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November 27th, 2007 THE DAWG PAC-Fall League 2008 Champions!

It has been a long time coming, that’s for sure! Last night, as the last fly ball of the evening found its way into Jeff’s glove, I was caught in an almost surreal moment of thought. The ball arced for what seemed to be an eternity as I watched Jeff adjust to the flight. The whole time the ball was in the air, I was playing Devil’s Advocate as I thought “Jeff should get that…but wait he is a bit gimpy now…no, that is well within his range… Crap! If he misses, they are going to go ahead…wait; he won’t miss…hold on…HE’S GOT IT! The Pac wins!” I am sure similar scenarios were played out in everyone’s heads as we watched Jeff close his glove on a magical season.

There are only kudos today. Sure, we made some mistakes, but Initech made more. Paul got us started with a hit to through the vacated Second-Base spot. We proceeded to bat around and scored ten runs before we got an out! Mark hit his first of two triples (way to go Mark) in that inning and I think we put fifteen batters to the plate. Gino pitched another gem of a game, walking only one batter and striking out two or three! His pitching kept them from driving the ball deep. We all hit well, and any slumps, mine included, seem to have been forgotten.

Defensively, we were as solid as ever! The outfield was battered and bruised, but managed to do a great job in keeping the ball in front of them. The infield play was tight. In all of the glad-handing and back-slapping last night, there was one person we neglected. Ritchie, who has had is share of bad games this season, had a stellar game. Climbing the ladder, diving for balls, very little got by him and when it did, his glove generally slowed the ball down.

Let us not forget our cheering section. Mike and Brad gave us moral support throughout the game. It would have been nice to have you guys dressed for the game, but we appreciate your presence in the dugout! _________________________________________________________________________________

November 20, 2007 Buh-bye Week How much fun was that? Not a rhetorical question, I want to know, HOW MUCH FUN WAS THAT? In an almost surreal atmosphere at Wilson Park last night, we really rook care of business! Before the superlatives, though, I have to bring up some negatives. There weren’t many, but there were enough. There was some really sloppy base running last night. Part of it was the fault of the base coaches. I am not saying it is everyone who coaches or just one person, but we really need to be aware of where the ball is going, the arm that is throwing and the speed of the people on the base paths. We also need to realize that with the new bat, there is absolutely no need to over-swing. Jeff’s dinger was a tutorial; a nice full swing, level through the hitting zone. He let the bat do the work, more on that in the next paragraph. There were a few miscues on the infield again last night. Luckily that did not come back to bite us. Outfield was pretty solid, the only miscue I can think of was Pat overrunning a ground ball. One note, though. I would be VERY hesitant to play guys “out of position” in the playoffs. We should not be hearing “Hey Larry, you wanna try third?” (Not that it was said last night) at this point. We all field our positions capably; let’s just play where we know we can.

Now for the good news! We are in the Championship Game! We executed really well last night. Timely and consistent hitting was the key to victory last night. Jeff’s homerun was epic. That is the only word I can use to describe it. Jeff was rounding second and the left fielder had not even caught up to it yet! The ball ended its flight by rolling up the hill in left! Jeff also had a double and a single to make for a good night at the plate. Gino…what can I say, a fantastic night on the mound. His pitching this season has been unbelievable. You have to catch him to really appreciate the movement on one of his pitches.

As for Killian’s, what can I say. I think it is time to say good-bye to the place that has been a home to us for several years. The service last night was terrible. The lack of entrees was deplorable. It almost seems as if they are hoping we don’t come back. I think we should talk to Brew Master Bob and see if we can talk him into staying open until eleven on Monday nights, if we can guarantee him a dollar figure. He wouldn’t necessarily have to keep the kitchen open, maybe he can just put out a small spread for us ahead of time. Maybe some pizzas or something like that.

November 12, 2007 – Pac say’s “Bye-Bye” to Bye Week!

