Final Stats for 2013 Mission Street Dealers

THE DEALERS RIDE THE SNAKE TO THE ANCIENT LAKE, ATTAIN NIRVANA, STILL LOSE 18-27

RECAP: 

"If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out."

---G. Brett

"Once I had a little game 
I liked to crawl back in my brain
I think you know the game I mean
I mean the game called 'go insane'"

---J. Morrison

                                                                       

   With playoff hopes dashed, we faithful Dealers rolled our old bones to Raimondi field with no other competitive incentive than to spoil the Oakland Beers' playoff aspirations, which honestly kinda felt like an afterthought compared to the meticulous plans we made to get properly & elegantly shithoused. Handcrafted ales in artisan bottles were emptied in the haze of marijuana smoke; corn whiskey was passed around as coolers overflowed with cheap beer; talk of psychedelics tickled our ears, and the game hadn't even started yet. There was even a keg hanging out by home plate that nobody even seemed to notice until it was time to play. By the end of the game, we were passing around a half-full bottle of Prosecco, because, dammit, we have class, and there was nothing left to drink. 

   Deciding to "pull a Joe Torre," John Segura proudly appointed Vincent Martini as acting manager for this game. In his first stroke of brilliance, Martini made himself the starter, a move I'd been insisting should've been made ever since seeing the kid pitch a shutout inning against the Beers a few games ago armed with nothing but moxie, chutzpah, and some get-up-and-go. How do you not put this guy on the mound?

Vinnie

   Starting Vinnie could've been a brilliant move had the rest of the Dealers decided to play a little defense. Strikes were thrown, balls were hit, errors were made, and a manageable 1-0 first inning gave way to an avalanche of scoring. It wasn't just The Beers, either. As the game progressed, just about every Dealer got a hit, I think. Tough to say, as this scorebook was clearly filled out by someone slowly changing into a werewolf. Numerals give way to tally marks, strange runes appear in lieu of the standard symbols, and upon further inspection, bite marks & urine stains are the only evidence that the later innings even existed. The metamorphosis was complete by the 7th inning, as indicated by the frantic, incomplete scrawls in that inning's "runs" column, and thenceforth any hope of sane scorekeeping was abandoned. 

Guess which inning the mushrooms came out.

   Anyway, like I said, there was lots of scoring. The Beers just scored more than we did, which is how winners are determined in sports except in baby sports like Candyland, competitive finger painting, and soccer. The McMicks (Crizz, Moss, and Toesy) had 7 singles, 5 RBIs, 2 doubles, and maybe one functioning liver cell between them. These wily, dirty, dirty Irishmen had all the RBIs according to the scorebook, which makes no sense, considering we scored 18. Furthermore, I'm not even sure Crizz, Moss, and Toesy are even Irish, but all white people look the same to me, so that's what we're going with.

Crizzle, Toesy, and Moss backstage at Dave Matthews Band

   To the best of my recollection, soon the game was out of control, mushrooms were hastily ingested, and things got weird. At some point Stonehouse came out to pitch. He did alright, but not great, I think. Who knows? All I remember is he hit me with the first pitch of my at-bat when I was peaking, and it's probably because I was grinning at him like a crazed asshole. I regret nothing. It's not every day you get to go head-to-head with an animated monster.

Stonehouse (as seen by me in the 7th inning)

In the 8th & 9th innings, the Beers put in their closer, that Eaton guy. Filthy sliders were served up with a side of smugness, fastballs zipped over the plate holding their upturned noses, and before long our season came to a close. It's not exactly how we planned to go out, but the simple truth is that we like to drink, we like to talk shit, and we like to play baseball. In that regard, this season was rife with victories of the good-time variety. You guys buying any of this?

Eaton, moments before giving up a knock to yours truly

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Vincent Martini; he pitched well, he got a knock, and he managed this team to one of the funnest losses of the season. Add the fact that he looked like the Raisin Bran "Two Scoops" Sun to me by the end of the game, and I'd vote for the guy for Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. Haha. Just kidding. That's a position you get not by acquiring the popular vote or the majority of the electoral college, but rather by assassinating your rivals, raping their wives, and stomping on the genitals of their children. I guess what I'm getting at is: if Vinnie deems it so, no child's genitals are safe from my size 13 boots.

Vinnie (shortly after the game ended)

PLAY OF THE GAME: Anybody remember any sweet defensive plays? I don't, but I do remember John Segura popping out to the Beers' catcher two at-bats in a row. Is there anything more frustrating? He didn't throw his bat and only cursed God for putting him in such a soft, frail body once! I was impressed with his restraint.

