The Agony, The Ecstasy, The Entropy: Dropkick Murphys 20, Mission Street Dealers 13 (Special Vincent Martini Edition)

RECAP: Where do we start with this one? That game made no sense. It was David Lynchian. I think I hallucinated it. The last time I experienced such a wide gamut of emotions was in September of 2001, when Barry Bonds broke the single-season home run record, my cat died, terrorists blew up the Empire State Building, and I lost my virginity to Barry Bonds. I'm sayin: it was bittersweet. A lot of you were heroes today, Dealers. Perhaps in the same way that there were a lot of heroes on 9/11, or during the sinking of the Titanic, but the point is: we are better people than the Cleaners.

We fell into an 8-0 hole against a competent pitcher who upheld the unfortunate Cleaner tradition of tucking one's t-shirt into one's pants, then clawed our way back like amazing sexy lions to take an 11-8 lead. It was 13-10 Dealers going into the ninth, and then a bunch of stuff happened that I've been trying to destroy my frontal lobe with alcohol in order to forget. I do remember seeing a hawk. A beautiful, majestic hawk that swooped across the field and took a shit on my head. Literally, this happened. I was checking my phone at the time, in left field, in between batters, and while most of it landed on my Giants hat, some of its spiteful grayish-brown shit splattered onto the screen of my BlackBerry. I'm typing this into that same BlackBerry right now, and there's still a crusty stain on it. I hate the Cleaners.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:  Yeah, it was Vinnie. He reached base in every at-bat. I don't know what else to say. Vinnie is a simple man who enjoys the good things in life: Andrew McCutchen, amyl nitrate, bunting, his girlfriend, and orange-shirted suburban jocks who try to throw 80-mph fastballs by him.

Honorable Mention: John and Vinnie brought a polite and gracious young man named Rob to help fill out our lineup today, and despite his unassuming manner, he turned out to be a fucking BEAST. Got on base about a hundred times in six at-bats, and played some serious lockdown defense at 2B. I've seen grotesquely muscled jocks who played high school baseball for the Serra Padres who didn't do nearly as well as Rob in their PCHL debuts. He's on some Robert Redford Natural shit.

Mention Honorable Deux: Pitcher John Segura rising to the occasion and keeping us in the game for seven-plus gutsy innings, throwing at least 150 pitches then going home to raise his daughters. HE IS A MAN

FIAT DRIVE OF THE GAME: A certain impish Italian-American ripping an RBI single to center on an 0-2 fastball from one of Boof's demonic menagerie of hard-throwing ringers. I like Vinnie.

DEFENSIVE PLAY OF THE GAME:  Rob spearing a line drive at second to deliver us from the horrific purgatory that was the top of the 9th inning.

Honorable defensive mentions: Will Cornyn was damn solid at 3B as per usual (are third basemen usually seven feet tall? He's such a delightful anomaly) and Julian (another long-bodied alien from Planet Supermodel) played a graceful outfield. I am drunk.

QUOTE OF THE GAME:  "Come on Mickey, come on Mickey"-Virgil, incorrectly identifying Will Cornyn

MARK MOSS OF THE GAME: Julian Elorduy

STATS