SoftBalling.comWell, it’s early on Wednesday but the odds do not look good.
“And I wonder, still I wonder…… who’ll stop the rain?”
To be honest, I’d prefer not to start the season against these lamos. What we need is a warm up game against St. Peters or some team of that caliber. Not world beaters but someone to remind us that we need to turn it on. I guess time will tell if we get this 9:30 game in. If not, that’s just one more game where we’ll have Don (and possibly Matt) back in the lineup.
In terms of our games tonight, I’m offering these thoughts.
1) We just played TopCo last week and beat them. We didn’t beat them by much but also didn’t play amazingly either. While we can’t let them hang with us, I don’t see too much problem sending them home for the winter.
2) Our second game would be against arch-rival 1st place Ski Unit. We all know how lame these guys are, despite being young and fairly good. We hung with them last game (we were winning for a while) but we caved somewhere around the 4th and the floodgates just opened. Here are my comments from right after the game.
Unfortunately, we got slammed, 9-2. We were winning 1-0, they tied it at 1, we went up 2-1, then they went up 3-2. In the last two innings, they poured in 6 unanswered runs and we all went home very grumpy.
The good: We scored our runs being aggressive; Sean and Lee both scored on sacrifice flies from Second base and went home on overthrows. That’s the kind of thing winning teams do. We also played well defensively. Molly and Sean made very good throws on the infield and Don and Lee had good plays in the outfield. I don’t believe they hit anything too monumental far.
The bad: Walks were still a big deal. I’m guessing here but probably four or five of their runs walked their way onto the bases. We did a little throwing the ball around defensively also but, more than anything, lack of hits. I didn’t keep track but I think we may have had 4 hits on the night and maybe two walks of our own. they scored almost double our total baserunners, which is obviously no recipe for success.
Bottom line now is we need to win the rest of our three games to go .500 and have a chance at playing in the playoffs.
The good news is they’re all highly irascible and will fold like lawn chairs if we jump out to a lead. I’ll also add that we didn’t have Paul, Matt or Elisabeth for that game, which obviously left us a bit exposed. Not so for tonight.
After we take care of Ski Unit, we play the winner of the 50/50 and Paine/Wetzel game. We lost both of these games early in the season when we played at 9:30 without Molly and frankly, I still had a partially torn hammie. I’m feeling pretty damn good now so I see a clear path towards glory.
Lastly, if anyone is looking for inspiration, here’s the thread from the day after last year’s team won the championship.
http://softballing.com/bbs/index.php?topic=135.0
If you see the picture about halfway down, you’ll see a lot of those faces look familiar. We are the team that won last year by taking down the first place team 18-2.
In fact, with Molly and Elisabeth, I think you’d have to argue that we’ve improved personnel-wise since last year. We’re healthy, are obviously capable because we did it last year against several of the same teams (TopCo, Paine-Wetzel, etc) and we beat the best to be the best. We just have to do that a couple more times tonight and we bring home more hardware for our trophy cases.
let’s go BB!
Ok, so a lot has changed since I last updated. Previous to now, the latest post concerned a double header of makeup games against Team Beinveste (which we won) and Head First (which we almost won). I had been very excited for these games, as it seemed we were playing our best softball at just the right time, gearing up for the playoffs and making a run for the elusive summer league championship the following week.
Of course, things don’t always go as planned. As it turns out, I (miles) suffered a rather demoralizing (for myself, not the team) leg injury during the first half of the double header and was too frustrated to update the page with a post game breakdown or to upload the pics/video from those games or from the first round loss to Jerry’s Nuggets. It’s a shame because I took many good pictures during those games and I will try to sort through the footage I have and post them in the appropriate places.
On to the present though, as tonight is the scheduled start of the Fall 2008 Skokie League. After much discussion about abandoning Skokie for a city league, we find ourselves once again back on the North Shore to defend our Fall 2007 championship victory (as Spawn of Belvedere). The whole gang is pretty much back, although Don (who injured his shoulder late in the summer season) and I are still on the mend from softball pains and Paul is trying to shake off the effects of a recent car accident (thanks again to the drunken illegal who u-turned into Erin’s car on Labor Day!).
Shawn McGivern will suit up for us tonight in a rematch against Jerry’s Nuggets, who eliminated the 3 Seashells just a little over a month ago. That is, of course, if the threatening rainstorm doesn’t postpone it.
Regarding our team name, we have officially decided on Balki’s Ballers for this fall in an homage to the perfectly hilarious, Chicago based 80s sitcom, Perfect Strangers.
In other news, Balki’s Ballers will be sponsored by Paddy Mac’s, which is where we tried to get sponsored in the summer but it fell through.
Game time tonight is 6:30, and the lineup is as follows.
Lee (LCF)
Eve (1B)
Matt (RCF)
Elisabeth (LF)
Sean (SS)
Emilie (C)
Gary (P)
Christine (RF)
Miles (3B)
Lancy (2B)
Sitting: Paul (car accident related) and Don (shoulder)
How strange is it that the two rainout games were against the worst team and arguably the best team in the league? Up first is Team Beinveste, who sport a record of 1-6 with 18 runs scored versus 78 runs against. Both stats are absolute worst in the league. Game starts at 7 and I don’t believe we’ve played a team with this name before.