SHANE MACGOWAN DRIVE OF THE GAME: This one's tough. There were three doubles off of the bats of Crizz, Moss, and Jimmy. All were impressive, especially Crizzle's, which initially looked like it was going out. Then, there was Mickey's triple, which was fun if nothing else because of how rare triples are in this league, what with all the beer guts, arthritic knees, and bloodshot eyes. It's close, but this one goes to Hehewuti, Mickey's spirit animal, who decided to delay Mickey's trip until well after the game was over and he was home eating dinner. 

 Nice job, Hehewuti!

QUOTE OF THE GAME: 

"That grass sure is moving."

---Eric Rosen

It sure was, E. It sure was.

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: I'm going with Jimmy, because he's another goddamned Irishman and could be part of the McMicks if only he had lighter hair. I'm guessing wildly here. I just see pointy noses and a lack of melanin when I look at most of you. Jimmy had a solid pitching performance, I assume, because he pitched a few innings. I dunno. I was staring at the different gradations and subtleties in the infield dirt during much of that time. I saw the nature of time & space, the impermanence of all things, and the majestic interconnectedness of all living things, leading me to recognize the futility in desire and conflict. He also had two singles and a double, which is a very Mossy thing to do. It's really nice that Jimmy finds the time to come out to the park, taking time out of his busy schedule scaring teenagers with blocks of cheese carved in the shape of his own head.

Jimmy (pictured here with a young terrified teenager)

RICHMOND CLEANERS FACILITATE OUR ENTRY INTO THE LONG NIGHT, 17-4

RECAP: There is a narcotic peacefulness to having your playoff hopes fully destroyed, similar to what I imagine the patients of Dignitas experience when the first drops of sodium pentobarbital hit their veins, or when a frantic parent is informed by Sylvia Browne that their missing child is dead. Closure. We're no longer sending out distress calls or desperately calculating our odds of survival; the plane has slammed into the mountain. We belong to eternity now. This blog is the black box.

Squaring off against the meaningless assemblage of unfamiliar faces that are the 2013 Richmond Cleaners, we knew that we'd be without our star pitcher, who was ill with food poisoning. (Ed. note to Flowers: cocaine is not food) Nevertheless, we reasonably expected to have a chance; the Cleaners are unpredictable. The entire team consists of guys who were looking for the bathroom at Boxing Room and mistakenly wandered into the kitchen while Boof was working. Some of them are monsters; most of them are shitty. In the first inning, John Segura neatly twirled himself out of a jam with a 3-2 curveball to strike out that nice guy with a goatee whose name I forget, and after Jimmy lead off our frame with a base hit, it was shaping up to be a real nice ballgame.

Like how this was shaping up to be a real nice marriage

Then everything kind of went to hell, as it so often does for us, with the Cleaners racking up runs and the Dealers failing to string together hits against a fairly unremarkable pitcher. (It was that guy of theirs. Not the monster guy with the Sharks hat or the monster guy with the beard or one of their crappy guys, but a sort of medium guy. Robby?) We had a few standout performers: Andrew Gomez (playing with a shattered wrist and no regard for his own health and well-being) raked three hard base hits, including a double. Jimmy did the same. Mickey's cousin Chris, an enormous Aryan ubermensch who was just visiting on a day trip from Krypton, had three singles and scored from first on Gomez's double in the bottom of the 3rd, an awe-inspiring display of speed that I hope to replicate when I get my first Rascal scooter. At 3rd base, Will Cornyn put on the most incredible defensive spectacle I've seen since Rafael Palmeiro's first congressional hearing. (More on Will later.) Despite all that, it's hard to dig your way out of an early ten-run hole, and by the sixth inning it was 17-4 Cleaners and we were pretty much done. There was, however, a completely awesome and hilarious coda to the game: Vinnie Martini pitched three scoreless innings, using his revolutionary technique of tossing balls over the plate with no windup and no neurotic impulse to impress anybody with his velocity. It was great. The little yinzer has the PCHL completely figured out.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Will Cornyn, with NINE putouts at 3rd base. Cornyn was basically one third of an entire baseball team. He demonstrated his balletic range and coordination by cutting off several shots to the 5.5 hole, but my favorite play came on a Baltimore chop that bounced about twenty feet in the air. For what seemed like an eternity, Will serenely gazed up at it like an ornithologist on Valium, betraying no eagerness or anxiety whatsoever, and when it finally fell into his glove, he instantly whipped a frozen rope to first to nail the runner by a step. (ED. NOTE: It was actually an overthrow but this is how Sam chooses to remember it) He also went 2 for 5 with a double. After the game, I ran up to him and invited him back to my place to listen to Italian disco music and share a gelato. His face turned kind of green and he politely declined.

