Elias Perez is a Piece of Shit

I hate him

OH, SHIT: DEALERS WIN TWO IN A ROW, PROBABLY TOO GOOD FOR PCHL

A lot can change in two weeks. Just ask these people:

• Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, 105, Chinese-born American sinologist, professor, and librarian
• Dave Ulliott, 61, English professional poker player
• Hardijs Baumanis, 47, Latvian diplomat, ambassador to Lithuania and Azerbaijan
• Sergei Lashchenko, 27, Ukrainian kickboxer   

Two weeks ago, they were all alive. And the Dealers were looking DEAD AND BURIED!

Forgive me for falling behind and lazily trying to condense two games into one blog entry, but I'm basically too good for this shit now. Because of all the winning, I don't have to pander for ad-clicks with self-humiliating jokes about the Dealers; John gives me free drinks now.

On Easter Sunday, while our Cuban and Mexican players were busy stabbing nails into their hands and rubbing ashes on their foreheads, a skeleton crew of Dealers ventured out to Lowell Park after a drizzly morning to take on the decidedly pagan Oakland Beers. It was a great seesaw battle. It was 2-0, then 2-2, then 3-2, then 5-3, then 5-6 or something like that until the top of the seventh, when James of the Clan McConnell hit a two-run double to put us ahead. We were up 9-6 in the bottom of the seventh when the Beers scored two to make it 9-8. Everyone's panties were soaked with adrenaline and anxious urine. We scored an insurance run in the top of the eighth, and when Jimmy (who pitched one of the gutsiest games since Curt Schilling put fake blood in his sock) finally ran out of gas in the bottom of the frame, former Beer/prodigal son Justin Flowers came in to relieve. It was 10-9 Dealers with runners on second and third and two outs, and with his typical Vince Neil-esque rock'n'roll hubris, Flowers insisted on pitching to baseball bat-wielding robot Keenan Wells.

11-10 Beers.

With the bottom of the order coming up in the ninth, led by neurotic, sweaty choke artist Sam Bull, things looked shitty. Jameson Kern's first pitch bounced in the dirt. The Beers' catcher was forced to catch it in an awkward way that made his fingernail explode. Blood poured down his wrist. It was biblical. The game stopped as everyone looked on in sympathetic horror, except Crizzle, who tapped his watch and asked if we could please hurry it up. Umpire Brian Woods, in his usual capacity as self-righteous scold, told him to shut the fuck up. The catcher was bandaged and carted off.

When play resumed, Jamo threw me three more balls, Eric chopped an infield hit to third, and Jimmy-to whom this game truly belonged-hit his second clutch two-run banger of the game, giving us a 12-11 lead. We then scored four more runs on a dreamlike series of bloop singles from the top of our order-Mickey, Crizzle, Chris, Jesse? to make it 16-11. The Beers made a formal appearance in the bottom of the ninth, bowing out on a Mickey-Colin-Crizzle 6-4-3 double play. 

DEFENSIVE PLAY OF THE GAME: That foul ball to left field that seemed so far out of play that I wasn't even watching when Jesse, ponytail whipping in the air behind him like Secretariat, streaked across the greensward and made a breathtaking sliding catch that forever doomed him to playing left field. 

Honorable mention: Chris Thoms AKA CT AKA "The Scanner" throwing that one-hop SEED from center field to home plate that beat Butz by four strides but still resulted in a mini-umpiring-controversy when I made a weird little late curtsy-tag because I was having Louie Rappoport flashbacks. 

OFFENSIVE PLAY OF THE GAME: Jimmy's baserunning fakeout. Ya had to be there

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Jimmy, definitely, but I think Chris Thoms had at least five hits, and Mickey and Crizzle also went nuts at the plate. 

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Mark Moss

PART TWO: THE NOBLES VS. THE GUILLOTINE

Bill Sandberg

RECAP: We beat the Nobles 23-7. HAHAHAHAHA 

Shit, we just fucking stomped 'em. Do we really need to go over who did what? This isn't a 29er blog. 

