Home of the O-fers!

As usual, the quick update first. We scored three in the top of the first, basically allowed Keller Williams to score nine in response, then we dropped an 18-run bomb on them in the second inning … and that was that. The final was 33-12 in four innings.

Rick Jackson did his “Charlie Brown kicking the football” impression, except it wasn’t a football, it was second base. And instead of Lucy pulling the ball away at the last second, it was the base just sitting there all innocent, minding its own business. You know what they say: It’s the quiet bases you gotta watch.

July 3rd, 2009 | Category: Uncategorized |  Print This Post | Leave a comment

            1   2   3   4   5   6   7    R
Pita Pit    3   4   3   7   3   0   6   26
O-fers      3   1   2   6   0   1   2   15

To rephrase John Wayne, “Thirteen errors don’t get it done, Dude.” Alas, the faint hopes for running the table in the Silver Division on Thursday night faded, despite the score above, more with a whimper than with a crunch.

I think it was a simple case of the “tights.” If you look closely, you could see it each of the two previous weeks as well. As we reached 6-0 in league, everyone started doing things just a little differently, not wanting to be the player who caused the unbeaten streak to end. We got by the Mullan boys and squeaked past the Banditos, even though they outplayed us on the offensive side. The atmosphere just felt different against Pita Pit, and it didn’t take long before we collapsed under our own weight.

A few observations:

1. Their shortstop sure can hit. Three home runs, each of them a no-doubter. Yikes! I hate to call for intentional walks most of the time — people show up to hit — but maybe we can get him to fish after ball four next time.

2. Of all the O-fers, I most expected Gary Beck to have a good game. He didn’t disappoint. OK, so he was 1-for-3, but he reached on error once, and we all thought his shot to left field was going to split their outfielders. He could have easily been 3-for-3, and he did make all the plays he needed to make in right field.

If it’s an important game, Beck shows up to play.

3. We’ve known since spring practices that our defense is a collection of duct tape and rubber bands. We’re short on range, for the most part, and too many guys are stretched to fill their defensive slots. Sometimes we just don’t have enough tape. This was one of those times.

4. The hitting wasn’t bad. Fifteen runs is enough to win most of the time. Every inning they hit, we hit back. We didn’t keep up because we couldn’t overcome their offense plus our own defense.

Defensive Play of the Game: The only thing that stands out is Shawn Pearson’s dive at third base to stop a ball, followed by a race to the bag for the force out.

Offensive Play of the Game: Gosh, I guess we have to finally (!) give Art Wright some credit. In the first inning, when the outcome was still in doubt, Art lifted a triple over the right fielder to score two runs and give us an early 3-3 tie. That was as close as we would get to victory in the contest. Art incidentally was 3-for-4 to break a horrible streak that has lasted since birth.

June 26th, 2009 | Tags: O-fers, softball league, ugly loss | Category: League, O-fers, Softball |  Print This Post | Comments (8)

            1   2   3   4   5   6   7    R
Banditos    2   6   2   1   1   2   0   14
O-fers      7   3   1   0   0   2   2   15

Sneaky buggers, them Masked Banditos. So sneaky, in fact, that they didn’t have masks, nor did their shirts say “Banditos.” But they definitely caught us unprepared, and if not for some late-inning heroics again, we would have fallen from the ranks of the undefeated.

Our defense was sound, only being charged with one error. It was fortuitous that the Masked Banditos made several more errors than we did, mainly throwing errors, because our offense was downright cold. This is perhaps a disturbing trend (or perhaps not, but I’m gonna note it anyway) in that the top of the lineup shut off for the middle innings.

Plus we said nasty words a lot.

Shawn Pearson, who got picked off base once against Reality Design the week before, was picked off twice in this game and caused another out by interfering with the catcher, or so the catcher said and the young umpire agreed. In fact, this game qualifies as a Guyver Game* for Pearson: 2-for-4 with five total outs, so a net negative 1.

* A Guyver Game is defined as a stat line that includes more total outs than plate appearances. That means it would have been better for the player to strike out every time up than actually swing the bat. The term was coined in 1995, when Guyver batted three times in one game for the Bad Boyz. He hit into two double plays, and hit a single on his third at-bat but was called out for throwing the bat. Three at-bats, a total stat line of 1-for-3 but with five outs created, so he was basically minus-2-for-5.