PLAY OF THE GAME: Tragically, I was peeing against a tree with my back to the field when it happened, but in the midst of his bravura pitching performance, Vinnie apparently snared a line drive comebacker. CATLIKE speed and reflexes, that boy. I also have to mention the fly ball that John initially misjudged in left field but then chased down and snagged like Torii fucking Hunter. Even when we're wrong, we're oh so right.

MATTHEW BRODERICK DRIVE OF THE GAME: For fearless, unbowed defiance, I'd like to recognize the back-to-back line drives Gomez and Jimmy hit off of Sharkhat Jockface in the bottom of the 8th. That shit was LOUD. I promptly stranded them with a strikeout. I don't know how they did it.

 Gomez

Jimmy

SHOUTOUTS: I'd like to thank Xavier Sotela for helping us out with his great, upbeat attitude, and for taking over catching duties when I got depressed and wandered off. And I'd like to thank our umpire, the guy who stayed and did his duty throughout this whole torturous, tedious game, my best friend in the world, the man I'd take a bullet for: Burt Reynolds.

(I think your mustache is sexy)

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Is Mark Moss dead or something?

STATS (CTRL+ TO ENLARGE)







29ERS BEAT DEALERS 8-0, POLAR ICE CAPS CONTINUE TO MELT

RECAP: After our grotesque self-immolation in front of the 7-10 Oakland Beers last week, it wasn't like we were going into this one with our heads high and our chests puffed out. They're the 29ers. They're the PCHL incarnation of stage-four cancer. Considering that we were missing our four best players (Moss, Gomez, Crizzle and Mickey), we figured we'd be lucky to finish five innings before darkness interrupted the scarlet gangbang. Making matters worse, the diabolical prettyboy who manages the 29ers failed to inform us of the game's location until the last minute, which left all of us discombobulated and ill-prepared, and probably contributed to the absence of Jimmy and Will. Only seven players showed up; fortunately, Ricky Rein, the honorable and munificent 29er shortstop, supplied us with substitutes in the form of his friend Aaron and his dad Rick Sr., and we were able to play a proper game. The game sucked, but it went by quickly.

Like our last game against the 29ers, it was a waste of Justin Flowers's arm. He pitched well, allowing only one extra-base hit, but we did virtually nothing at the plate to indicate that we were able-bodied multicellular organisms. Bobby Renz, a creepily handsome 1950's dance show host who has a suspiciously polished delivery, threw a complete game shutout. After the last out, the 29ers doused each other with champagne, as their win officially clinched a first-place finish and playoff bye. Awesome.

The heartwarming anti-underdog story of a talent-rich team

that easily dominated a beer league.

 

 



PLAYER OF THE GAME: The Player To Be Named Later

 

Previously known for his awe-inspiring ability to fly out to center field in every fucking at-bat, the artist who occasionally answers to Spector (possibly related to that other insane genius, Phil) reached base three times and filled in beautifully at shortstop. The sexy mystery man had two hard-hit singles and participated in a robust double play. It is rumored that he leads a second, doubly secret life as an envelope-pushing rock 'n' roll pervert, which only adds to his mystique. Someday I'll get the full story about the strapon incident.

 

Honorable Mention: Our overworked and underpaid manager John Paul Segura, fatigued from raising two delinquent daughters and sending hundreds of texts to Ray, somehow managed to patch together a full squad and then, as if that wasn't enough, went 1-2 with two walks. I'm pretty sure his foot was on the bag on that one play, but what can you do when the Boobiewatcher is umpiring the game.

 

DICK TRICKLE DRIVE OF THE GAME: Rick Rein, Sr., pulled hamstring and all, yanking a hot shot over the third base bag in the 9th inning and heroically hobbling to first like Kirk Gibson or, if you prefer, disabled Canadian national hero Terry Fox. He would be replaced by a pinch-runner who promptly fucked everything up and helped seal the 29er shutout, but it was a beautiful moment.

 

PLAY OF THE GAME: Aaron, gobbling up a sharp grounder from Big "Large Michael" Mike and feeding it to The Player To Be Named Later for a 4-6-3 double play. We might be seeing more of Aaron.

 

Honorable Mention: Spoon was a one-man outfield. Amazing instincts. He played with the serene confidence of a man who knows he's about to be knee-deep in trim in the Nevada desert.

 

BULGE OF THE GAME: Vinnie and his white jeans. Jesus.

 

PITCH OF THE GAME: That slider to Louie. Eat shit, Louie.

