SBL 2008, WEEK 7
JULY 6
BUTTSEX BALLPARK
THE FLESHY FUNBRIDGES 5
The queens have proven themselves to be one
of the hottest teams in the league over the last two weeks, winning all but one
of their games over that time. After
dismantling the funbridges to kick off week seven,
make it four out of five.
The funbridges were
out of their league from the gun in this one, gathering only one hit in the
first three innings. The queens were
quick to capitalize, plating six in the top of the second after putting one on
the scoreboard in the first. From
there, it was only a matter of how long the contest would last, as the queens
would flirt with a mercy-shortnened win for most of
the contest, and were only a few stud frankovich
homers away from reaching their goal.
Stud would finish with a
8 hits, 3 homers and 6 rbi, all game highs, as well
as a pair of double plays. The balanced
queens attack also consisted of a 7 for 14, 4 rbi game from aryn christman and a 5 for 14, 4 rbi,
4 double play showing from
The FF were led, as
usual, by team captain rando knight and rookie of the
year frontrunner opie neff. Knight drove in a pair of runs, but starred
on the defensive side of the ball with a trio of double plays and a psyche
out. Opie hit
a homer and drove in three.
THE BANANA DEMOCRACY 7
JUKEBOX HERO 8
Despite jumping out to an early lead, the
banana democracy continued its decent into mediocrity
by virtue of a shocking loss to league bottom feeders jukeox
hero.
The democracy drew first blood in the top of
the first when ben smith, who seems to have
reinvented himself as an inside shooter and defensive stopper, drove home john offutt with a single.
Sure, the ben smith of old would have driven
in himself as well with a homer, but ben version 2.0 apparantly doesn’t shoot homers anymore.
And somewhere in
After smith derailed any hopes of a jukebox answer
with a double play of billy deforest in the bottom half of the inning, the
democracy kept the ball rolling in the top of the second with four more
runs. In the frame, smith collected
three more runs batted in, by virtue of a lame ass double and a lame ass
triple.
Throughout the contest, smith continued to
hit singles, doubles and triples.
Problem was, nobody else on his team did.
Jukebox, meanwhile, would eventually get to
scoring, paced by katie kelly’s 5 for 6, 2 rbi
outing. They would soon tie the contest
up when deforest brought home two with a homerun in the sixth. And wouldn’t you know it, the difference in
this contest came in the bottom of the 8th when opie
neff broke the tie with, what else, a solo homer.
Moral of this story: the solo homer is better than the solo
double. And I can’t believe I have to
preach that to ben freakin
smith.
THE
VOLTRON
8 (6 INNINGS)
What had been dubbed the game of the week
heading in turned out to be more a game of the weak (see how I did that?), at
least as far as voltron was concerned. Absent from the voltron
lineup were probable all-star gavin st. john, as well as hall of famer
jared clayton
and frequent starter derek lockovich. Their substitute? Jason Jennings, career batting average of
.180.
Perhaps the queens would play one of those
games the queens tend to from time to time when they only score 7 runs and
Stud frankovich: 9 for 13, 6 homers, 14 rbi.
Aryn Christman, 8 for 14.
Okay, so maybe not. Well maybe billy weisberg will finally, after seven and a half seasons, have
that breakout game we’ve been waiting for.
Billy Weisberg: 3 for 8, 3 rbi, 2 dumb things
Sigh.
The strange part about this beatdown is that, after two innings, voltron
was actually winning 4-2. but then the wheels fell off, and stud decided to go apeshit. The major
blow came in the 5th, when the queens cleared the board en route to
11 runs, then the major blow after the major blow was
Way to pick the game of the week, Tomko.
THE LASER CATS
DEFEAT
THE
BY FORFEIT
But you know we’re not just gonna end it like that.
Let’s send nate tomko over to the kamikazees and
pick up aryn christman’s
little sister to join jeanne mentrek
and play this one out, just for kicks.
THE
THE LASER CATS 11 (7 INNINGS)
Yes, that score is right. Apparantly
Bananas to the tune of 12 for 16, 9 homers
(tying the sbl record held previously by shelley goodpastor and himself)
and 25 rbi (new record), as well as an assist, 4
double plays and a pair of psyche-outs against his fellow laser cats.
Seriously, there isn’t much to really say about this game. It was a one-sided, merciless beatdown. A once a
season fluke that saw the worst team in the league totally decimate the
undefeated league leaders. Too bad it
was just an exhibition.
Arica Christman, in her sbl debut,
posted a stellar 10 for 16, 4 rbi
outing. Jeanne mentrek, out from under the frankovich-like
rule of kamikaze taskmaster mike moroco, flourished
for a 9 for 16 showing.
The laser cats might actually take something
from this one. They finally tasted
defeat, but not at the cost of their winning record. Perhaps this was the catalyst they needed to
start playing baseketball in the first inning of a
game instead of the fifth.
Terry Shernisky,
who must have felt like he was a rookie playing for the return of the weenises once again, put up an admirable 4 for 7, 2 homer,
5 rbi, 3 double play, 2 psyche out line. Tim martin jacked a pair of homers and drove
in three in his first action in four weeks.
THE OATCAKE HATE MONSTERS 18
VOLTRON
9
Okay, so you just got totally blown away by
your archrivals one game ago, a defeat which cost you the national conference
lead you’ve had since week one, game one.
At least you can rebound against an oatcake team that’s not only shown
up without hall of famers
matt mccelland and shelley goodpastor, but shown up without any third player
whatsoever and now must face you with the hitless-for-life will Williamson as
their third starter. So the week isn’t a
total bust. This one is in the bag!
Katie Kelly:
17 for 18
Terry Hall:
9 homers, 17 rbi
Jesus Tapdancing
Christ, voltron.
Is it at all possible that you played well in this one?