189 DAYS UNTIL CLOSING DAY: DEALERS HONOR RABBIT-LOVER WILL CORNYN'S MEMORY BY SHITTING THEMSELVES LIKE FRIGHTENED RABBITS

RECAP: How was your winter vacation? I spent mine eating a lot, watching some of my close relationships disintegrate, listening to radio dorks try to diagnose the 49ers' shititude, and not playing baseball. Apparently a lot of you also did at least two of those four things, but before the Chinese show trial begins, let's have a brief positive prelude. We opened the season with a nice dedication to Will and a ceremonial first pitch from Lana. John then made us all stand at attention and listen to Jimi Hendrix's famously interminable rendition of the national anthem. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Andrew Gomez not caring about America, but I didn't let it ruin the moment.

As far as the actual game, I had the good sense to take notes so as to bolster the rich detail and accuracy of my poetic recollections. After scribbling in my notebook for a couple of innings, I looked down and it was insane:

Mickey Thoms led off the game with a hard smash up the middle that bounced over shortstop Brian Huey's head, and we all politely remarked to each other that it seemed like a good omen. Spoon advanced him to second with a chopper, and then Crizzle pulverized a Kevin Biskar somethingball into left field for a ground-rule double. Wheee! We loaded the bases and had a chance to jump out to a big early lead when I popped out to first base to end the inning. FART. David Blanco led off the bottom of the first, and you'll never guess what he did: he crouched in the batter's box like a guilty piece of shit and WORKED A WALK! Brian Huey had a sac fly, one of their crackers had a two-run single, and it was 3-1 after the first inning. We came back with two runs in the third on a nice rally from the top of our order, with Mickey, Spoon, Crizzle and Gomez singling consecutively. Down 4-3 in the fourth, with top-tier starter Rafael Rangell in to relieve Kevin Biskar, we heroically scored four two-out runs on RBI singles from Jimmy, Crizzle and Spoon, and clutch walks from John and Mickey. The News answered right back with four runs of their own, three of them coming on a two-out bases-loaded double from somebody I still can't remember. I texted Blanco and he said it was "Daniel Malament, I think." I texted Gordon Popadiuk and he said it was "Huey, probably."

The News are literally so boring they can't tell themselves apart.

We tied it right back up in the top of the fifth on a Colin walk, a Sam single and a Ryan RBI fielder's choice, and it looked like we had an exciting shootout on our hands.

And then...nothing good happened for the rest of the night. The News scored about fourteen unanswered runs and someone was shot to death near the Crocker Amazon playground, mere hundreds of feet from where we were playing. (http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Man-fatally-shot-near-Crocker-Amazon-Playground-6165963.php) Coincidentally, Andrew Gomez left the game around this time in a noticeably frustrated mood. 

Seriously, the rest of the game was terrible. If you want to learn more about it, go hang out at this place: http://moxybeergarden.com/ and ask one of them. 

ITEM!  The Plays of the Game section will now be enhanced by the sharp-witted color commentary of our new, racist Crocker Amazon mascot, Hyun-Mi the Can Collector. Herewith:

DEFENSIVE PLAY OF THE GAME: Talented landscaper, responsible father and normally capable third baseman Eric Rosen leapt and caught a line drive at second, putting a respectable sheen on an otherwise difficult night.

"YOU MAKE AH GOOD CATCH JEWBOY BUT YOU BIG DONKEY AT THIRD YOU NOT SMOKE FUNNY WEED NEXT TIME"

DRIVE OF THE GAME: Friendly neighborhood meatman Chris Adams's ground-rule double in the first.

"OH RED DRAGON YOUR ARMS ARE SO BIG YOU TAKE ME TO OUTSIDE LANDS THIS YEAR?"

PITCH OF THE GAME: Jesse got woman-faced power hitter Gordon Popadiuk to lunge at a perfect low and outside fastball on a two-strike count. He hit a weak grounder and I can't remember if we botched the play or not.

"PRETTY LADYBOY HAVE TO PROTECT THE PLATE. WE 
HAD TO PROTECT PLATE IN D.P.R.K. WHEN SOLDIERS COME TAKE OUR FOOD. I BET DEALER CATCHER PROTECT PLATE WHEN HE EAT FOOD LOL"

PLAYER OF THE GAME: I'd say Crizzle and Jesse embarrassed themselves the least. Honorable mention to new boy Colin for getting on base three times and doing some admirable mop-work on the pitcher's mound.

"VROOM VROOM BIKER BOYS I BET WHITE SLUTS LOVE YOU LONG 
TIME WHEN YOU NOT JERK EACH OTHER OFF"

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Mark Moss is currently on vacation from the vacation he calls his life, drinking wine next to a pool and not answering his phone or emails as part of his smug yuppie "technology cleanse." It's almost time to retire this award.