Do not confuse this with a Black Game, in which a player talks trash and says he was “6-for-4″ or some other balderdash.

Offensive Play of the Game: For once, I’m giving credit to Bryan Sullivan, who scored Mike Black in the bottom of the seventh to tie the game. Defensive Play of the Game: Gary Beck gets the nod in this one for a nice running catch of a fly ball that could have caused bad things had it fallen.

Corey Morrison (9-5) picked up the victory after replacing Bobo on the mound in the second inning.

This week, we’ll have our toughest test yet. We face Pita Pit, which has lost only one game, at 7:20 p.m. on Ramsey 2.

June 18th, 2009 | Tags: O-fers, softball league | Category: League, O-fers, Softball |  Print This Post | Comments (6)

You want stats? You get stats.

Behind the jump are the all-time ranks for current O-fers in career hits (with their number of hits in parentheses). I was going to post the career batting averages, but it got depressing so I had to stop. Let’s just say that although the O-fers have many body types, from “round” to “rounder,” most of them hit exactly the damn same.

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June 16th, 2009 | Tags: O-fers, softball career, Statistics | Category: O-fers, Softball, Statistics |  Print This Post | Comments (7)

We interrupt your regularly scheduled stat update to bring you the following league news:

Because some of you fonkers have been fonking talking shnit in front of the fonking spectators and little fonking brats, Coeur d’Alene has decided to start enforcing the fonking profanity rule.

Steve Anthony sent out the rule on Friday. If you say “fonk” or “shnit” (or I suppose “daym” and “icehole” too) in a way that’s audible to the spectators, get this … the fonking umpires are going to call the next hitter fonking out! This could cost us 15 outs a fonken game.

The rules say that a game can end on a profanity out, by the way.

What about “cawk”? Can we say “cawk”? What if I’m talking about cawkfighting or cawking my bathroom? Or if I’m talking about the “Sopranos” and how I really liked that one character, what was his name? Oh yeah, “Big Poosy.” Is it OK to admire the acting skill of the man who portrayed “Big Poosy”?

Fonken ridiculous.

June 14th, 2009 | Tags: Coeur d'Alene league, profanity, Softball | Category: League, Softball |  Print This Post | Comments (5)

            1   2   3   4   5   6   7    R
Reality     3   0   5   2   2   x   x   12
O-fers      4   9   0   0   9   x   x   22

Art got a hit! Make it two hits! He even caught one out of two throws to him at second base. That’s the kind of magical night it was all around.

The O-fers pulled away from Reality Design (or, as we know them better, the “Mullan boys”) to end this game in five innings, 22-12. That made our first-half league mark of 7-0 all the more sweet, because, let’s face it, we’ve had our problems against the Mullan boys in the past.

It could have been one of those nights here too. Although we went up 13-3 after two innings, our offense went cold just as theirs went hot. By the time we batted in the bottom of the fifth, our lead had shrunk to a single run. Little did we know that we were about to drop another nine-spot on them to close the deal.

Ron Sullivan got the game-ending hit, a two-run single to left field with two outs.

June 11th, 2009 | Tags: O-fers, softball league | Category: League, O-fers, Softball |  Print This Post | Comments (2)

First, we’ve got to say thanks to Gregg McCoy for hosting the Bomb’s Away tournament in Moscow the last weekend in May, and to Jake Vick and Rally Time Sports for an equally fun tournament in Coeur d’Alene this past weekend. The O-fers didn’t do as well in either tourney as we’d hope (how often do we?), but I think the brackets were about as fair as they can be made. These are two tournaments I’m definitely looking forward to repeating next year. Kudos to both organizers for helping to resuscitate adult softball in North Idaho.

The O-fers showed our mettle in the third game of the Rally Time tournament against JP’s Team. Leaning over the edge into the raw abyss of elimination (Web-writing Pulitzer, here I come!), down nine runs in the bottom of the sixth … just one run away from a mercy-rule loss … we actually had to intentionally walk a hitter to load the bases with one out and hope for either a forceout at home plate or a double-play grounder.