First and foremost, our thoughts and prayers are with Chumley tonight. He may have broken a couple of bones in his arm, diving head first (take it from me, Brad, guys our size should NEVER dive headfirst into anything except dinner!) into second to keep from being thrown out. It is that 110% effort that makes Brad a big part of this team. Hang in there, my friend, you will be missed in that outfield, but we’ll save your spot. Even Blue offered up his thoughts for Brad, as we were leaving.

That being said, this team played well tonight. As I said this morning, if we play our style of baseball, no one can beat us. What is our style? Remember why we are out there, to have fun. We play this game because we love it. We love the brotherhood we love the good times. When we remember that, we cannot be beaten.

We faced a tough pitcher, some good hitters and a fast outfield tonight and won by nine runs. It was a night of great plays, Tony scoring on a weak infield ground out (by me)! Danny, playing the carom off of Gino’s glove to perfection, which got us out of a bases loaded situation. Gino starting a perfect double play with no mix up at second! Tony hitting the long ball…again, then a swinging bunt…again! Pat made a great jumping catch in center that would have been trouble. I am probably forgetting some, but you guys get the idea.

Next week will bring the playoffs. To get the prize we have to win two games. We can do it, the only thing that will stop us is ourselves!

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November 6, 2007 Incognito’s Performance Plays Under an Assumed Name

Did you have fun last night? I sure did. We did not play our best game, defensively, but our hitting was much improved in comparison to the last few games. We did not try to overpower the ball and took what the pitcher (and Blue) was giving us. With the exception of Tony’s dinger and a few other long balls, we primarily did most of our damage with base hits. Kudos again to Jeff for helping me out of my slump.

Defensively, the infield kept it interesting but tightened up when we needed it most. Tony, going fully vertical to snag a line drive! I swear he had a hang time of about two minutes. Larry made a diving rolling stab to keep a ball in the infield and runners from scoring. With the slow outfield grass, I would not have gotten to that ball before a couple of runners scored. Tommy turned a key double play and Gino fielded his position like a pro.

I like playing against this team. They have fun, like we do, and I think they may be around for a while. I look for them to make some changes in the off-season and come on stronger in the winter. Speaking of winter, do we want to look for another sponsor ro are we going to put the touch on Killian’s for the Winter League?

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October 30, 2007 Dawg Pac almost suffers from altitude sickness against Alpine

Okay, was it a good game or a bad game? That is all a matter of perspective. But for the three run blast that was hit over my head in the seventh (I did misplay the ball, but I am not sure it would have mattered), I think it was a great game. We played a gritty, gutsy game where no one wanted to lose. Both teams went up then down and there were some great plays on both sides. Fortunately we were able to gut it out for the win.

Some outstanding base running, led by Paul made the difference. Paul was constantly looking for the extra base and generally took it. At one point he came around to score on what would become an infield home run! Tony had another swinging bunt single. Their arms in the outfield generally kept us in check, but we were able to exploit some sloppy infield play, most notably Mike’s beating a rundown to get to third!

There were some pretty bad fielding errors that bit us in the rear and allowed them to keep the game close. The comebacker to Gino was of particular concern. From my vantage point, two double plays were missed because there was some confusion as to who was covering second. Those plays kept their big innings going.

All in all, I thought it was a good game. We never quit, at one point we batted around with two outs! We are currently in third place and if all goes well, we’ll keep that spot. We need to improve in some areas, but Larry’s hitting and mine seems…SEEMS…to be coming around slowly. Pat’s bat got better with every swing last night. Gino was pitching that wicked curve again, but tended to flatten it out at times. Let’s keep playing our kind of softball and we’ll do fine.

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October 23, 2007 Initech Immolates the Pac With all due respect to Larry and others who suggest an A, B or C league quality team outplayed us, I think we can beat these guys. If you look at the progression of the game, they scored seven runs in a monstrous first inning when they were able to hit the ball anywhere at any time. We pretty much held them in check for the next couple of innings, only to have them score eight in the last inning. So, what went wrong?

In my opinion, take it or leave it, WE were what went wrong. We swung at too many bad pitches and the result was a lot of weak outs. The pitcher was not that good and he dropped everything in front of the plate, yet for the most part, everyone was still lining up at the middle or back of the box and lunging at the ball. What success we had was achieved by making him pitch to us or even making him walk us. Swinging at bad pitches is one of the things that murdered us last night.

