What's Better Than 8 RBI?

Nine RBI.

Strong Sun, Long Shadows

Inside the numbers of today's 14-8 slugfest is the fact that Jeff had 8 RBIs and that was second best on the day. Hansoo had 9.

Jeff had two homers, and that was second best on the day. Hansoo had 3.

But let us not forget the newest Wiffle Innovation - the Pop Up... TENT!! Jeff provided the very welcome artificial shade for this morning's seven wifflers. No question the shade boosted the offense, today.

Andy, Hansoo, Matt, Pete - 14 runs, 16 hits

JD, Jeff, Walker - 8 runs, 17 hits

HR: Hansoo 3 (3); Jeff 2 (3)

It's a Sign

 Signs are important in Baseball - and wiffle.

Wifflers are not known for following signs.

Wifflers are also not known for Pitching Duels, but that's what today's 3-1 game was. In fact the home team had a no hitter through 5 innings. Ultimately the no-no and the shut out were lost and the game won by Adrian, Jeff, Pete and Walker. The Visitors managed to limit the damage while scattering 15 hits, but could not prevent the go ahead 2-RBI double by da Commish.

There were circus catches for which words will not do justice - you had to be there. They involved tips and caps.

Hansoo, JD, Matt, Tom - 1 run, 7 hits

Adrian, Jeff, Pete, Walker - 3 runs, 15 hits

HR: none

Wiffle Walk

On a day that saw several season debuts, and Zach hit for the cycle in his first four ABs of the season, the 8-0 final score may seem an afterthought. In truth this was a tight 3-0 ballgame until late, and the pivotal moment came in the Bottom of the 7th inning.

With a precarious 3-0 lead, a runner on and Jeff at the plate, pitcher Matt (Stats) faced a critical juncture in his mound outing for the day. Bear in mind that in his first turn on the bump he struck out zero. All five hitters he faced put the ball in play - he was not missing bats. Not much swing and miss in his stuff anymore. Three were fly outs to sure-handed fielders and two were hits. One of those hits was a screaming double by Jeff that probably dented the brick over the doorway to Smith in right field.

Matt took a deep, calming, breath. And promptly hit the left backboard for an intentional walk. 

That's what they call Wiffle Savvy. Guile. It did bring the tying run to the plate, but as you already know from the first paragraph, the visitors allowed no runs on the day. So the gambit paid dividends and Andy, Matt, Zach and rookie Brad all got extra orange wedges and juice boxes, post-game. Juicy-Juice never tasted soooo sweeeet.

Jeff's walk was the fourth walk surrendered this season in just two games. So maybe this is the new shift?

Andy, Matt, Zach, Brad - 8 runs, 17 hits

Hansoo, Jeff, Jim, Pete, Tom - 0 runs, 7 hits, 2 walks

HR: Matt (1); Zach (1); Brad (1)

2021 Closes Out

Today NBF hosted the final event of the 2021 Regular Season.  It was a blinding morning, dominated by the Sun and some even more dominant pitching.  Eventually the Visiting Team of Adrian, Hans, Tom, and Zach let their guard down and Team Halen de Andy, Eric, Jim, Jeff, and Pete were able to load 'em up and their lanky leadoffman launched a lusty lunchmeat-laden longball.  That one swing was basically the game, scorewise.  Fielding-wise though, the game saw more than the usual number of awesome catches and some near-miraculous almost-hadits.  Jim's near-catch of a line drive that was absolutely scorched right over his throwing shoulder being one.  The other one being Zach managing to wipe away tears of pure liquified cornea long enough to reel in a mile-high popup that required him to stare directly at the Sun for way longer than one ought to.    

Season Batting Awards:  According to Stats, Jeff's 4-for-8 today was sufficient to earn him the Triple Crown.  Nicely done, sir!  That hotly contested race between Zach and Jeff was a fun little cliffhanger to end the year on, attaboys to both.  

Adrian, Hans, Tom, Zach  -  6 hits, 0 runs

Andy, Eric, Jim, Jeff, Pete  -  12 hits, 5 runs

HR  -  Andy (GS)

Catch As Catch Can Of Corn

An exciting one at NBF this morning as Visitors Adrian, Jeff, and Tom locked horns with Home Team Eric, Hans, Pete and Zach.  This week's theme:  fielding matters.  Especially when, on paper at least, the offensive numbers appeared pretty equally split.  But a number of key catches at critical points led the HTHs to a 6-2 victory, including the game-ending final sprinting grab by Zamonski to ice it.  Special thanks to Zach for not running into me there, OR a few innings before when *he* made the great running grab.  Two other sweet ones were Hansoo's dead-running grab on a shallow popup (Hans woulda caught that...oh wait, he did) and Zamonski's One-Hand-Of-God two finger snag which to be honest I'm still not sure how I pulled that off.  

The other interesting note is that Zach and Jeff entered today's game, which could possibly be the season's last, in a virtual tie for the batting title, Zach just a nick ahead.  With Jeff going 6-for-12 and Zach going 4-for-10 that might have switched leads, we'll have to wait for Matt to update the stats.  

Then there was Adrian:  while the rest of us were thinking about home runs and crazy catches and what color of habanero is the hottest, Adrian quietly yoinked five singles off of a very strong pitching lineup.  Which hitwise put him second only to teammate Jeff's six.  Plus, his own pitching was amazing today with sick location.  Nice game, gato.  