 

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Spoon

 

STATS



 

 

SEND YOUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS TO LANDO

 

 



Oakland Beers 25, Mission St. Dealers 9: The Inadequacy of Language

RECAP: When I started writing this blog, the Dealers had just embarked upon what would eventually become a seven-game losing streak. As a member of the team, it was a hellish experience, but as a writer, it produced a lot of juicy material: failure, self-reproach and internal conflict are inherently more interesting than unremitting triumph (29ersbaseball.blogspot.com). Then we started winning again, and I became nervous; I don't know how to deal with success. Fortunately, that ceased to be an issue last Saturday, as a shitty team from Oakland took our playoff hopes and smashed them like so many watermelons underneath the dread hammer of Gallagher.



Holy SHIT, we were bad. It was 18-0 by the middle of the fifth. Our pitchers walked 24 batters. Vinnie Martini almost earned Player of the Game honors with what was essentially a joke appearance in the ninth inning. This is not to deflect the spotlight from our hitting or fielding: we sucked at EVERYTHING. For instance, this route taken by Vinnie Martini on a routine fly ball to right field:





Other complaints: Stonehouse bringing a pitcher of margaritas onto the field; Rob Spector having about as much luck as that park ranger who got struck by lightning seven times; the Dealers falling behind in the standings to the Richmond Cleaners, who don't seem to care at all. Now, on to the positive:

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Vinnie. Really. He had good at-bats, and his pitching experiment taught us all to feel joy again.

1997 FULLY LOADED DODGE VIPER ORIGINAL OWNER DRIVE OF THE GAME: Chris is starting to make extraordinary accomplishments look mundane, as he parked yet another home run out of Potrero Field in the bottom of the 7th. If we don't make the playoffs, at least we got to see a lot of moon shots this year.

Honorable Mention: Justin Flowers with the bases-clearing 3-RBI triple/near home run in the bottom of the sixth. Not only is he our Cy Young; he might also be our Adam Dunn.  

PLAY OF THE GAME:  Will Cornyn cutting off a tough chopper to the 5.5 hole and then calmly firing one of his trademark 120-foot fastballs to first base to nail some dude. I remember myself and umpire Ray both saying, "whoa."

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Eric Rosen (three hits)

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I BEAT MY FACE AGAINST MY KEYBOARD: IUUHFRIOUW208G42998GR599GELSPSJKLWPWPLJP4OIVCTFXSEAasrdf

STATS!



 

Sunset Blueballs: Dealers 14, Nobles 13 (pp'd)

RECAP: Riding a three-game winning streak with visions of the playoffs flickering in our chemically imbalanced heads, we traveled to the cold and dark environs of Crocker Amazon last Wednesday to try to dispatch the Sunset Nobles, a respectable-but-not-particularly-terrifying baseball team. I, like many of us, thought we were going to win. We had momentum, and delusional self-belief; they had customized hoodies from Zazzle.com. Alas, our pitcher (I use the term "pitcher" in the 19th-century sense, when teams carried only one pitcher, because face it, that's our situation) was off his game, and we were in a 12-2 hole after four innings. The Nobles drew several walks with the aid of a thoroughly ungenerous home plate umpire, and also got key hits from the likes of Dave "Frodo" Gardner and Shane "Lil C" Crosby (twitter.com/lilcmurder44), which left us all feeling confused and miserable. But then...WE RALLIED. Taking advantage of the parsimonious strike zone, we chipped away at the hard-throwing but oft-wild Bill Sandberg, and with some bad Nobles defense and a monstrous night at the plate from Crizzle Puff Adams, we came all the way back (and then some) to make it 13-12 in the 7th. The Nobles tied it in the bottom of that frame with an RBI single by Craig "Lumber Pimp" Matoes, but we reclaimed the lead in the top of the 8th when Crizzle doubled off of Dave "Pippin" Gardner and then scored on an error. We had the bases loaded with one out and Justin "Three True Outcomes" Flowers at the plate, but then the fucking lights went out.

All you see is this, and all you feel is

Crizzle's heavy breath on your neck. Then

Will steals your wallet, and the next morning

you're pregnant with Spoon's child.

 

Because the game was tied at the end of the last completed inning, it's a suspended game that may or may not be completed, depending on possible playoff ramifications and however many people share the fundamental belief that THERE ARE NO FUCKING TIES IN BASEBALL. We'll see. I hate night games.

 

PLAYER OF THE GAME: CRIZZ

Google Image result for "Chris Adams"

 

Five hits, four RBIs, and what might have been the winning run if God didn't hate us as much as He apparently does. I tend to play badly in night games. My eyes have weakened irreparably after almost two decades of squinting at computer screens, and I don't see the ball well. Crizzle has no such problem, because he spends his nights tracking and eating small nocturnal animals.

 

PLAY OF THE GAME: MICKEY THOMS, unhappily relegated to the outfield, rushing in on a shallow fly ball with the bases loaded and one out, making an obscene diving catch, and then firing it in to third base to double off the runner. God, that was cool. Let's make this blog even gayer, as if that was possible:

 



 

DRIVE OF THE GAME: Eric Rosen's beeeyootiful 2-RBI line drive in the bottom of the fifth that sailed just over the shortstop's glove, capping off a six-run rally that elevated us from "dejected losers" to "manic fantasists."