Voltron’s best offensive player: Jason Jennings (yes, he of the career .180
average)
Sigh.
By virtue of this most embarrassing of
losses, Voltron now not only trails by 2 full games
in the national and has dropped 7 of their last 10, but also hold the
distinction of being the only the second team in sbl
history to lose a game in which they had a full roster of players and the other
team did not. And they’re the first to
lose when terry shernisky wasn’t one of the two.
But what about this game from the two oatcake
players who were there? Terry Hall now
also owns a piece of the single-game homer record of nine, but as far as
impressive stats go, how about katie’s
17 for 18? Sure, with only two hitters
all she did was post up at the double stripe all game, but that’s still a
remarkable feat. Good job, katie.
THE FLESHY FUNBRIDGES 7
JUKEBOX HERO 8
After earning only two wins over the first
six weeks of the season, jukebox hero earned their second win of the week on
the strength of john offutt’s two-run homer in the
bottom of the ninth.
The game was a mostly defensive spectacle
over most of its early stages. The funbridges would strike first in the top of the second when
opie neff assisted a wes
With the score knotted at four, both teams double
played their way through the next few innings until the hero bats came alive in
the bottom of the seventh. Jeanne mentrek led off the inning with a single, and the heroes
collected five consecutive hits and plated four runs before a rando knight double play stopped the bleeding and got the funbridges out of the inning.
Not wanting to drop a second game this year
to the heroes, big rando and company quickly went
about regaining the lead. Opie neff led off the top of the
ninth with a solo homerun, which seemed to turn the momentum in favor of the
FF. Lee nespor
followed with a triple, Knight and rbi single, then a
few batters later Nespor drained his first homer of
the day to clear the bases and tie the game once again. The funbridges
would take the lead 7-6 moments later when Knight followed
The heroes, facing only their second defecit of the game, got off on the right foot when mike frankovich led off the bottom of the ninth with a
double. Jukebox went to the bench, and
mike moroco nearly ended matters with a grand slam
that barely missed. That set up things
nicely for Offutt, who hit his second walk off homer in three weeks.
Ben Smith went 4 for 8 with four double plays
for jukebox. Frankovich
added 3 hits and 3 rbi.
For the funbridges,
who were leapt in the standings by the heroes, Rando
Knight hit half of 10 shots with a pair of ribbies
and 4 double plays.
THE
THE BANANA DEMOCRACY 20
The up and down season of the banana
democracy had one of it’s frequent ups in this contest, a ten run beating of a
team that, kinda almost maybe had just 15-runned an
undefeated sbl superpower.
Led once again by Ben Smith, who has had a
series of impressive games since returning to the sbl
after he got his car fixed/got called out about his girlfriend neutering him,
the democracy rebounded from a tough one-run loss to jukebox hero earlier in
the day to improve to 6-8 on the season and keep themselves in the race for a
first-round playoff bye.
The
Smith finished with an 11 for 15 outing with
5 rbi, an assist and a trifecta of double plays.
John Offutt, who seems to have staked his claim to the leadoff slot on
the BD, hit 9 of 16 shots with a pair of jacks and 8 rbi. Kip
Corbett broke out of his funk with 7 for 16 marksmanship,
including a homer, with 7 batted in.
The Kamikazees, who
got nothing but three Christman singles over the
final 12 outs, fall to 2-10 and a full two games behind jukebox hero and the funbridges for last in the sbl. Christman finished
with 11 hits in 13 tries, with 2 homers and 6 batted in. Moroco tallied 2
assists, 3 double plays, and 3 psyche outs.
THE LASER CATS 22
THE OATCAKE HATE MONSTERS 4
(7 INNINGS)
For the second time in as many weeks, the
heavens opened up when the laser cats met up with their archrivals the oatcake
hate monsters, and once again neither wind or rain or the monsters could put an
end to the cats win streak, now at 14 games.
As opposed to last week, in which oatcake
sported a full lineup with both matt mccelland and shelley goodpastor
in attendance, only katie kelly
and terry hall were able to make it for this one. The outcome reflected the importance of the
two missing pieces to the hate monster lineup, an 18-point beatdown
that was quite the opposite of the one-run, last shot loss they suffered a week
ago.
The games was halted
after the first inning for nearly 30 minutes as buttsex
ballpark fell victim to a storm of monsoon-ic preportions. When
the lightning finally faded- note that I did not say disappeared altogether-
the game was resumed with a series of 2x4’s and hockey sticks lining the court,
which was for the most part under an inch of water.
When the game resumed, the offenses seemed
undeterred by the weather. The cats
scored 5 runs in the top of the second, thanks in large part to a nate tomko
3-run homer. But the 2-person monsters
answered right back, as Terry Hall put in a pair of 2-run homers to cut the
lead to one. However, that would be the
only offense oatcake would muster for the remainder of the game, as the usually
reliable katie struggled to shoot in a rain-socked
sweater, and spent a good chunk of the game ducking for cover whenever baby jesus sent down another clap of thunder.
Tha cats didn’t
stop scoring, and an 8-run sevent in which tomko drilled two more longballs
was all they would need to stick a fork in the monsters once again.
Tomko finished with 5 homers and 10 rbi on 7 for 11 shooting with a
trio of double plays. Bob Spohn went 9 for 11 from the leadoff hole, with 9 rbi. Both Terry Shernisky
and Tim Martin wnet 6 of 11, with the former tipping in
3 double plays.
Hall tipped in 3 double plays in a losing
effort.
TEAM OF THE WEEK: jukebox hero
PLAYER OF THE WEEK: nate tomko,
laser cats/kyoto kamikazees
(19 for 27, 35 rbi, 14 hr, 1 ast,
5 dp, 3 psyche)
GAME OF THE WEEK: jukebox- 8, funbridges- 7