There were not a lot of mental errors in the field last night (kind of hard to make a mental error while watching a ball sail over your head), but I made one misplay on the first base line that I should have caught. I was still fuming about Howard’s bad call and let it drop, thinking it was foul and not wanting the “Momentum carried him out, ball in play” call to be invoked. No excuse, mea culpa. I do have an issue with Gino choosing to pitch a flatter ball because they were teeing off on his pitched in the first. Hitters will always hammer a flatter pitch. The more arc the harder it is to drive.

What it comes down to is this: their offense did not beat us our offense beat us. With Tony and Joe’s bats in the lineup and a little tweaking of the lineup (you cannot put all of us slow players after each other) we can beat these guys. They hit the ball hard but really did not field the ball too well and their base running was not very good. They are a beatable team, but not when people are moping around the dugout complaining that this team should not be in our league. That is not our style. We go out and play the best ball we can and let the other team worry about where they belong.

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October 16, 2007 A Team needs Mr. (Batting) T!

What a performance by Gino! He had five strikeouts and a bevy of confused batters. His pitches had batters guessing and cussing at the same time. He struck out one guy twice! The result was a 20-11 win for the Pac and a big confidence booster. Infield play was also solid last night, Richie seems to have shaken off the fielding funk he has been in and the left side of the infield was stellar!

Batting stars included Jeff who popped a long triple and Brad Means who has been in a bit of a slump. Danny hit a great infield hit with some heads up running. I am mired in a 0-fer-7 slump, but did score a run off of a walk. I got some tips from Jeff and will try to use them next week.

7:45 game against Alpine next week!

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October 8, 2007 Pac Defense takes a Bye Week When you hand the other team at least ten runs, and only lose by 6, it really hurts. We forgot to bring our usually solid defense this week, and it showed. They weren't all that great defensively either, but our errors cost us a lot of runs. We had a great inning offensively, Jeff hit a two-run dinger, and we made some clutch hits, but our defensive breakdowns in both infield and outfield were the big stories. Let's bring our gloves and our killer defensive attitude next week!

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October 1, 2007 Incognito unmasked! Super effort on the offensive side tonight guys! There was some pretty sloppy field play. Before we get too cocky about where we stand, we let this team score more runs than anyone else has. This is not good. We should have beaten them handily, I think the girl was probably their best player, she deserves her props, she busted her butt tonight. The rest of that team is not very good.

We play “Bye Week” next week. This team looks pretty good, they are 2-1 going into this evening and have put up a lot of runs. We need to play tighter and better next week or we may have problems. If we win, we win the first half!

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September 24, 2007 An Alpine Slide for the Pac!

I believe I postulated it first on this website, last week. Paulie backed it up today. Did we dare to imagine the Pac at 3-0 after this week’s game? Imagine we did, and that is where we stand! Gino pitched a no-hit shutout, Tony hit a Grand Slam and in 3 innings, I went 1 for 3, 2 for 3 and 3 for 3! The Pac ends up winning 7-0!

Okay, for those couple of you not there…Alpine forfeited. The result was that we win 7-0. While some of us played a spirited game of “Over the Line” (Chumley, Tony, Richie and I won, even though Tom, Danny, Jeff, Pant Leg and Larry cheated and bent the rules as much as possible) Paul, Joe Z. and Gino went over and played for a “C” league team. Don’t know what happened on that field, don’t really care!

Another 6:30 start next week, guys, versus “Incognito.” There are two girls on that team, but let’s not get cocky. Play Dawg Pac softball and let’s try to get to 4-0!

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September 17th, 2007 The Pac plays like Alpha Dawgs!

Before I get into it, we won! We all know that. We, once again, should have won by a lot. To me that is the only negative on the night. There were a lot of old habits cropping up, but I think that was due more to the fact that so many of you were playing out of position. At one point, I think half of the team in the field was playing in spots they were not necessarily comfortable in. All in all it was a great win, not just because we won, but how we won. We were down several times and battled back to win, never quitting.