Queens.





 

QUOTE OF THE GAME: "A good compromise is when both parties are dissatisfied"-Henry Clay

 

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Mickey Thoms

CHAD GAUDIN, HIGH ON BATH SALTS, SAWS SELIG'S HEAD OFF, FACES POSSIBLE LIFETIME BAN

Not really, but I have fantasies of turning this place into the next Deadspin. In preparation for our game against notorious gopherballers The Sunset Nobles, watch and study this compilation of stylish Japanese bat flips. Then devise your own!

WELCOME TO THE SPECIAL SUNSET NOBLES EDITION. MAY OUR TWO GREAT ORGANIZATIONS ALWAYS COEXIST IN HARMONY AND PROSPERITY. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BUY SOME DICK PILLS?

RECAP: Every boy dreams of playing for the Sunset Nobles. I remember lying awake in my Lisa Frank-themed bed at home in Menlo Park in the early '90s with a '50s-era transistor radio in my ear, listening to pirate broadcasts of Nobles games. To someday share a dugout with this cast of characters and soak up the dense pop culture references of a Dave Gardner, or the abstruse political-insider knowledge of an Adrian Covert, or even just to surreptitiously stare at Charlie Ansanelli's body... I knew it was a pipe dream, and I would often shed a single tear, which would roll down my cheek and onto my pillowcase, which depicted a neon pink unicorn frolicking on a tropical beach.

So naturally, when I got the call from Dave Gardner some two decades later that the Nobles were short a guy and needed me to fill in for them against the 29ers, I screamed, threw the phone across the room, and spent the next few hours flapping my hands rapidly while jumping up and down. It was all coming true. 24 hours after that fateful phone call, I was at Potrero Hill Rec, encased in a snug #66 David Gardner alternate jersey, ready to take right field for the honest-to-God Sunset Nobles.

Of course, the game turned out to be a thriller. The 29ers put up an early lead, which is sort of like reporting "the sun came up that morning," but Craig Matoes settled down and held them in check until the fourth, when we finally got to the 29ers' Dodger-hatted pitcher, Ryan Gantz. I had been told the night before by an unreliable source within the 29er organization that Louie would be starting because Gantz was on some sort of cross-country traveling meth binge with his floozy girlfriend, but  this turned out to be false intelligence. Anyway, Ryan started walking guys in the fourth, probably because of my intimidating presence, and eventually was replaced by Louie, who also walked some guys, and gave up some key hits. To be honest, my memory of our rally or the game in general is not exactly photographic. Before the game I had gotten about two hours of sleep on Ray's floor, and it was not quality sleep; more like a "vodka coma." Anyway, what I do remember is that by the middle of the fifth, we had roared ahead to a 9-5 lead, and it looked like we were actually going to beat the 29ers (the self-labeled "Friendly Neighborhood Juggernauts" BARF). I was feeling confident in my new teammates, and the 29ers kind of looked like shit. By their own standards. By league standards, they looked "average to above-average." We were up 9-6 in the sixth when (of course this happened) Mike from the 29ers hit a 400-foot, three-run home run that landed in a palm tree. I like Mike; he's a really nice guy, but he has the physical presence of a man who'd sew your ass to your face outside of a TSOL concert. I really feared and hated him at that moment. That shit pretty much killed our mojo. The 29ers gouged out additional runs in the seventh and eighth, Louie kept us contained for the rest of the game, and we dropped it, 11-9. God DAMMIT I would have loved to win. A Noble win actually would have been bad for the Dealers and our playoff chances, but what can I say, you guys won my heart. For a little while. It'll clear up by August 14th.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Bill Fucking Sandberg. Other possible nicknames: Bill "Backhand" Sandberg, Bill "Skyy" Sandberg, Ol' Blue Eyes, Bill Iceberg, Willie Soft Hands, The Sunset Strangler, Mr. Showmanship, The Plague.

He had three hits and he put on a goddamn CLINIC at shortstop. Spearing one-hoppers backhanded, ranging out to shallow left for tricky windblown popups...throwing the ball to first in a timely and accurate manner. Sorry, sometimes I run out of baseball terminology. Sandberg was awesome.

DRIVE OF THE GAME: Kind of fucked up to award it to yourself, but the Noble hit I remember most clearly was my opposite-field liner with the bases loaded to knock in two runs and give us the lead. I really hope I'm not forgetting a Dave Gardner home run or something.

