Thursday, August 27, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Game 21 and 22, Playoff game 1 and 2, Split
The stage was set to see two top teams in action on a sunny Tuesday night. The Sons of Sully took the field after a long hiatus from the softball diamond. The Wet Bandits were coming of a sweep in the first round. Umpiring the game behind the plate was the "Fat, Dead, Ump" which was bascially Newman from Seinfeld dressed in short bike shorts. Umpiring the field was old friend Mark Berry (never seen a stranger umpire in my life).
First game started out slow for the Ringers bats. So many grounders combined with a few singles here and there. A tough inning in the 3rd with their uncanny ability to hit line drives through the hole to the same part of left field. Looked back at the book and they have never put that many hits together EVER, unreal. We probably gave them a few runs but they hit ridiculously.
We had our chances but really couldn't put a bunch of solid hits together. Infield a great job with the gloves, Sweet solid at second. He and Sully should patent that force at 2nd. Daredevil Croeley proved once again that gloves are for pu$$ies and consistently went after balls using his shin, leg, and hand. The hand shot proved a fatal blow as he landed on the DL retroactive to 7pm.
On to Game Two. The Ringers had their backs to the wall. A loss and a whole season done, a win means we live to see Thursday night. Aaron Noyes on the hill for game 2. Ran into trouble immediately by walking "Thrill Hill" the leadoff hitter, Shortstop, and apparent arch rival of Joe Sullivan. Noyes walked the bases around, got 2 outs but couldn't finish the job off. The kid came off the bench and got a ground ball to hold them to 2 runs that inning. Still don't know who got a quicker hook, starting pitcher Aaron Noyes by Sully or black lab Penny "Pol Pot" Thomson by Alice
The Ringers came back to tie it, but still had the problem of "Hill" in that lineup. The kid can hit and Joe Sullivan does not like anyone that can play on his level. He lives for the the stage, he loves attention, he enjoys a laugh with seventeen year olds, and he demands that he be the best player on the field, pitch, or diamond. Hill was the hotshot, the young buck that may unseat Sully in a few years. After scuffing up short a bit, he knew a bad bounce was inevitable, he blasted a 1-o slider directly at Hill. Hill got in position, and the bad hope eliminated him. Sully took second, actually almost took third as the kid lay helpless. DiStefano scores, gives his best Sammy Sosa kiss to god, and wonders why no one is congratulating him. Hill out, Ringers up, Sully happy.
Great D by MBags, Sully, outfield solid all game, Bags a big hold on at the plate, McGrath covering a lot of ground out there.
The FDU hasn't said anything all year, yet yells NO! from the top of his lungs on what was clearly a shorthop. Still don;t get it, but good to see he is alive.
3-3 until the Kid steps up to the plate with the go ahead run on third Top 7, wanting to do anything but pop it up, grounder to Short, runs down the line, I hear DSull yell get down. I didn't know if Hill game back with an assault rifle or what, but I hit the deck, semi-clotheslined by the first baseman, ball falls out of glove, we are up 4-3.
A few runners on but were able to get 3 outs in the meat of the order. Game, set, match, we will see you Thursday.
*special thanks to Boonton putting this together, nice pic
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Pre-Playoff post
This has always given me goosebumps, even now, this was from Oct 19, 2004. Game 6, Sox down 3 games to 2, comeback in progress...
Imagine you're Curt Schilling right now.
Imagine you're Curt Schilling today, this minute, with the ball in your hand and the curtain about to go up.
Schilling tested his ankle before Game 5.
You've been here before. The lights, the 100 million eyeballs, the pressure that comes with being the man and rising to meet the moment, it's all old hat to you.
You don't sweat the Yankee mystique. You remember October 27, 2001, and a certain 3-hit, 8-K night. The House that Ruth Built doesn't rattle you. You've left notches in that rubber like it was a belt around your waist.
You've got a ring on your finger and you snatched it from Georgie Porgie's ham-handed clutches.
