sbl 2008, week
2
sunday, may 25
the k-y court at assbang
fieldhouse
OATCAKE HATE MONSTERS 14
Even the return of hall of famer
PJ Nespor was not enough to get the kamikazees their first win of the season, as Mikey Moroco’s charges lost a
tough one-run game to the undefeated hate monsters.
Matt Mcclelland
made his debut for oatcake, and along with Shelley Goodpastor
and Katie Kelly formed a 1-2-3 punch unlike anything seen in the sbl since the wet dream days of 2006. The three former all-stars combined for 18 of
their squads 21 hits, and drove in 12 of 14 runs. Goodpastor led the
way with a 7 for 10, 5 ribbie showing, while Mcclelland tipped in a pair of double plays.
For the Kamikazees,
who fell behind early and were never able to take the lead in spite of closing
the gap to one on numerous occasions, Moroco hit on 7
of 11 attempts with a homer and 5 rbi and collected 5
double plays and a psyche out on the defensive side of the ball. Chris Pacsi also
drove in 5.
THE LASER CATS
35
THE
For the first time this season fellow 2007
player of the year finalists Terry Shernisky and Nate
Tomko were playing good at the same time and the results were as expected: a
dominating showing on the offensive side of the ball that finished in an
impressive win over a very game opponent.
Though the queens got huge games out of their
big stars Bryan Frankovich and Aryn
Christman and managed to take a 13-9 lead after the
first 3 innings, the dead-on shooting of the games premiere players was just
too much on this day, and Sherry and Tomko’s
consistency from the field eventually wrestled the lead from the queens. From there, the cats weathered a 9-run ninth
that included a Frankovich grand slam to earn their
third win of the season.
Shernisky finished
with 16 for 22 marksmanship with 4 homers, 16 rbi and an assist.
On the defensive side of the ball, Sherry tipped in a game-high 6 double
plays. Tomko was not far off with a 17
for 22, 3 homer, 12 rbi, 1
assist showing. Bob Spohn
connected on 13 shots and drove in 7.
Frankovich finished
with 21 rbi (good for second
all-time) on 11 for 20 bank-shooting with 5 homers. Christman banked
home an incredible 18 of her 20 attempts and drove in 6. John Davidson bounced the ball off the
backboard and into the hoop 9 of the 19 times he tried. The Queen defense was paced by Frankovich’s 5 double plays.
VOLTRON
12
JUKEBOX HERO 8
Billy Weisberg’s voltron
squad became the third team in as many games to extend their record to 3-0,
using some big early innings to take a lead on an overmatched jukebox hero
squad and never looking back.
After a
For jukebox, Brandon Gillshire
hit 3 of his 7 shots with a homer and 5 runs batted in. Both Terry Hall and Greg Lackey added a trio
of hits. Tara Shawley
and Rob Whiting also suited up for the yellow mesh.
JUKEBOX HERO 3
THE BANANA DEMOCRACY 10
The banana democracy finally got into the win column
for 2008, taking advantage of a bad jukebox hero team to earn the duke.
The heroes actually held the lead briefly
after the first inning. In the top half
of the frame, Opie Neff and Jon Olsavsky
connected for run-scoring hits to give the yellow mesh 2 runs. Then, in the bottom of the first, they held
anyone on the democracy not named Kip Corbett hitless to take the narrowest 2-1
lead into the second. Banana then tied it up on a Dennis Lackey solo
homer to lead off the second, and a handful of scoreless innings ensued until
the democracy exploded for 5 in the fifth for all the runs they would
require. Three more would be plated in
the 8th to give the B.D. a nice even ten for the game, as their
defense tightened to keep any runners from reaching base from the 6th
stanza on.
Gillshire notched
6 hits in 13 at-bats with 5 batted in and a pair of double plays. Corbett connected on 6 shots, while Dennis
Lackey coerced a pair of psyche-outs.
Jon Olsavsky was
the only one who did much of anything for jukebox, hitting 5 of 6 shots and
driving in a run. Travis Perry made his
debut for the heroes, and Tara Shawlet and Rob
Whiting also saw their second consecutive JBH action.
THE
THE FLESHY FUNBRIDGES 14
Thirteen once again proved unlucky for the kamikazees, as they scored exactly that for the second time
in as many games, and once again fell a lone run short. This loss had to be the more bitter of the
two, however, as they blew a gigantic lead over the final three innings to a
fellow winless squad in a battle for last in the SBL.
For the entire first 6 innings, the funbridges looked totally lost. They managed only three hits, only one of
which was from beyond the single line, and couldn’t get any offense whatsoever
going from their normally solid captain Rando
Knight. In that time, the kamikazees looked like a team possessed, plating run after
run thanks to the timely hitting of Mike Moroco and the
deadly outside accuracy of Chris Pacsi. Moroco was
confident enough in his 13-0 lead to go to his bench, sitting Pacsi to get Greg Lackey into the game in the fourth, then putting himself on the pine in the 6th in
favor of rookie Rob Whiting. Meanwhile,
his own player, hall of famer Jon Olsavsky,
was traded to the opposing funbridges in mid-game in
exchange for future considerations.