Gino, what can I say. He tossed numerous first pitch strikes and had the batters swinging at some bad pitches. He also, probably for the first time ever, fielded his position like a Gold Glove pitcher! He had one bad inning, at one point walking the bottom of the line-up and loading the bases with no outs. He got out of it relatively easily, only giving up two runs and one of those, I believe, was an error. Mentally, though, we cannot lose the bottom of the order and have guys on base when the top of the order comes to bat. Great game Gino!

Paul hit his third triple in two games. Our bats were not as good as they should have been. Even with three outfielders, we could not find the gaps. Never the less, we all ran hard and forced throws. One extremely bad base running decision by Tom put us out of an inning, but other than that the Pac played like seasoned veterans on the base paths.

Mark Comon was practicing sliding catches all night, pretending he was actually missing the ball twice, when in fact, what he was doing was daring the offense to try to drop the ball in front of him. Mark made one of the great catches in Dawg Pac history last night to keep us in the game!

6:30 game next week versus Alpine! What do you say? Can we go 3-0?!

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September 10, 2007 A-Team brings their B-Game

It was good to get back to business last night! The Dawg Pac made a fine showing, beating the “A-Team” by a margin of thirteen runs! The final score was 19-6 and it could have easily been a shutout.

There were some key moments that contributed to our win last night. The easy one would be Joe Z’s play at shortstop! Doing his best imitation of an Oreck Vacuum Cleaner, Joe’s glove was often seen pulling in rogue ground balls as they tried to make the safe haven of the outfield. Not to be overlooked, Paul Stimpfl (Mr. Reliable) hit multiple extra baggers and was solid behind the dish. Tommie, in relief, struck out two batters in one inning, even with a rather effeminate delivery! Tony made a great leaning (falling) play at first on a bad throw from Tom and Brad Means hit to the left side! Let’s not be fooled.

It was a great game against a weak team that showed some potential and did not quit. Next week is a 9:00 game against Initech and we are the visitors once again!

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July 31, 2007 Reflections on a season that got away.
First and foremost, let me preface this posting by saying that we are a much better team than our Summer League record. I had tried to come up with some witty title for today’s post-mortem, thinking of names like “The Torrance Zoo” or “Torrance is Burning” or some other co-opted name, but in retrospect, I feel like this summer was a good experience, so long as we learn from our mistakes.

We as a team, were humbled, coming off of a minor success in winter ball, we dared to thing that we might dominate the Summer League. Unfortunately, for various reasons, it did not happen. What did happen is that we got out of our game. We played like a team that had been haphazardly thrown together at the water-cooler. Some of our old bad habits reared their ugly heads. The defense was often not very good, and even Gino struggled at times on the mound. The biggest malaise, though, had to be our bats. Most of us struggled (especially in the second half of the season), which led to a lot of poor at-bats. We tended to rely on walks and big hits, while the other teams singled in runs by the dozen. Small ball will win games for us just as easy as it wins games for the other guys.

There were a lot of bright spots as well this season. For instance, Larry was a hitting machine last night and our rallies would have been snuffed out were it not for his bat. As I mentioned yesterday, Paul is becoming the heart and soul of this team. He rallies us in his emails and backs it up in the games. His presence behind the plate is unmatched in our league; his defensive statistics are pretty impressive. As for Gino, he did struggle some this season, but when he was on, he was great! Another bright spot, that may have been a bad omen, was Brad’s homerun in the first or second game. Even us big guys can hit a long one once in a while!


But really, we hung tough as a team. There was some grumbling about each other (I am guilty of this as well), but in the end, we always left the field or the bar in a good mood. A lot of teams would explore major changes at this point, but I know that when I take my place in right field (about five yards to the right of the sprinkler head and a couple of yards behind it), Brad or Pat will be next to me just as Jeff will be next to them and Brad will be next to him. Tony and Larry will have their good glove skills on display at first and Danny will be at second. Ritchie and Mike will be at short fielding the bad hops while Joe and Tom make the long throw to first. Gino will be bouncing pitches off the plate, allowing Paul to gun it to first. Throw in Mark for a couple of games at just about any position and there you have it, the Dawg Pac, ladies and gentleman. I am happy to be a member of such a great group of guys!
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July 24, 2007 A-Team brings their A-Game!
Last night was an interesting one to be sure. We should have known we were in for an interesting evening with the appearance of Mr. Joe Z! For the first time in a long time, we had an abundance of players on the field, and we needed them all. There were some major and not-so-major fielding gaffes last night and our hitting was spotty, but we pulled out the win, scoring the winning run in a two out rally in the top of the last inning!