And you can't believe your good luck. A few days ago you were done, your boys were done, you were rubber-necking a hideous postseason crash. But no, you get another shot. And like Freddie you're wondering, "Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?"
You're Curt Schilling. You bring it. You throw heavy, diving balls and angry, screaming stuff.
Your pitches come packed with purpose, wound tight with intent.
You won 21 games this year. You never give up. You're for the team -- you stand on the top step of the dugout when you're not standing on the hill.
You keep a notebook. You watch video. Nothing escapes you.
You take a tight-eyed look over the lip of your glove, let your breath fall from your shoulders and stretch the length of your arms, turn that broad back ... and deal.
You bear down. You bear up. It's what you do. It's who you are.
You're Curtis Montague Schilling and tonight's the night.
Back in April, Schilling wore his Yankee Hater hat at a Bruins game.
And everybody outside of New York loves you because you chose the underdog in this fight. (But, of course, that don't mean snot if you don't deliver now.)
This is what you came for. Not to achieve your own legacy (that's already done), but to be a part of a place and a people, to help write and re-write their history. You've been here before, with pinstripes in your sights and a quiver full of arrows on your back, but you've never exactly been here before, with the hopes and dreams of the faithful, and their parents, and their parents' parents, riding on you, with air kissed by curse and laden with anguish flowing in and out of your lungs with every breath. You wanted this, you sought this out, you reached for these people and they reached back. And now you're in. All the way in. You've been a part of this team all season, but tonight you become a made guy, one of the family, with all the rights and responsibilities, with all the risks and rewards, therein. You've been here before but you've never been here before.
Philly was hungry, but there wasn't near the same longing. And there was joy in Arizona, but they knew nothing of true pain.
You hang with The Sons of Sam Horn now.
And you've promised to shut some folks up.
You take the ball after two of the greatest games in team history. You take the ball after David Ortiz slapped it around the yard. You take the ball after a season considered nothing but a prelude to precisely this kind of moment. You take it after Grady left it in Pete's glove, Buckner let it get by, Spaceman gave it up, and George Herman took it and went home.
This is the game that makes you an icon, if you're up for it. Forget Yankee Killer or Big Game Pitcher. Try Redeemer on for size. Slip into Deliverer.
And you thought your stuff was heavy before ...
Schilling's T-shirt says it all. Now Game 6 is in his hands.
Imagine you're Curt Schilling right now.
Imagine knowing you've got to go long tonight, because there's no pitch count on you, and no bullpen behind you.
But that's all right, because it's in you. No doubt. You have that thing. You can summon it. It will drive you.
Except, what if the body doesn't cooperate? What if this alien form, that's aching when it ought to sing, that's betraying you, leaves you hanging tonight?
You have to put these thoughts out of your head.
You can't seem to think of anything else. There are doubts.
You're wearing a Johnny U boot and more tape than Swish had around her chest in "Fastbreak," your ankle's throbbing, bobbing and weaving like a marionette and bearing weight the way Jessica Simpson bears hardship, with a lot of whine and wiggle.
You stunk up the joint in Game 1. Your ERA is old enough to vote. You can't let things stand like that. This is a get-back game. Your boys picked you up the last couple nights, got you another shot. Now you owe them. Now you've got to steal a New York page and go Willis on the Yankees. More than that, you've got to go MJ with the flu, or Roy Hobbs with a bleeding ulcer. You need to write a storybook. You know that.
You also know Sheff and Matsui were turning your stuff around last time like a bouncer turns away math majors in coke-bottle specs at the door to a nightclub.
You know it's only Game 6, and even a lights-out performance here doesn't close the deal.
That really chaps you.
And you know, and this is what gets you most of all, that if you blow up tonight, if you lob balls up there the way you did in Game 1, looking like Ginger rolling craps in "Casino," or even if you're just unlucky, that they'll say it was the bloody curse. Or worse, they'll say the Sox just don't have what it takes, just can't take the Yankees.
And that'll make you and a couple million other people sick.