For once, we got the forceout, Randy Ashby at second to Dale Way at home. The next batter flew out to Bobo in right center. Like in “Rocky” when the fighters leave their corners for the 12th round, there was a minor bit of pride just in finishing the fight.

What a finish it was. Going into the final inning down nine, we sent 13 O-fers to the plate and scored seven runs. We stood at the other edge before it was over, the edge of shocking a small corner of the world, with the tying run at second base and the go-ahead run at first. It didn’t go any farther, but in a contest where the other team hit the hell out of the ball for six innings, to be so close at the end didn’t feel like a loss. Not much, anyway.

Shawn Pearson put his finger on it perfectly while we were doing the postmortem in the parking lot. (Absolutely no beer was involved in the parking lot postmortem. None whatsoever.) When we play loose and have a good time, picking fun at each other from beginning to end, we play a lot better. When we pay attention to the other team beyond the scouting reports, when we pucker up, when we care too much about the win or what the other team is thinking, that’s when we stop having fun … and stop playing well.

Once again, our team showed its heart in that final game Saturday. Thanks.

Cue ominous music. This week in league, we face Toby Flood and the Mullan boys. How’s it gonna be?

June 9th, 2009 | Tags: attitude, O-fers, softball tournament | Category: O-fers, Softball |  Print This Post | Comments (2)

            1   2   3   4   5   6   7    R
Smalls      2   5   0   0   1   3   1   12
O-fers      2   4   1   1   0   2   3   13

            1   2   3   4   5   6   7    R
Pacific NW  0   2   0   2   x   x   x    4
O-fers      6   1   6   6   x   x   x   19

Subsection 3, paragraph (c) of the Ballplayer’s Guide to Motivation states: “In the event of a dramatic walkoff victory, the winning team shall immediately steamroll the next team it plays, provided the next game takes place on the same field on the same night within 15 minutes of the first game.”

Paragraph (d) states simply, “Or not,” but in this case it actually happened! Awesome!

The hero of the first game was none other than Dave “Mookie” Hunt, who had returned from a steroid suspension slash salary holdout to start only his second game of the season for the O-fers. Diving catches in the outfield! Three hits plus a walk! Lots of exclamation points!!!

The team needed two runs to tie in the bottom of the seventh. After the stupid coach made the first out, Shawn Pearson — who has gone from Mister Inch to Captain Cripple in less than a week — singled to left center. Duane Miller ran for Shawn.

Bobo made the second out on a fly ball. Rick Jackson and Mike Lawley singled to right center, loading the bases for Gary Beck.

But no! Hope was still alive and kicking in the trunk of Corey’s car! Beck singled to left center, driving in a run, and the tying run scored on an error. Lawley and Beck both advanced, bringing up Steve Schmidt, Lord of Second Base.

Smalls wanted no part of the Lord, so they walked him intentionally to bring up Hunt with the bases loaded. Dave sat on the outside pitch and lined it to right field for a base hit and a very exciting 13-12 O-fers victory.

The second game was anticlimactic in the sense that it was really quite boring. Pacific NW Painting was the team that was roaring back against us a couple weeks ago when Scotty Morgan got hurt in the outfield. But they didn’t have Legasa pitching this time, and their hurler had a really rough time of it, walking 10 O-fers.

Robert Day pitched both games and won both, moving his record to 5-2 on the season. He also gets Offensive Play of the Game for his inside-the-park homer to lead off the third inning. Defensive Play of the Game is harder to pick, since there just wasn’t much excitement. In a semirandom selection, let’s go with Rick Jackson’s catch of a line drive at second base in the second inning. Woot.

June 4th, 2009 | Tags: dramatic fashion, O-fers, softball league | Category: League, O-fers, Softball |  Print This Post | Comments (12)

All right, so the games didn’t go all that well. We got a look behind the curtain and saw that the Great and Powerful O-fers defense was not quite what was showing on the projector screen. (Good metaphor, eh?)

That doesn’t mean, however, that we didn’t have a good time or that we didn’t have some gameplay highlights, even with the bumps in the road. After the jump are some of the best photos of the tournament, taken of course by my lovely wife. (As always, photo pages may take time to load.)

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May 31st, 2009 | Tags: Bomb's Away, O-fers, softball tournament | Category: O-fers, Softball, Tournament |  Print This Post | Comments (3)