PLAY OF THE GAME: I've already mentioned Sandberg's obscene shortstoppage skills, so I'd like to give a shout-out to Charlie Ansanelli's frightening ability to teleport across vast swaths of outfield. There were two hilarious incidents: The fly ball to center that Charlie ran over and caught even though he was playing left, and the bomb that Louie hit over my head in right that he came heartbreakingly close to catching. Ansanelli's combination of size and speed is nonsensical and Bo Jacksonesque. I should also probably mention Craig "I Don't Slide" Matoes bumping into Brandon "Lunchbox" Smith at home plate, eliciting a reaction from the 29ers that at first I thought was absurdly overblown, but now realize was legitimate, because Craig has clearly been trying to murder Brandon all season. I mean, look, we've all thought about it. Craig's just been the only one who's dangerously amoral enough to try it. The man smokes Havana Ovals. He's probably iced more people than Vasili Blokhin.

I also liked Shane Crosby playing "Baby Got Back" as a rally song.

 

THANK YOU FOR LETTING ME PLAY AND FOR VISITING MY BLOG.

I LIKE MONEY.

Dealers...EXPLODE! Mission St. 22, Richmond Cleaners 14

RECAP: The 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks were a team of mostly unremarkable, half-competent journeymen who rode two dominant, possibly steroid-enhanced pitchers all the way to a championship, in front of a fanbase that probably consisted of tweakers and racists.

 

Not pictured: Jeremy, Matt

 

The 2013 Cleaners are trying to pull of the same feat, but their little house of cards is starting to quaver and collapse. Today, their overworked starter lasted only four innings before we torched their weak bullpen for 18 runs. A lot of the "torching" involved standing calmly in the batter's box while their pitchers failed to throw strikes, but that's nothing to be ashamed of. We just scored one of our biggest victories of the year. We are now only a half-game out of the playoff picture. Time to start believing, my little atheists.

 

 

Left, flashing the victory sign: Mickey Thoms. Right: Jeremy from the

Cleaners, wondering where it all went wrong.

 



 



PLAYER OF THE GAME: This one's difficult. You guys were brilliant today. Mickey "Mouse" Thoms reached base five times. Will, Eric, and Spoon, four. The unlucky Rob "Robbed" Spector played a great 2B and padded his league-leading total in the "hard-hit outs to CF" category. Gomez was a fucking beast, obviously. We'll get to him later. But for sheer grittiness and comprehensive baseball success, it's gotta be the skipper, John Paul Segura.

 

 

Second from left, 1987

 











Three hits, two walks, FOUR RBI,  a respectable (and absolutely necessary) pitching performance that was marred only by cheap wind-aided bloop hits and a tight strike zone from the umpire, and a GORGEOUS diving catch in RF that will be honored shortly. The guy's amazing. This one's for you, John:

 



RUSSELL PHILLIPS DRIVE OF THE GAME: In the top of the 6th, Jeremy from the Cleaners hit a deep drive that somehow landed *on top* of the chainlink outfield fence at Potrero and then bounced over for a home run. Then, in the bottom of the frame, our Andrew Gomez did the exact same thing. Is that possible? Did I hallucinate it? Fuck it, who cares? Gomez hit a ball out of Potrero, and it was a spectacular momentum-shifter. He now has four home runs on the year, which has got to be some kind of league record. 

Shortly after Andrew Gomez joined the team, and I realized we

were both dysfunctional children of mass media, we devised a

home run celebration based on the ending of  Terminator 2. You

hit a home run, then pretend to sink into a pool of molten

steel while giving a thumbs-up. Nobody got it.

 

PLAY OF THE GAME: John Segura's FULL-EXTENSION DIVING CATCH on a slicing liner to RF. Obviously. If you saw it...you came.

 

Honorable mentions: Mickey Thoms's bullseye relay from Spoon to nail Boof at third base in the 6th; Andrew Gomez to Sam Bull for the seldom-seen 3-2 double play in the 3rd.

 

QUOTE OF THE GAME: "Hello, hello, I'm back again"-Gary Glitter

 

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Mickey Thoms

 

STATS

 

 

 

 

 



 









Dealers 7, Brians 6: "I Didn't Come Here to Fucking Umpire"