So you're Curt Schilling, and you've got all this swirling around inside your head tonight as you toe the rubber, work through your warmup pitches, and stare up into the thousands of screaming Yankee faces.
You're part indomitable spirit and part nerves that jingle, jangle, jingle; part seasoned champion, part new kid on the block.
And the beauty of it is, you wouldn't want to be anywhere else, and the Nation wouldn't rather have anyone else out there.
Imagine that.
Game on.
Imagine you're Curt Schilling right now.
Imagine you're Curt Schilling today, this minute, with the ball in your hand and the curtain about to go up.
Schilling tested his ankle before Game 5.
You've been here before. The lights, the 100 million eyeballs, the pressure that comes with being the man and rising to meet the moment, it's all old hat to you.
You don't sweat the Yankee mystique. You remember October 27, 2001, and a certain 3-hit, 8-K night. The House that Ruth Built doesn't rattle you. You've left notches in that rubber like it was a belt around your waist.
You've got a ring on your finger and you snatched it from Georgie Porgie's ham-handed clutches.
And you can't believe your good luck. A few days ago you were done, your boys were done, you were rubber-necking a hideous postseason crash. But no, you get another shot. And like Freddie you're wondering, "Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?"
You're Curt Schilling. You bring it. You throw heavy, diving balls and angry, screaming stuff.
Your pitches come packed with purpose, wound tight with intent.
You won 21 games this year. You never give up. You're for the team -- you stand on the top step of the dugout when you're not standing on the hill.
You keep a notebook. You watch video. Nothing escapes you.
You take a tight-eyed look over the lip of your glove, let your breath fall from your shoulders and stretch the length of your arms, turn that broad back ... and deal.
You bear down. You bear up. It's what you do. It's who you are.
You're Curtis Montague Schilling and tonight's the night.
Back in April, Schilling wore his Yankee Hater hat at a Bruins game.
And everybody outside of New York loves you because you chose the underdog in this fight. (But, of course, that don't mean snot if you don't deliver now.)
This is what you came for. Not to achieve your own legacy (that's already done), but to be a part of a place and a people, to help write and re-write their history. You've been here before, with pinstripes in your sights and a quiver full of arrows on your back, but you've never exactly been here before, with the hopes and dreams of the faithful, and their parents, and their parents' parents, riding on you, with air kissed by curse and laden with anguish flowing in and out of your lungs with every breath. You wanted this, you sought this out, you reached for these people and they reached back. And now you're in. All the way in. You've been a part of this team all season, but tonight you become a made guy, one of the family, with all the rights and responsibilities, with all the risks and rewards, therein. You've been here before but you've never been here before.
Philly was hungry, but there wasn't near the same longing. And there was joy in Arizona, but they knew nothing of true pain.
You hang with The Sons of Sam Horn now.
And you've promised to shut some folks up.
You take the ball after two of the greatest games in team history. You take the ball after David Ortiz slapped it around the yard. You take the ball after a season considered nothing but a prelude to precisely this kind of moment. You take it after Grady left it in Pete's glove, Buckner let it get by, Spaceman gave it up, and George Herman took it and went home.
This is the game that makes you an icon, if you're up for it. Forget Yankee Killer or Big Game Pitcher. Try Redeemer on for size. Slip into Deliverer.
And you thought your stuff was heavy before ...
Schilling's T-shirt says it all. Now Game 6 is in his hands.
Imagine you're Curt Schilling right now.
Imagine knowing you've got to go long tonight, because there's no pitch count on you, and no bullpen behind you.
But that's all right, because it's in you. No doubt. You have that thing. You can summon it. It will drive you.
Except, what if the body doesn't cooperate? What if this alien form, that's aching when it ought to sing, that's betraying you, leaves you hanging tonight?
You have to put these thoughts out of your head.
You can't seem to think of anything else. There are doubts.
You're wearing a Johnny U boot and more tape than Swish had around her chest in "Fastbreak," your ankle's throbbing, bobbing and weaving like a marionette and bearing weight the way Jessica Simpson bears hardship, with a lot of whine and wiggle.