"BEST PLAYER ON TEAM TURN OFF PHONE SO TEAM CAN'T FIND HIM. 
HA HA, DEALERS BIG HOT POOPOO MESS. YOU FINISH BEER?"

NEXT GAME TDB @ OAKLAND BEERS

ALL APOLOGIES

.

BERKELEY 8 MISSION STEET 5: DEALERS HANG TOUGH WITH FIRST PLACE NEWS, FALTER DUE TO UNDIAGNOSED DIABETES

"I've known Gordon Popadiuk for a while now and the two

most important things about him: can't grow a beard

and cried during the Seinfeld finale."-David Blanco

RECAP: Sorry for the long absence, gentle readers. Consider this post your Chinese Democracy.

I woke up in a happy mood just a half hour before first pitch, knowing that I had only a five-minute commute from my house to Willard Park to deal with, in addition to the fact that I rarely bother to shower or brush my teeth. I live in Berkeley. Deep in News territory. I'm constantly running into Benny Rangell. One time he was coming out of a hardware store ominously holding a broom. Another time he was ominously driving a Volvo. I've drank Bud Light Strawberritas at Jeri's house.  I think I fucked David Blanco in the toilets at the White Horse once. Point is, I know these people. By some prior arrangement it was a turn-back-the-clock theme day, with the News wearing their old Hard Bargains shirts (well, like four of them were) and the Dealers wearing our old Egypt '84 jerseys, in a deliciously sarcastic homage to long-alienated founders Mike Harkin and Adam Stonehouse. Staff ace Jimmy McConnell took the bump against staff member Brian Huey, and after we nearly scored in the top of the first, I stupidly called for a fastball to the giant-haired robot called Delancey, who flipped it over the 120-foot fence in right for a two-run home run. That made it 2-0 Hard News. We clawed back to tie it at two, thanks to some clutch hitting by enormous sex bear Andrew Gomez, while Jimmy struck out many fools. The game zipped along into the seventh when, with the News up 4-2, we rallied to tie, the key hit being an enormous RBI double by aforementioned sex bear, followed by an RBI infield hit from Mark Moss that elicited some operatic whining from the News when Moss was called safe at first. In the bottom of the 7th, Brian Huey took appalling revenge on us with a two-run opposite-field gapper to right-center. (Side rant: who goes to third base for the final out of an inning on a comebacker to the mound? What is that?) In the top of the 8th, the handsome and Europeanly-named sock iconoclast Rafael Rangell came in for the six-out save, promptly loading the bases for the handsome and hillbilly-named Mexican Jesse Edwards to hit into an RBI double play. With the tying run at third, Mickey Thoms came up and smoked a pitch to center field, right at some guy, probably Delancey, who was completely and creepily ubiquitous that day when it came to defense. The bottom of the eighth saw some ugly defense, as Jimmy recorded about nine would-be outs but the News tacked on two runs, and we went into the ninth rather demoralized, despite John's soothing screams. Spoon worked a brilliant walk, I fouled out to fucking Delancey at first base despite the fact that my ball apparently hit the backstop which neither I or the umpire noticed, Gomez smashed a hard grounder to fucking Delancey for the second out, and then Moss lost a tough battle with Rangell to strike out and end the game. The News stoically packed up their gear and went home, while I fought off a panic attack and surreptitiously collected everyone's empty Tecates. For the money.

FORD RIGHT CHOICE: The 6-4-3 double play we turned on the News that they whined about

DAN UGGLA DRIVE OF THE GAME: Gomez's double to the deep, geometrically frustrating part of center field at Willard. We all thought he was going to be flipping dingers over the chain-link monster in left, but I guess that's Crizzle's deal. Yeah, that's right Andrew. It's called stirring the pot.

BRANDON HICKS PLAYER(S) OF THE GAME: Gotta split this one between Gomez, for bringing the lumber (and his solid, mistake-free first-basing) and Jimmy McConnell, for his second consecutive superb start against a good team. Dude is donating his arm and probably his mental health for these agonizing losses, so let's get him a win one of these days.

DOG OF THE GAME: Roux, babe magnet

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Mark Moss

GORDON POPADIUK OF THE GAME: 'Thanks for being so honest about not tagging Mickey. I bet your hair smells nice

QUOTE OF THE GAME:

"You wanna quit lookin' at me, fruity? I don't

play butt darts. I love the ladies."