RECAP: The DC Brians are a scary team who were bullied for a long time but have recently been asserting themselves, like that boy in Taft who brought a shotgun to his high school. This was a must-win game for us (they pretty much all are at this point); our "BACKS WERE AGAINST THE WALL," to use an insufferable sports cliché (have any of you guys actually been in a back-alley street fight situation where your back was against a wall? Cornyn, put your hand down), and like men of true grit and character, which most of us aren't, we came back from an early deficit to pull off a hair-raising 7-6 win. We had a sloppy first inning, which shouldn't surprise us anymore, and I think it was 4-0 in something like the fourth inning when we mounted a kickass rally for three runs. Then (this is the beauty part) we continued to score in the subsequent innings. Calm, collected, smart, nobody trying to murder the ball (well Crizzle was, but asking him not to murder things is like asking John to lay off the internet porn); just stringing together walks, base hits, and even the occasional extra base on a bad pickoff throw (thank you, yes I do run like the majestic springbok). So it was 7-4 going into the 9th, and I think we all foolishly expected the door to slam shut uneventfully, but, uh, it didn't. Did I mention, for those of you who weren't there, that the Brians failed to bring an umpire, so the team at bat umpired themselves for the entire game? It SUCKED. The Brians staged a weird rally, aided by the officiating of THEMSELVES, to make it 7-6 with the bases loaded and only one out. At this point I was already thinking about how to rig a rubber tube from the exhaust pipe of Gomez's Rav4 to my mouth for a quick 'n' painless death. We drew the infield in and agreed to go to home in the event of a ground ball. Of course, we forgot we had a wild card on our team.

Batting 6th and playing third base

 

The Brians' leadoff hitter (Vinny, definitely not the slowest guy on that team) hit a chopper to Will at 3rd, and while everyone's stomachs simultaneously fell out of their asses, Will stepped on third and whipped a 105-mph fastball to first base for a GAME-ENDING DOUBLE PLAY. A small child was umpiring for the Brians at the time (it was that kind of day) and he incorrectly called Vinny safe, but we just walked off the field like dicks. NO REGRETS. TWO-GAME WINNING STREAK, BITCHES

 

PLAYER OF THE GAME: You.      

   You

 

It seemed weak and unimaginative to give it to Flowers for three weeks in a row, so I'm going to use this section to honor the whole team. Everyone contributed today. Cornyn made the play of (possibly) the year. Jimmy had a crucial RBI smash. Rosen was an absolutely top-flight postgame drinking buddy, dispatching avuncular advice and encouragement in my efforts to get laid (none of it worked). Gomez had that awesome broken-bat single; rest in peace, axe bat. You were too beautiful and avant-garde for this world. Crizzle made an improbable, extremely athletic running catch on a tailing fly ball to the left-center gap. Spoon built our confidence and made us feel loved by spooning with each of us individually before the game, and Toesy is just fucking CUTE, there's no other way to say it. Have you seen how much that dog loves him? Sammy whimpers heartbreakingly whenever Toesy wanders more than five feet away from him. (The dog does the same thing.)

 

Oh and John didn't even get to play, but he showed up at the end of the game and took it upon himself to listen to the Brians' complaints about the umpiring controversy. He is the most selfless guy around. WE LOVE YOU SKIP. Thank you for telling me about that website.

 

AL COWLINGS DRIVE OF THE GAME: Flowers helping himself out with a bases-loaded opposite-field line drive, knocking in two huge runs (to put us ahead I think?) Look at this vision of  loveliness:

  

Photo stolen from Elias Perez

 

PLAY OF THE GAME: Duh. After Cornyn made the play I charged straight towards him with my arms outstretched and for the first time, I saw primal fear in his eyes. He ended up escaping into the dugout.

 

 

 

STUPID CONTROVERSY OF THE GAME: Yeah, yeah, "respect the umpire." When you find one, we'll respect him.

 

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Toesy

 

 

STATS WILL BE A LITTLE LATE BUT YOU'RE USED TO THAT

 

NEXT: SUNDAY, AUGUST 4TH VS. CLEANERS (HOME GAME)

 

 

DENNIS FARINA 1944-2013







 











 













STATS FOR YOU HEP CATS

My next goal is pitching stats, then maybe fielding stats, then who knows. Hat sizes? SAT scores? Total Liver Cells Destroyed? (I win.) Sorry the run column at the end is so fucked up-looking, it's a long story.

 

Team totals:



ST. MARY'S, WHERE WINGS TAKE DREAM: KOOKY AND UNPRECEDENTED MISSION ST. DEALERS VICTORY EDITION: WE BEAT THE NEWS 8-0 AND THEN I TOUCHED BOOBS

RECAP: Anemic. Feeble. Broken. Despairing. Disconsolate. Cirrhotic. Incompetent. Sexually undesirable. Pick your description of the Mission Street Dealers at the All-Star Break. I was lurching through my so-called "life" in an anguished, alcoholic fugue state, moaning and bumping into furniture and writing cryptic insults to various 29ers like a bitterly neurotic but ultimately nonthreatening ghost. We hadn't won in nearly two months. Seven losses in a row, some of them to teams that could generously be described as "horrible." Facing the two-time defending champs on Saturday, I really kind of expected to eat shit again.