You stunk up the joint in Game 1. Your ERA is old enough to vote. You can't let things stand like that. This is a get-back game. Your boys picked you up the last couple nights, got you another shot. Now you owe them. Now you've got to steal a New York page and go Willis on the Yankees. More than that, you've got to go MJ with the flu, or Roy Hobbs with a bleeding ulcer. You need to write a storybook. You know that.
You also know Sheff and Matsui were turning your stuff around last time like a bouncer turns away math majors in coke-bottle specs at the door to a nightclub.
You know it's only Game 6, and even a lights-out performance here doesn't close the deal.
That really chaps you.
And you know, and this is what gets you most of all, that if you blow up tonight, if you lob balls up there the way you did in Game 1, looking like Ginger rolling craps in "Casino," or even if you're just unlucky, that they'll say it was the bloody curse. Or worse, they'll say the Sox just don't have what it takes, just can't take the Yankees.
And that'll make you and a couple million other people sick.
So you're Curt Schilling, and you've got all this swirling around inside your head tonight as you toe the rubber, work through your warmup pitches, and stare up into the thousands of screaming Yankee faces.
You're part indomitable spirit and part nerves that jingle, jangle, jingle; part seasoned champion, part new kid on the block.
And the beauty of it is, you wouldn't want to be anywhere else, and the Nation wouldn't rather have anyone else out there.
Imagine that.
Game on.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Game 19 Win 15-8 aka "Tomahawk Noyes"
The Ringers had a job to do, win and in (basically). The Sons of Sully needed this, they wanted this (at least everyone except Crupi), they smelled the Victory wafting from Noyes' humid junk. The Demons presented a tough foe. They skunked us earlier this year, humiliated us on Field 2 (Medford Massacre). They can hit, they can field, and they can put their worst player at the leadoff spot. Payback is a bitch.
The Local 9 (10) kept it close early, finally busting out with the bottom of the order leading the way. Going up 9-4 after 3 frames felt good, damn good. Danny, Crowley, and Riz getting on set the table for the big guns to knock some runs around. Sac fly's by DSull, Josh, dinger by Sully (i think he had a triple too).
They came out and put 4 runs up in the next 3 innings. We took the methodical approach getting a few Force outs and third and second. Sweet played a nice 2nd, keeping it in front of him and getting the sure outs. Timmy a great stab at 3rd to keep them from putting together a big inning. 10-8 heading into the bottom of 6
Cue the Tomahawk Chop music....sing it...now!
When the game is on the line, and the pitches are coming in eye-level, who do you want at bat? Sully? No, he rakes belt level. McGrath? No he likes them at his feet. You call up the Tomahawk. The Tomahawk is the only batter in New England that works "up the ladder", he challenges you to try to throw it over the backstop. He shuns a strikezone, it's called a wheelhouse, strikezones are for DSull, not Tomahawk.
Musberger called him the Hawk on the simulcast last night, and the 'Hawk delivered. He hit one almost completely sideways that was at his hairline...not good enough. The 'Hawk then belts one that would have cleared the ump into left field, knocking in some Ringers, and starting a solid 5 run inning. He who knows no strikezone can never fail.
The Kid (11-1, 1 save, 7.10era) took the hill in the 7th, with what now is a huge welt on my left arm. You buckle down, you throw a strike, you let the D win the game....and they did. Catch of the year by Danny sho may or may not have needed to be sedated if the ump called it a hit, unreal diving catch. Bullet back to me that I just put my glove up and it stuck, that lighting sucks. Fly out to DSull covering ground and the game was a W.
16-3 ain't too shabby. RIP to that White bat, things sounds horrible. Enter the Hammer, if you haven't tried it, it rakes. Sort of like swinging a 20lb dumbbell.
In the crowd: A slew of old faces, Tim Bagshaw, Karen Bagshaw, Rudy Smith, Mrs 'Hawk, Liz Seppa, the Crowley 5000.
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