I think the biggest problem with our hitting, last night, was the fact that the pitcher was not that good, yet we all wanted to hit. The ends result was that we were swinging at bad pitches. All of us, except for Gino, who watched a third strike bounce off the plate. I went oh-fer-two with a walk and I think I could have walked at each at bat! There was some good hitting and great base running that kept us in the game.

Our fielding woes were mostly on the infield, though I had an error in right. The biggest part of the problem seems to be the lack of back up at the bases. Several times last night, second base was left wide open while Danny or Ritchie were chasing a ball or getting the cutoff. For anyone not actively involved in an infield play, you should know when you have to be backing up a throw or covering an open base.

Next week, we are home against Eclipse. This is the team that has the older guy as a pitcher. The game is 7:45 and it is our last game of the season. Let’s make it a good one!
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July 16, 2007 – Dawg Pac sends an Alpine blast!
Okay, we won, 6-3. We should have mercied these guys! Our batting funk continues. There were no really long hit balls tonight and we could have easily lost the game if not for our defense. That seemed to be the big difference from last week. We played solid defense and Gino’s pitching was as good as it has ever been. I do not think he has ever pitched a game where he had four strikeouts! Tony made two fantastic plays and Ritchie had a fine catch to stop potential rallies.

Howard was our umpire and he did a pretty good job behind the plate, in marked contrast to last week’s nightmare. He said that the city is actively recruiting umpires and once they get some more, Dave is planning to “clean house.” It may result in a couple of dollars a week in increased umpire fees, but it would be well worth the money!

Let’s build on this week’s win and bring our bats to next week’s game. I believe it is the 7:45 game, so those of us who are not hitting the ball well should have time to go to the cages. If we play the kind of defense we played this week and hit the way we should, no one can beat us!
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July 09, 2007 – Mercy Rule lives up to their name!
We only scored three runs. That’s it. We should have scored more. Combine that with WAY too many errors, some shaky pitching in the first couple of innings and perhaps the worst umpire ever and the Pac comes out as losers.

First the bad news. Our porous fielding efforts let them put too many runners on base and they had a knack for letting those runners score. Our bats seem to have gone into some sort of summer funk, because we are not hitting the ball either. Tony did have a home run, but in all honesty, it was a misplayed double. For the record, it is a homer, but for the sake of argument, we need to be hitting better.

Blue was terrible. We have had bead umpires, marginal umpires, good umpires, even drunk umpires but no one was ever as bad as this guy. It all started with his calling Danny out for stepping on the plate after hitting the ball. Sure, it is in the rule book, but we should have at least gotten a warning. His calls never did get any better and there was some definite favoritism going on as far as the close plays went. I think, at several points in the game, we should have told him we were playing under protest, not that it would have done any good, but we would have made our point.

Let’s move on from this and come out next week ready to play!
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June 26th, 2007 – Bestline better than Dawg Pac
I have a long drive to work in the morning, so on Tuesdays, I’ll often think about what to write in this space. Today, I had mixed feelings. We lost last night, once again, a game we should have won. On the other hand, we kept battling and almost pulled out the win. In traditional Dawg Pac style, we can look at one inning and blame it for the loss. We had one inning where, according to Blue, there were five un-earned runs. Take that out of the equation and we win. Gino’s pitching was better this week, bit there was no movement on the pitches, and so hitters were able to tee off. There were also instances where balls were kicked, throws weren’t made and catches were dropped. I also called off a throw from Mark, and might have been errant in doing so. A good throw would have gotten the runner, I just was afraid that he might not have made a good throw and the runner on first would have advanced. I struggled at the plate as well, going O-fer-two with a walk that ended up with me getting tagged out by the catcher. I probably should have slid.