Perhaps all of those events conspired to set
up one of the most epic collapses in sports history.
With Olsavsky now in
the lineup for the FF, the game took the most drastic of turns, and Opie Neff suddenly became possessed by the spirit of Mark Tarkanick. With Olsavsky setting the table with near perfection from the
single and double lines and Knight finally finding the bottom of the net, Neff
failed to miss any of his final 7 shots, 5 of which were from homer range. 3 runs came in the seventh, 8 in the 8th,
then the final three in the bottom of the 9th on Neff’s walk-off
bomb to put the finishing touches on one of the most amazing games in league
annals.
The kamikazees made
only one shot in the final three innings as their lead went from uncatchable to a memory.
Neff finished with 8 hits in 14 attempts
with 5 homers and 11 ribbies. Olsavsky connected
on 8 of 10 shots with 2 runs batted in and a huge last-inning double play.
In a losing effort, Pacsi
drilled 3 of 4, all homers, with 5 rbi. Moroco added 5
hits, 5 rbi, 2 homers and a
trio of double plays.
THE BANANA DEMOCRACY 0
THE LASER CATS 17 (6 innings)
The cats followed up the most dynamic
offensive showing of the 2-week old season with the most impressive defensive
game of the year, keeping the democracy off the board and limited to a lone
Dennis Lackey first-inning triple to improve to 4-0 and into first place in the
SBL.
Shernisky and Tomko
continued their reign of terror on the SBL, with Tomko getting 8 hits in 11 at
bats with a pair of homers and 6 rbi
while Shernisky drilled 7 of 11 shots with 2 longballs and 5 rbi. Each tipped in an assist, and Shernisky added a quartet of double plays. But Bob Spohn may
have had the best game of all for the cats, a 7 for 11, 3 homer,
6 rbi performance to announce to the world that the
grey and pink is not a 2-man show.
This is normally the part of the article that
I reserve to say something good about the losing team. There is nothing good to say about the
performance of the banana democracy.
THE
VOLTRON 25
Picked by at least two SBL superstars to hoist
the Left-Eye this summer, few would have imagined that a team boasting the
talent of the queens would be sitting at 1-3 after two weeks of action. But that’s exactly where B.Frank
and co find themselves at this point after suffering another big-on-offense
loss, this time to conference rivals Voltron to fall
a full 3 games back in the national division.
Voltron continued their
trend-bucking style of play, opting to smallball
their way another impressive win while the rest of the SBL continued its love affair
with the longball and the old “3-people all going for
the same double play” defensive strategy.
The team devoid of any superstars got four
all-star worth performances in this one.
Derek Lockovich: 7 for 14, 1 rbi.
The queens did once again nearly pull out a
late-inning miracle as Frankovich drilled another
ninth inning grand slam, this time tipping in his own miss as the Weisberg-less defense parted like the hair on Ben Smith’s chest and
allowed him in. Even without their
Hebrew taskmaster, Voltron was able to hold on just
long enough to get their 4th victory.
Christman led the
losers with a 12 for 17, 1 homer, 6 rbi,
1 psyche out, 1 double play performance.
Davidson added 10 hits, and Frankovich plated
11 runs on 3 homers.
THE FLESHY FUNBRIDGES 10
THE OATCAKE HATE MONSTERS 19
Though they did manage a 6th inning
grand slam from captain Rando Knight, the funbrides were unable to recapture the magic of one game
earlier and the Oatcake Hate Mongers held serve to keep themselves tied with
the laser cats atop the SBL’s american
conference.
Oatcake started off slowly, and for awhile it
seemed as if the funbridges were going to keep pace
with the offensive juggernaut, but a 9-run 5th inning broke open a
7-2 game and provided a cushion not even a grand slam could overcome. It certainly helped that Katie Kelly decided
to start making shots, as she was responsible for 6 of those nine runs on a
trio of extra-base hits.
Goodpastor once again
blazed the trail for her squad, hitting 8 of 11 with a homer and 10 runs batted
in. Matt Mcclelland
nailed 6 of 10 with a trip of rbi,
while captain Terry Hall connected on 7 of 10.
For the losers, Knight knocked down 6 of 10
shots with 6 rbi. Jon Olsavsky tipped
in 3 double plays.
TEAM OF THE WEEK:
THE LASER CATS (35 runs one
game, a 17-0 blowout the next)
PLAYER OF THE WEEK- BRYAN FRANKOVICH, THE
GAME OF THE WEEK- FUNBRIDGES OVER KAMIKAZEES