WE'RE STILL FIGURING OUT STATS BUT

FUCK IT YOU KNOW YOURS AREN'T

THAT GREAT

BROWN REASON TO LIVE: DEALERS 12, CLEANERS 9

RECAP: Aren't we full of surprises? Like an abusive deadbeat boyfriend who takes you to The House of Prime Rib for Valentine's Day (Hello TREVOR you left your Alien Ant Farm CD in my DVD player again), the Dealers do just enough every once in a while to keep your loins twitching. Sunday's game was difficult to even locate, as the venue switched from Potrero Hill to Glen Park Playground to St. Mary's all while I was riding a transbay BART train full of drunk Bay to Breakers people dressed as bananas/Ron Burgundy/sexy sea captains. Everyone looked a little green around the gills when I got there (Spoon in particular, sitting quietly with that Dick Cheney countenance he gets whenever the absinthe was flowing the previous night), and the first inning was completely horrible. We went down in order to the ironically named pitcher "Smiley," then gave up a total of three runs with a series of embarrassing errors. The next two innings were also pretty bad, as Frowney continued to dominate and the Cleaners piled on some more unearned runs to make it 6-0. We rallied for five runs in the top of the fourth, loading the bases then bringing 'em in with a Rosen single, a Moss walk, a Segura FC, and a clutch two-run line drive from Jimmy McConnell. Abraham shut the Cleaners down in the bottom half, then we took the lead in the fifth with a three-run smash 'n' grab that included a deliciously unexpected Crizzle bunt (don't do drugs, kids).  Abe pitched another scoreless inning, then Jesse came on in relief and was absolutely nails, strikin' out fools and icin' bros and sippin' lemonade in the dugout in an old rocking chair next to his shotgun and his bloodhound (bloodhound name: Ryan Barko).  We padded our lead to 12-7 before things got hairy again (of course) in the bottom of the 9th. The Cleaners pushed across a run and had two runners when Spoon took a grounder at second and seemed to tag a dodging Steve Kerwin to end the game. "He's out" 

became "He was out of the basepath" became "Do you guys really want to win like this?" became "Okay, FINE" and we agreed to pitch to another batter. Boof promptly clocked a base hit, and as Jimmy took the relay from the outfield  and the runner who was on second rounded third, I prepared for a collision with that legendary neck-tattooed puncher of cops: Louie Rappoport. No wait, it was Cameron, and the throw came in hard but slightly up the first-base line, requiring me to lunge balletically across home plate and tag him on his chocolatey thigh. BOOM! Second win of the season (fifth win of the season if you count the ones we fucked up and lost). 

RYAN GARKO PLAYER OF THE GAME: Forgive me if I sound banal or calculated, but that was such a complete team effort that I feel this honor should be shared by all of us. Looking at the scorecard, there are so many multi-hit performances...YOU'RE ALL WINNERS. Except me, I just sort of drank your beers and ate your discarded sandwiches while going 1 for 6. They were delicious. Thank you all.

RYAN GARKO PLAY OF THE GAME: Remember that Martian tornado of red dust that kicked up in the third inning while the Cleaners were batting? How about Mark Moss's diving snag of that line drive to get us out of that nightmare? I'd also like to commend JPS for his outfielding, which included one of his classic acrobatic diving catches of a ball hit right at him, and that bomb in the ninth which he played perfectly. Also, there was a play at the plate. That was pretty tight.

RYAN GARKO DRIVE OF THE GAME: I'd say maybe it's the Molly twins, Crizzle and Moss, going against typecasting and bunting for base hits. I know we have a rep as a hard-swinging power club, but maybe small ball should be our new look?

RYAN GARKO SPIRIT AWARD: Welcome back, Andrew Gomez! You'll be cranking dingerz again in no time. Right now, you run like old people fuck: in a way that appeals to a small niche of the pornography market.

