- 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.