Adrian, Jeff, Tom  -  2 runs, 13 hits

Eric, Hansoo, Pete, Zach  -  6 runs, 11 hits

HR  -  Jeff (2), Hansoo, Zach

Sometimes You Just Suck

NBF's confines don't get much sunnier than they were today for a gooey, steamy, well-attended 5-on-6 smashfest.  Although the final score looked decently close it never felt that way from the Homies' perspective.  We just basically stank from the plate and couldn't get anything going other than dinging up Lord Eephus, He Who Giveth, for our only nine.  Which was like getting out the mustard and rye bread when the mustard's only a single packet that you can't figure out how to open.  Meantime the Visiting Vans were crushing it, led by Pete who went a very nice 6-9 and Zach who took us yard twice.  

As lousy as we were from the plate however, we did show some badass fielding skills.  J.D. stole a homerun with about as little of one foot still contacting the line as it's possible to have.  Then to balance out our karma, the No-Doz™ Leapin' Leopard Catch-of-the-day went to Jeff for an impossible looking jump-n-snag which, in keeping with our ill-fate, ended with him landing about 2 inches past the line.  Coulda shoulda woulda.  Oh well, at least I was able to use an old Jedi mind trick on Zach to get him to pull (which he very rarely does) a mile high popup directly into the merciless morning sun and which I managed to cleanly catch in spite of the fact that my retinas had long since vaporized by the time the ball finally came down.  Some days, small moral victories are all you git and all yer gonna git.

Today's Scoreboard Stumper:  Who holds the MLB record for most satanic-looking blue eyes?  

(Last week's answer:  Hank Aaron and Alex Rodriguez)  

Andy, Hans, Pete, Walker, Zach  -  15 runs, 22 hits

Adrian, Eric, J.D., Jeff, Matt, Tom  -  9 runs, 12 hits

HR  -  Andy, Hans, Zach (2), Tom

Dreams Come True

There's just no other way to say this, today was one of the greatest wiffleball games of all time.  First things first:  on this day, September Eleventh, Year of Our Lord Two-thousand and Twenty One, a wiffleball was finally smashed so hard for a home run that it cleared the fence in Nance Bradds Field.  As all the longtimers know, I have been obsessing over wanting to see this be done for many years.  Not only did I finally get to see it happen, and not only was I right there in the outfield to joyfully watch it sail over my head...it didn't just barely clear the fence as I'd always imagined it would---IT LANDED IN THE GODDAMN STREET!!!  Jeff, you makuh my dreams come true (ooo oo, oo-oo).  Next step is to get to work on the glass display case for his mantle.  Rotating siren bar optional but preferred.  

Andy also deserves some credit for this blessed event too.  As baseball fans know, to a large degree momentum is conserved when a thrown ball meets a bat squarely on the barrel.  Which means that the longest-hit home runs will tend to be hit off the hardest-throwing pitchers.  But that's for baseballs and I've never been fully convinced that the same holds true for wiffleballs, which flex and flatten a great deal more than a baseball.  I'm now fully convinced that it IS true for wiffleballs however, because Jeff's monster shot-of-all-shots today came off Andy who can unleash a wiffleball pitch harder than anybody I've ever seen.  I guess that's probly why it took 12 years to finally happen:  it basically required Nolan Ryan AND Dave Kingman to do their thing as hard as they can on the same pitch.  But physics whatever, it was just fucking beautiful to watch.  Maybe it'll happen again one day, maybe it never will.  But it happened today and I had a front row seat to The Big Show and I can't imagine ever being happier to watch the other team score.  

Final note on this:  the distance from wall to fence in straightaway centerfield, which is where Jeff put it over, has been accurately measured to be 145' 2".  I haven't measured it yet but the distance from the fence to where the ball landed in the street has to be at least 15'.  Which means that this home run travelled at least 160' in the air.  Since wiffleball is inherently an informal sport I was unable to find any sort of official records for wiffleball home run distance records, but I did find this video compilation, produced by a long-running wiffleball league out of Palisades, NY, that's apparently been filming every pitch from behind the plate since the late 00's and they put together a Top 10 longest smashes reel and they have decent estimates for the distances.  I won't ruin it by telling you the numbers, just fire up your favorite YouTube device and enjoy.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PvfhYC8t_o&ab_channel=hmpfilms

Even without Der Fenceclearur the game Itself today was also pretty damn good.  It had lots of action and drama but didn't drag out (9 full innings in just over 2 hrs), featured what may be the first-ever game winning team with no home runs to beat a team that had two of them (Stats?), and it ended in a walk-off hit.  AND, that walkoff hit was a slap-bouncer back to the pitcher who bobbled and dropped it for a walkoff ERROR---wiffleball at its hilariously, chaotically beautiful best!  

Oh and also:  today I finally, FINALLY got to bat against eephus-era Pete.  And what'd I do with this golden opportunity?  I chased a first pitch blooper so far away from me that I had to walk three steps over to get to it, and then just barely chipped the top four molecules of plastic on the ball which produced the weakest forward motion conceivable.  Cleanly fielded by Pete, siddown Zamonski.  The pain was excruciating and I loved every bit of it.  Viva La Wiff.  

Also also:  Hansoo's back!!!  Yay Hansy!!!  The Inscrutably Cheerful One is warmly welcomed back to the sunny confines of NBF after what, two full years' absence?  Seemed like forever buddy, glad to have you back.  Less glad to have to once again face those wicked sinker/riser sequences, PLUS your shoulder's apparently all healed up now so you can once again throw mega heaters for us to flail badly at.  Sheesh almighty Hans, you're like the world's first seven-tool player!  Which I celebrated by arriving negative 5 minutes early.

Today's Scoreboard Stumper:  Who are the only two MLB players to have fifteen 30-HR seasons?  (Check next week's blog for the answer)

Hans, Jeff, Mark, Pete  -  5 runs, 14 hits

Adrian, Andy, Eric, Zach  -  6 runs, 15 hits

HR  -  Jeff (2)