Then Flowers came down from the heavens and we kicked ass.

Study the background of this image for subtle symbolism

 

The first four innings comprised a tense pitcher's duel between our beloved,

eccentric, gaily-socked Southerner and the News' crafty, cerebral and oh shit this description of Brian Huey is already racist. It was a classic power-finesse matchup, like Clemens vs. Maddux, or Mike Tyson vs. Barbara Walters. The spiritual and psychological crux of the game occurred in the fifth inning: the News loaded the bases with no outs, but Flowers proceeded to strike out the next two batters on full counts (which was terrifying and exhilarating) and then got David Blanco to pop out harmlessly to Toesy at short. After that emotional victory we started to eke out some runs, while Flowers attained a fearlessly confident state of grace that sort of reminded me of Keanu at the end of the first Matrix when he figures out that he's The One. It was still close going into the bottom of the 8th, when the life force began to visibly ebb from Brian Huey and we pounced on him for five runs to make it 8-0. Flowers came back out and easily completed his 157-pitch, four-hit shutout, and we all sort of spazzed out like confused, overstimulated rabbits. "So, wait...We scored eight runs and they scored zero runs...and we just played nine innings...They're saying the game is over...Is there a word for this? I'm scared, man. Should we call the cops?"

 

 

This guy knew what to do.

 

PLAYER OF THE GAME: For the second week in a row, it's Justin Flowers, the best ballplayer to ever relocate from Leesburg, GA to San Francisco.

Fuck you



He was ON. Talking trash, shoving his fastball up Berkeley asses, twirling beautiful breaking balls that elicited little murmurs of admiration from ex-MLB pitcher Danny, and never losing his nerve no matter how hairy the situation. Speaking of hairy: body hair. He doesn't have any. He's like a dolphin wearing a blonde wig. I don't know why I felt the need to work that in here.



Honorable Mention: Newcomer Jimmy (aka "Evil Ray"), who we picked up on waivers from
the Beers and who proved to be absolutely crucial to our success. I'm going to go ahead and give him the Gold Glove of the Game for his involvement in two beautiful double plays (Mickey Thoms, I love you too) and for that popup to no-man's land in shallow center that he somehow ended up catching. He had a big RBI base hit, he smokes Pall Malls, and he has a palpable aura of danger that some unstable women find irresistible.



1955 LE MANS DRIVE OF THE GAME: In the eighth, local huge person and all-around standup guy Andrew Gomez walloped an RBI double over the left-fielder's head for our only real-deal power hit of the game. I was on first base and I wanted to score for Gomez and give him the extra ribeye, but the 180-foot journey from first to third ended up taking me longer than it took that Nazi to walk across Tibet. At one point I think I was actually moving backwards. Sorry, man.




BASERUNNING EXTRAVAGANZA OF THE GAME: Will Cornyn scoring from first on a
GROUNDOUT. Talk about taking the game into your own hands. Also, I am fascinated by the way Will moves. When he runs I always think of the 1929 animated Disney short "Skeleton Dance."

Cornyn family reunion



MOM OF THE GAME: Lana Volk bringing snacks and that kickass futuristic cooler full of beer and non-beer refreshments. (What did we do to deserve this? You think anybody brings treats for the Nobles? No. Nobody loves them.) As always, she kept an immaculate scorebook for us, and if that wasn't enough, she can point you in the right direction if you ever need a good, reasonably-priced hotel room in Norway.





QUOTE OF THE GAME: An oldie but a goodie: "He looks like a monkey trying to fuck a football"-Flowers watching Sam Bull struggle to put on shin guards for the first time. Later re-used when he accidentally walked in on me and a lady friend in the storage room at the Knockout




LEAST VALUABLE PLAYER: Chris "Jennifer" Adams scoring a hat trick of strikeouts with his unhinged Mark Reynoldsian/Adam Dunnish style of swinging as hard as humanly possible no
matter the count. Crizzle attacks baseballs like those mobsters attacked Joe Pesci's head in the cornfield scene in Casino. Can you imagine Crizzle's lovemaking style? Thirty seconds of terrifying, frenetic pounding and then all you're left with is a crushed pelvis and screamed fuckwords ringing in your ears

From L-R: Crizzle, Sam Bull, Toesy, Mark Moss

after they read this blog entry

 



MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Spoon. He doesn't get enough attention on this blog. I guess because he just quietly gets the job done in an upright way that doesn't lend itself to mockery. Hon. mentions: Sammy (dog), Mark Moss


ALSO: TIM FUCKING LINCECUM. Yeah, that was a perfect day.

ENJOY YOUR BYE WEEK BOYOS

 

STATS WILL BE COMPLETED AND POSTED

BY TUES. NIGHT