Wiffle World Series - Game 1

We've been fortunate all year with good summer weather that extended into the third weekend of October. But when the WWW (Wiffle World Series) came around, fall was in full force. Late fall at that.

38 degrees, overcast. The lights were on at Nance Bradds Field.

Believe it or not this picture is showing you that the lights were on.

Tense wiffle ensued despite the cold. The visiting Andy-Bob-Tim trio took an early 4-0 lead, and then the home-standing Adrian-Matt-Peter slowly chipped away.

A little too slowly, as it turned out, as the nine-inning game ended with the tying aboard in the bottom of the ninth. Bob's farting shoes nearly blew the save but did not.

It was the kind of day where pitches floating through the strike zone were topped for weak grounders. With runner on.  The kind of day where every parent at DLM lets their kid push the shopping cart. In other words: frustrating.

Andy, Bob, Tim - 4 runs, 14 hits
Adrian, Matt, Peter - 3 runs, 19 hits

HR: Lindsay (1)

"They Always Clean Their Plate!"

Ha Ha!!

Don't ya just love it when they give away the punch line BEFORE the joke? Who is that worse for? The dope who ruined the joke, or the one who has to watch and listen to the dope's sense-of-humor-as-train-wreck? Who can say? It's two minutes no one ever gets back. NO ONE!

Like a milk shake with stuff in it - like chocolate chips or crushed candy bars? NO ONE likes that!! Stop making them. You can't get it to come up a straw. It ruins the shake. You end up having to eat it with a spoon, which is like eating ice cream and if I wanted ice cream I would have ASKED for ice cream and it's not like eating ice cream because it's all melted ANYWAY!!!!!

GAH!!!!

Like a wiffle game where the first batter hits the fifth pitch of the game off Matt for a home run (according to the outfielders) and then NO ONE scores for the rest of the nine innings!!! Who is that worse for? The pitcher who lost the game on the fifth pitch or the batters who futilely played another 2 hours of wiffle FAILING to SCORE? I ask you.

GAH-GAH!!!!

"Why are Umpires so fat?"

Andy, Bob, Kurt - 1 run, 8 hits
Hansoo, Matt, Peter - 0 runs, 9 hits

HR: Evans (4)

A Game of Inches

5 heroic Halens ultimately failed to defend against the 4 victorious Vans today in a game that felt a lot more symmetrical than it looked on paper.  Each team had their untouchable ace---Hansoo vs Andy---but each team also had plenty of hits and plenty of missed chances.  Both teams failed to score with 'em loaded at least once (twice both?), yet both teams also made brilliant defensive grabs that saved runs.  Kurt caught a lined tomahawk smash from Eric right at his ankles;  Eric returned the improbable favor by gloving a low one straight back to the mound;  and Matt bolted off the mound to spear a fast grounder that just didn't look playable.  (He also cleanly fielded Kurt's batt deep into tripleland.)

The top of the 3rd was where all the scoring happened:  JD got into trouble early and with two on Eric clubbed a gapper double to break the seal for his lone ribbie.  Then The Big Unit took the plate and walloped a waist-high laserbeam triple that scored three more and that's where it would remain.   

Other noteworthy symmetries included:  both Matt and Adrian served each other weird high rpm balls that neither could quite manage to smother.  And both Eric and Hansoo had ABs that went: perfect pitch/Strike 1, swing-and-a-miss/Strike 2, hard low smash right to LF's feet, miraculously caught inches off the ground/Out.  

Andy, Dewey, Eric, Matt - 4

Adrian, Hansoo, JD, Kurt, Mark - 0

Home Runs - None

Sept. 30, 2017: A day that will live in improbability

A virtually insurmountable 1-0 lead by the Vans on Saturday was, beyond all forms of logic and reason, undone by a two-run explosion in the sixth. Adrian, hobbled by recent finger surgery, was taken advantage of by the type of ruthless opportunism one should expect from the OW&A. The Halens won 3-2.

Sun Tzu would be proud.

The outcome would have been much altered had not:

1. The Vans left the bases loaded on several occasions.

2. Dewey not been robbed by Eric of several deep hits.

The Vans drove in a run in the ninth to make the Halens sweat some but that cry of hope was made quiet by muted bats.

A rookie, too, was broken in. Andrew (not to be confused with the older, taller Andy) accounted for two singles in his initial outing. After a thorough explanation of the rules (follow by an apology for such obfuscation) the younger Andrew faced pitchers with aplomb. On the mound, he learned to count on his finely tuned and sure-handed oufield. At his homecoming dance tonight, Andrew is sure to spend the entire night talking about our endeavors.

In lieu of offense, we did learn the distance of a double (58 feet), triple (77 feet) and at-fence home run (94 feet). The mound sits 35 feet from the box. This research was brought to us by Eric who produced scientific equipment and a thirst for knowledge to get us to this frontier.

In attendance: Dewey, Hans, J.D. and Mark for the Halens; Adrian, Andrew, Eric, Kurt and Pete for the Vans.

Weather conditions: God smiled on our corner of Ohio. Asking for anything better would be criminal.

If this were an ordinary weekend..

So much to report from the asphalt BUT...

Ordinarily I would write in breathless prose about the return of Dewey to Nance Bradds Field and to our spirited bat-and-ball play. Ordinarily, I would mercilessly savage Kurt for sitting on his league leading batting average. Ordinarily, I would make jokes about this being an "offensive" game after 11 runs were scored in the first inning, and then none in the remaining five.

But this is no ORDINARY weekend, dear wifflers. For this weekend sees the return of ..

Yes, Matt passed Kurt in the batting stats and sits at the head of the table. Sure, Adrian was run-ruled in the first. Yup, they used the black bat named Esther. But none of that is important.

Sunday night on CBS, Star Trek returns to serial television for the first time since 2005!!!!!

REALLY WHAT COULD BE MORE AWESOME THAN THIS?!?!?!?

Adrian, Andy, Matt - 1 run, 15 hits

Dewey, Hansoo, Peter - 10 runs, 19 hits

HR: None

Two is the One

It's not enough to induce the easy fly ball - your outfield has to CATCH them. 

The visitors dropped three easy fly balls that should have been three outs and could have been four outs. These misplays led directly to three home-team runs in a game the home boys won 4 to 2.

Nonetheless is was a good, tight contest; the visitors loaded the bases after two were out in the top of the ninth. Hansoo came to bat to face Andy... and struck out to end the day.

Adrian, Hansoo, Matt, Peter, Eric Z. - 2 runs, 17 hits
Andy, Bob, Kurt, Mark - 4 runs, 20 hits

HR: none

Monday Morning Wiffle, Live From Budget Field

So there was this:

So Peter had to do this:

Which had the side benefit of allowing us to do this:

Bob got a single on that pitch, by the way. Welcome to Budget Field!

Fred, Matt, Mark, Ryan, Hansoo - 5 runs, 18 hits
Bob, JD, Kurt, Peter - 2 runs, 14 hits

HR: Ha (4)