Bringing Balance to the Wiff

“You Must Feel The Wiffle Around You; Here, Between You, Me, The Tree, The Wall, Everywhere, Yes.”

A balanced offense: win games it will.

By pre-game agreement the six wifflers played a seven inning game today - also known as Cardinal Baseball. The home siding J.D., Matt and Pete bested the visiting Mark W., Adrian and Zach by a football score of 10-7. Remarkably, both teams scored 7 runs their half of the third inning, so the home team's three-run second proved to be the difference.

Another statistical oddity: the winners - who only batted for 6 innings - all went 6-for-12. As a group they accumulated 18 hits and made 18 outs. They pretty evenly divided the RBIs as well - JD and Pete each with 3, Matt with 4.

The visitors' attempt at balance fell a little short. Adrian and Mark both went 5-for-12, but Zach's 4-for-11 proved an imbalance in their Wiff. 

Balance wins - at least today.

Kid-Haters and Mexican Water-Drinkers

Just in case our aching shoulders and decrepit mobility wasn't enough to remind us all that we're not getting any younger, today the Great Eight who appeared were reminded of what ACTUAL youth and vigor looks like as Dewey's grandson Monroe marked his OWAC debut.  And acquitted himself quite nicely both ways, notching some hits for his team and some pretty decent put-outs too.  

As for the game itself, it was decidedly *not* a pitcher's duel, with both teams combining for 56 hits, longballs aplenty, and the reek of salami in the air.  Mark won the John Daly Longdrive trophy for an absolutely towering smash down the left field line that was likely the farthest-hit ball this season.  Dewey was the all-around gitter-doner champ tho with two homers and ELEVEN of his teams 20 ribeyes.  Their teammate Jeff was no slouch neither, going 10-for-15 with a ton of them being Jose Iglesias-style 2-strike heartbreakers.  

As for yours truly's Hapless Halens, we actually had more hits than the Victorious Vans, as well as two homers of our own.  But what really told the tale was the triples:  they had 4, we had none.  Plus they had two auto-triples in a row that hit the downspout in more or less precisely the same spot which clearly implies some sort of Divine Intervention.  Wuddya gonna do---they giveth, and they taketh away.  

Dewey, J D, Jeff, Monroe  -  20

Adrian, Mark, Peter, Zack, Eric  -  14

HR  -  Dewey(2), Mark, Peter

So that was weird

In a year and season when nothing is normal, even an idyllic 3-on-3 wiffle match can present the unexpected. To wit:

• That moment in the top of the first when Matt, the shortest member of the home team, leapt up and stole a line drive home run from Jeff.
• That moment in the bottom of the first when that same Matt hit a homer over Jeff's head in left. (1-0 home boys).
• That later moment when Matt had a home run taken away by Jeff who leapt over the home run line and tipped the ball back to Kurt who caught it.
• That moment when Adrian hit a foul off the backboard which was caught by the pitcher, Matt, for an out... with the bases loaded.
• That moment (which lasted a span of nine outs) when Zach and Eric mused about whether moving from zero to one was in fact "counting" or merely acknowledgement of the changing state from non-existence to existence.

None of those is made up. As they say, if you go to a ball game, you're bound to see something you've never seen before. Or five things.

There was serious talk (really only from Matt) of playing 2 seven inning games - just like they do in the bigs! - but at the end of seven, with Matt's team losing such talk died down and a single nine-inning affair was concluded.

It got no better for the home team however: trailing by one after seven, they eventually lost by four - 10-6.

Take note that the stats are now actually linked on the home page of the blog - and it's not even Labor Day, yet! Also note the very close stats between Jeff and Zach. The only edge for Jeff being due to his one BB (Intentional BB, that is, by Matt). Stats are fun.

This is a picture of a waterfall in Dayton. You may think of it as Zen.