On the plus side, kudos to Brad for a great catch in right! Tommy hit a fine dinger to get us going. Jeff gets the “Stud of the Game” award for coming to the plate with a pulled hammy and getting, what was it, two hits? He took it for the team, rather than having an out recorded when his turn came up. As I said before, Gino pitched well enough for us to win the game, but I think the biggest problem was people playing out of position. It is not easy to put someone in right who does not normally play there. The ball has a weird spin on it coming off of a right-handed batter. Pant Leg looked uncomfortable in left center and there was some confusion in the middle infield.

All in all, we should have won, but we didn’t. We executed better on offense, but made too many errors. Let’s take the week off and come back ready for the Sea Monkeys!

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une 19th, 2007 Total Eclipse of the Pac
What can be said that Jeff, Gino, Ritchie, Tom and Paul have not already said? Gino did pitch a bad game last night. Or bats were woefully silent and we did not take advantage of what little morsels they were giving us. We have a tendency to not adjust to pitchers. We have to move up or back in the box and closer or farther to the plate, depending on what the pitcher is doing. The ball is traveling really slowly and we have plenty of time to move. My only fear is that next week, we try to press at the plate. That will be fatal.

We had some problems in the field, a couple of errors hurt us, but for the most part we fielded the ball really well. The night wasn’t all bad; there were a couple of really nice plays! The biggest, had to be Tony’s barehanded throw to Paul to get a runner trying to score. I am not sure if you guys realize this, but those two guys are a lethal combination.

Finally, I really have to agree with Tom. We played a kid’s game last night, afterwards we had some laughs and good beer at the bar. All in all, it sucks that we lost, but…man…in the end, it was fun!
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June 11, 2007 A-Team Brings their “B” Game!
What was so great about tonight? No, it wasn’t the fact that we mercied a team. No, it also wasn’t Jeff’s impressive bomb to the base of the hill. It also wasn’t the double play or Paul’s throw to first (or that tricky foul tip he caught). I can agree that all of those were impressive feats for any other week, but no…that’s not what was so great about tonight. I think what was great was the fact that we played a solid game on both sides of the ball tonight! Great defense and great offense won that game. We took advantage of their strengths and weaknesses in the field and were able to score runs in every inning! We played tough defense and did not allow our few miscues to affect the final outcome. Good game Dawgs and a special thanks to our cheering section! I’m going to bed, good night!
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06/10/07 A Rare Non-Game Posting
Several Dawgs were in attendance at a poker tournament to support Toby's 1736 Family Crisis Center. Danny, Jeff, Tony, Paulie, Ando and yours-truly got to sit in a big poker room and play tournament poker at the Commerce Casino. While there, we ran into George Costanza! We tried to recruit Jason Alexander to play softball for the Pac, but once he heard that Stimpfl was catching he declined. He was afraid that his skills were no match for Paul's superior dish management! Not only that, he has been a little shy about catching ever since the Bette Midler incident.

Seriously, the night was a load of fun and none of us went out on a bad hand, well almost none of us. In true fashion, Tom hung tough to almost the end but got caught stealing by going in with a somewhat less than marginal hand. The food was great and watching poker, at that level, was great! Please hit the link on the photo if you want to know more about this great cause. Also, if any of you get a chance to participate in any of the Center's fundraisers, I would suggest you do so. It is a good time and a great cause.
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06/05/07 No, Brad, matriculation is not something that happens by accident in the middle of the night!

First and foremost, let’s congratulate all of the Dawgs who have kids graduating from SLM this week! For those of you who are “first-timers,” it is a great and scary feeling that your oldest is ending one stage of their life and entering a new one. Leaving the cocoon of SLM can be an exciting thing for our kids! For those of you who are graduating their last kid out of SLM, this is probably a bittersweet time for you. You look back at all the years you have spent going to Oktoberfest, Fun Run, Taste of the Bay, various field trips and school functions and realize all of the great relationships you have forged over your years there. For all of you, congratulations and may God bless your kids as they enter the next stage of their lives.