The second game is against Head First, who comes in with a record of 6-0-1 (pending last week’s regularly scheduled game vs. Ski Unit and a makeup game versus Shillelaghs) with 88 runs scored and 14 against. For comparisons sake, The Shells have scored 71 and let up 31. Other than the 11 we gave up in our stinker loss to Shillelaghs, we’ve given up 20. They’ve been even a little better than that.
The attendees of Saturday’s practice discussed a little strategy/gamesmanship for tonight’s game. Since we play the last place team while our next opponent is in the stands watching, we figured we’d mix it up a little bit in game 1 to maintain our powerful element of surprise (namely, lots of lefty hitters and strong fielders at key positions).
If Head First has a weak fielder (and I’m not sure they do. I’ve seen them and they’re very solid, especially on the infield and in LF), it’s probably going to be in RF. If we can jump on them with a bunch of long hits to RF in the early innings, preferably in the 1st inning, we can probably scratch across a few runs that might be harder to come by in the later innings after they adjust to the big swinging lefties. Putting a good team at an early deficit monumentally inflates the pressure they feel, especially if they’re not accustomed to trailing.
With this in mind, I think we need to load the righties in the top of the order for game 1 and lefties in the top of the order for game 2. Lee, Miles, Don and Paul. Hopefully, the surprise of right field hits will let us jump ahead quickly and push the game out of reach before they adjust and move a stronger fielder to RF. I’m even considering (and I’d ask the other lefties, if they’re brave enough and we’re winning by enough) hitting right handed in my last couple at-bats of game 1.
Ok, that’s it. long pre-game post… Let’s get these games on.
due to pouring rain…
boo…
This may sound like a broken record, but we have a game (a late one, 8:45) and again it is supposed to rain.
Tonight’s rival is Head First, who beat Digitus Medius in game two of the summer league playoffs last year. There are pictures from that game here and here’s a picture of their bench from that game.
If that weren’t incentive enough, they are also currently the 1st place team and have gone undefeated thus far. Here’s hoping we can induce a little punishment for last year and establish the tone for the upcoming playoffs.
So, yet again, our game is threatened by precipitation. It’s rained on and off downtown today but I’m told things are relatively dry in the suburbs.
Also, as mentioned in last game’s wrap-up, the Shells are playing shorthanded this week, as Matt, Lis, Lee, Molly and Emilie are all unavailable. So, in their stead, we have Sean and Zach as well as Jane and Stephanie. Having seen these guys in action, I have to say I think we did alright in the trade!
So, Game time is 7:55. I don’t know much about Smegheads except that, if their name means what has been suggested, it’s one of the more disgusting monikers I’ve come across in my lifetime. If the standings are any indication, (they sport a 1 and 4 record with 20 runs scored vs 55 against) they may have some trouble fielding the ball. It should be a good day to possibly try some new positions and experiment with the batting order.
Alright. See everyone at the park!
In week five, we find ourselves once again preparing to play under the threat of rain. The forecast is for T-storms. I’ll post anything regarding a rainout when I hear.
If we do play, we face another old adversary, Team Topco. We’ve played them for years (here’s a pre-game thread and a post-game thread from last fall) and they tend to keep them close.
The Seashells have a little something to prove after last week’s shellacking at the hands of Swingin’ Shillelaghs. There was little timely hitting, porous infield defense and too many walks from the mound. In response, the team chose not to practice but will report early to the ballpark for BP at the field across the street from Terminal.
In other news, Ken at Howard Street Inn has once again graciously agreed to sponsor our team. HSI sponsored both 2007 teams and enthusiastically offered to host the post-game revelries moving forward. It’s not the most convenient bar in the world and the menu is a little small, but they have great salads, food specials every night of the week and their outdoor patio seating is killer. Much thanks to them!
Lastly, I’d like to give a big welcome to Elisabeth, who’ll be joining the Seashells for the first time tonight. The addition of Elisabeth’s glove should help solidify our infielding and her bat will add the even quality to our lineup that’s been lacking since the unfortunate departure of Bridget Cooper.
This year’s bbs thread is here.
Ok, so we played this guys last summer and lost. Here’s the thread from that game.
From what I remember, they have that short dart-throwing Irish guy from the Village Inn as their pitcher and have solid fielding, slap-hitting girls from top to bottom of their order.
Here are all the pics from that game.
I also saw that they were the 2nd seed last summer (ahead of Digitus) but we’re upset in the playoffs before we got to play them.
If we continue hitting like we did at the end of last week’s game, I don’t see why this won’t be another victory. It’s going to be in the 50s so it might be a tough fielding and throwing day. We’ll need to capitalize on our offensive chances and do the best we can when they’re at bat.
The game thread for this year’s game is here and here’s a lineup, pending sharing a spot).
Some pics from the Closers game.
