 4 runs, 16 hits

HR: Berwald (2)

Saturday, November 4, 2017

State of Wiffle, 2017

Caffeine, sugar, fat, nicotine. That's the great game of Wiffle circa 2017.

Hold the Line!

October wiffle is the best wiffle, don't you agree? Especially when played in November, I always say.

Every morning. Every 42-degree morning, I say that. But, what the hell. Wiffle gets us out of bed - amIrite?

The deadly mix of high stakes and cold weather raises the specter of... injury. And today's game featured not 1, not 3, but TWO injuries.

Four batters into the top of the first, Stats made too quick of a first step in pursuit of a sinking liner off the bat of Peter. As he does in many endeavors, Matt came up lame. A pulled right calf relegated him to a DH role for the game, leaving his Home boys, Bob, JD and Kurt down a pitcher, down an outfielder, and with a lame cleanup hitter.

Getting an injury in a World Series game is the absolute worst. It's like when you are singing Guns N Roses karaoke, and everyone thinks your Axl Rose is Cat Stevens. Get high on THAT peace train. Bad impersonation scholars generally agree - that is the lowest point you can reach. Or stoop. Whatever. They also agree that Toto's "Hold the Line" is the ultimate air keyboard song, so take that for what it's worth.

Ironically, with Matt at bat, Eric fell trying to catch a pop up and scraped his hands on the Nance Bradds asphalt. The hydrocarbons took their share of his skin in the process, and he didn't catch the ball. There was no need to really go all out because of course Matt was batting with one leg.

Any way, there was a game, too. (Game 5, actually. I slay me.) After allowing 2 runs in the first, the home boys "Held the Line" for the rest of the nine-inning contest. In the bottom of the sixth - also known as the Verlander Inning - The homebrews found a way to plate three runs to take the slimmest of leads.

Miraculously, two rbi came off the bat of gimpy Stats. Which immediately made everyone think of this...



Yes: EVERYONE.

Adrian, Hansoo, Eric, Peter - 2 runs, 12 hits
Bob, JD, Kurt, 0.5Matt - 3 runs, 15 hits

HR: Gibson

Innovation

Zamonski uses the bat rack.

Live update - Wiffle World Series Game 5

Matt "Stats" Lindsay pulled a calf running after a fly ball in the top of the first. Being fragile sucks.