Taking the good with the bad
We played the top two teams in our league tonight. The first team hadn't been beaten yet. Of course we had to spot them 6 runs. Granted we're about to call bullshit on this because they can score just as many as an A team plus, they've got the sticks to hit more than three bombs a game. Anyways, we held them out of the gates and scored five in our half of the first. We thought that we'd be in for a battle.It was like the floodgates opened and the circus cars came zipping out. We should have all been wearing funny noses and big red floppy shoes. It was awful as they jumped out to a 17-5 lead thanks to the Ringling Brothers out there. Anything that could go wrong did.
Coming off the field after The Inning From Hell, Brian yells "Let's go now. Stay positive. Keep those heads up." I think it did the trick for some reason. No one pointed fingers, no one yelled. We just went about our business in a workmanlike fashion. Three runs here, four here, hold them on defense.
Fast forward to the bottom of the last inning. We trail 19-17. The order goes, Dibbo, Castro, CKo, me. All we needed was five hits. Dibbo starts off with a base rip. Perfect. Castro comes up and hits into a fielder's choice where Dibbo was forced at second. Castro on first, Cko up. Cko has already had three doubles. What does he do? He does it again. Now there's Castro on third, Cko on second, and I'm coming to bat.
I wasn't nervous. In fact, I was whistling when I dug into the box. First pitch, ball. Second pitch, perfect. I blasted the ball deep into the gap between the left fielder and the left center fielder. Ball down and I'm on my horse. Both Castro and CKo score easily and I'm standing on third as the winning run with a two-run triple and two outs to get me home.
Now the third baseman was thinking about walking Kaegi and Enszy to get to Jon, probably our weakest stick. I looked at CKo and said "If they walk both those two, sub Jyo." Jyo had arrived late and was waiting for our second game to start. I figured if those dumb bastards wanted to play strategy, we could too.
It turns out that they didn't try to walk Kaegi. Kaegi hits a fly ball, I tag up and get in for the ball game. Final Score Team RPG 20 Woody'z 19.
There was about a five minute lull between as the other teams switched out. Our next game was a lot different as we were into a defensive struggle. I also became a statistic as I was flat DRILLED by a batter. I threw the pitch and Gary just hit it almost as hard as he could.
The ball never got more than three feet off the ground as it just crashed into my thigh above my knee. It was hit so hard that the collision with my leg caused it to bounce to the shortstop who was able to throw the batter out at first. Granted, it hit me so hard in the leg that I saw stars, but it didn't hurt. It didn't even knock me off of my feet. Gary came up to me checked on me, worried that I was really hurt, plus he was apologizing for hitting me. He said he didn't mean to go up the middle, nor would he ever go up the middle intentionally. I told him not to worry because I knew he didn't try to hit it up the middle, I was fine and it was all part of the game.
Of course I looked down and it was already turning purple. But it really didn't hurt.
Now, we were up 7-3 in the top of the 7th, when the Inning From Hell raised it's ugly head. They scored six to take a 9-7 lead. There were a couple of errors, and two bombs, but they were only up two. I knew that coming to the plate it was Castro, Cko and myself. Surely we could get something going.
Castro grounds out. CKo flies out. Now it's up to me. For some reason, I say to myself, "I'm going to start this." So I hit a line shot for a single. Enszy follows me up with a single and now we're on first and second with two down. Kaegi comes up and rips a drive that the second baseman barely gets leather on. I'm off for third as fast as I can go, and CKo is coaching third and I hear as i'm rounding third "GO! GO! You're scoring. GO! STAY! STAY! STAY!" So I pull up, wheel around and freaking Enszy is standing on third. I turn to head home even though the catcher has the ball, hoping i can force some type of rundown, but he's already all the way up the baseline. Brett tags me and that's it. Ball game. A loss to the number two team in the league 9-7. That drops us back into the middle of the pack with a record of 4-4.
posted by Rusty @ 11:34 PM
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