RYAN GARKO MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Mark Moss

POSTGAME ALBUM OF JOY:

he's trying to hail a cab cuz he's so high he thinks

it's 7:45am (not pm) and he has to go to work

<3

NEXT GAME TUES. MAY 27th 6PM CROCKER AMAZON

VS. THE BERKELEY RUSE

LEFT MY PHONE AT TACO LOCO

A MULATTO AN ALBINO A MOSQUITO MY LIBIDO

SUnzEt NObLE$ DrOp $uPrEme MaTheMaTiX oN DeAlerZ 13-4

RECAP: lol I bet yall thought u'd be gettin sum ghey rap about how yall tried good from dat chickenhead dik-rider sam bull but this is lil C MURDER #44 Pain Crosby dats right I haxxored dis blog cuz dave gardiner who iz sort of like the D.O.C. of computer people tol me most ppl's passwords are the numbers "1234" or the name of their cat now I be takin over da airwaves like Pump Up The Volume cept ya know with blogs and the internet n shit. Last wenzday my moms said I could have the pu$$y wagon back if I made sure to stop rydin tha clutch and leaVin cum all over da backseat so I said deal and gardener and matoes and I rolled up to Cocker an hour early so we could do donuts in tha parking lot while sippin Crooked I *sound of a needle scratching a record*

Sorry folks, I don't know what happened there.

Anyway, this'll be a quick one because I'm tired of the monotonous self-flagellation that customarily follows a Dealer loss and it happened like a week ago, anyway. Sorry for the delay - I had a full weekend of umpiring, which made me want to self-harm, and today I was in mourning for H.R. Giger, who was going to design uniforms for my expansion team next year, the Berkeley Penis Skeletons. The first half of the game was rather cool - 3-3 into the fifth, Jimmy matching talents with Dave Gardner, who flummoxed us with his ancient Chinese martial arts style known as "Clever Sloth." We countered with the modern South Korean taekwondo spinoff "Flailing Monkey" and it made for a fast-paced game until, with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the fifth, the Nobles' new beard guy (of whom Craig Matoes is fanatically jealous- I heard he plans to patronize Shane Crosby's fledgling murder-for-hire business) laid down a BUNT. It worked for them, and proved to be a bit of a turning point - "opened the floodgates," to coin a new aquatic engineering metaphor - our only major chance after that was a bases loaded situation when I hit what admittedly looked like a double play ball to short and Crizzle sort of plowed right into the shortstop, eliciting much laughter and many sighs of affection from the 4,000 single girls in the stands. The Nobles ended up winning 13-4 when the lights went out right as Craig Matoes released a pitch, which is an event I've been anticipating with unseemly voyeuristic arousal. Unfortunately, no one was hurt.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Can we agree that, even though the Nobles managed to get him out, Mr. Eric "Spoon" Short has been a goddamn assassin at the plate lately? He waits on those breaking balls so patiently and serenely that one of these days I expect him to break the cycle of Samsara and leave this vale of tears as a beam of pure energy (same thing happened to Spencer back in '12. I miss him.)

DRIVE OF THE GAME: Crizzle had a double. That was p. sweet.

PLAY OF THE GAME: Mickey-Hamilton-Rosen double play hell yeah! I thought Thoms was gonna take it himself but I didn't reckon on Toesy's wicked fast transfer and rocket arm. Let's see more of that.

Also, Crizzle dove for and caught a shallow fly ball that was also p. sweet

STRAY OBSERVATIONS: Big thanks to Chris Thoms for coming out, hope you can make it to more games, you got big shoulders and you're nice...Anyone think Bill "Curious Yellow" Sandberg is having lots of ill sex in his tour of liberal-minded Scandinavia...Do the Nobles actually have a guy called "Reich" now because comparing people to Nazis is my passion in life...Defining romantic/disgusting image of 2014 is the constellation of glowing iPads and phones in the Nobles' dugout after the lights went out...Big thank you to Andrew Gomez for coaching third PAY ATTENTION TO HIM YOU UNGRATEFUL SHITS HE KNOWS WHAT HE'S DOING...I get super sad when Lil C Murder doesn't get playing time but I realize he's probably busy jockin hoodrats on worldstarhiphop...Dave Gardner is a hobbit...Charlie Ansanelli cut the sleeves off his jersey verdict: baller


MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Jesse Edwards

I'VE BEEN SLACKING ON IMAGES SO HERE'S ONE:

"rah rah politics i'd like to ask mr. mayor what he

plans to do about this overcast weather blarg i am a butt"

NEXT GAME SUNDAY @ CLEANERS PROBABLY

AT BIG REC IF I KNOW THEM

STATS TOMORROW

I WISH I COULD EAT YOUR CANCER

WHEN YOU TURN BLACK