Jeff, who is quickly becoming the sage of the Pac (wisdom comes with age), put it best: “We could easily be three and oh and just as easily be oh and three!” We eeked out a win last night and given the way we have played this season, I refrain from calling it an ugly win. But there were some…problems. Once again, the error bug really bit us hard in the butt. I am not sure of the final score, but when we lose two big leads and end up winning by one, I think it may have been our biggest run producing night in quite a while. The night was notable for several reasons: first and foremost, this was the first game Gino has ever missed! Dave Carpenter filled in admirably, pitching a solid game (got to get those pitches up, the flat ones are killing us) and swinging a nice stick! Hitting (and walking) was great on all counts. Offensively, we put forth a fine effort with no really horrendous base-running errors.

Christina was at the bar last night and was several sheets to the wind. It was nice to see her and I realized just how Catholic we all are when she was draping herself all over us and all we could do was to try and talk her into getting married before having a kid! I think Brad is still sporting wood form all the attention. I think, also, Carrie Ann (our new waitress) will be more comfortable with us now. The downer was Christina telling us that Killian’s is going down the tubes and will probably close within the year. Time to start looking for a new watering hole!

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05/22/07 Mercy, Mercy Me! Mercy Rule gives no Mercy to the Pac.
I don’t rightly know what to say about last night. Maybe it had something to do with the nine o’clock start time; maybe it was a hangover from the TOTB, I just don’t know. For me personally, I did not belong on the field last night and I should have recognized that. I am in some major pain today and was hurting last night. I should have taken myself out of the lineup, but didn’t, maybe it was ego, maybe just the fact that I thought I could go, whatever, it wont happen again.

From what I could see, the team was listless last night. We had a couple of good innings, but for the most part, once we got down, we started to press and that is never good. The defensive play was sloppy last night, being part of the defense (and one of those who dropped an easy catch); I feel that I can say that. Having the grass higher than the savannah didn’t help, but that was no excuse. We let too many outs turn into runs and we will lose every time if we continue to let that happen. We also tried to drive the ball deep too many times, when singles would have been effective. We proved that in the last inning, with a bunch of singles.

Not that the whole night was a bust. First of all, CONGRATUALTIONS TO CHUMLEY! Brad hit a softball homerun! Good heads up base running Brad! Paulie was superb as catcher, making two great putouts at the plate.

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05/14/07 Bestline is better than the Pac
Tonight really hurt. We really did not play our best and it showed. Numerous base running errors, sloppy play in the infield and outfield and fatigue combined to beat us. Bestline DID NOT beat us, we beat ourselves. We can kvetch all we want about the extra length to the bases or our legs hurting, but what it comes down to is that we should have won. Too many fly balls to a good left fielder, too many tag outs on the bases and what is the result? Well, you know the result.

The bar, afterwards, was a sour as I have seen this group. There is usually one or two of us that are in a foul mood after a game, but tonight it seemed to be the norm. Tom, as always, tried to get us all up and for the most part it worked, but I think that in the end we realized we let one get away.
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May 12, 2007 Softball Tourney, Dawg Pac Style!
You know, in retrospect, it was good that our first game of the day was our best! That was the game where we played with only OD’s and it showed. Sure, there was some rust and barnacles on the team, but we won that game by playing Dawg Pac softball! The next three games saw a different outcome, but in the end it was a fun and tiring day! There was some good hitting and some spectacular fielding and the dugout banter saw no sign of the almost two month layoff!

A “Special thanks” to Jeff for coordinating the day and to Tony for being the team accountant. Special thanks also to all of the guys, who filled in for those who could not be there. Joe, Lawrence, Dave and Steve thanks for coming out and getting dirty with us!

I think we got a new low record for the bar tab at Killian’s, it amounted to something like forty dollars! Come ready to play at 6:30 (or earlier) Monday night guys! As we begin our…6th?…year together, once again, I have to point out that it has been a blessing getting to know all of you and I look forward to being on that field for
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