TOURNEY REPORT!
i'm pretty exhausted today. yesterday was a ton of fun though.
woke up around 8am to pick up steph. plan was to get breakfast with joe and then have time to take it easy or hit the batting cages before we got to the softball tournament. steph fell back asleep when i was on my way to her house. i had to call her twice to wake her up and then she told me she'd be out in 2 minutes. 15 minutes later we were on our way. while i waited i contemplated at what point you end up calling the person again to make sure they aren't asleep. steph drank a bit much the night before.
breakfast at the curve was as usual really good. i went with the eggs and american fries instead of the usual multiple gigantic pieces of french toast. it was a good call. it felt like better energy food. unfortunately by this time it was pretty close to the start of our tournament at ten so we had to book across town to get there on time. i asked how many runs we would score in our first game and joe predicted 4. as i was putting on my cleats in the parking lot an ump walked by and asked if i had metal spikes. i told them that i thought plastic coated spikes were supposed to be ok. he told me they weren't so i had to play the whole day in the chucks. reminder, go cleat shopping soon.
tournaement was coed softball double elim. rd 1 we played this team of jocky dudes who were all wearing matching dark blue shirts with miller lite insignias on the front. they seemed pretty assy. most annoying guy on the team was their 3rd baseman. way overcompetitive beefer dude who yelled out his own biased ump calls on every play and yelled at his team even when they were winning. we had a pretty good first two innings. we were up like 4-2 or something. of course reaching joe's predicted score so early killed us. their bats really turned on and by the end of the game it was 18-4. this put us in the losers bracket. i batted five times. got 2 hits and a walk. walks can actually be pretty devastating in this league because if you walk on 3 straight pitches and you're a guy, the girl behind you in the lineup gets a free walk.
between games we used the 3rd diamond that nobody was using to practice on. a few of our girls weren't hitting so well that first game and we wanted to get them some batting practice. there were two kids on the field at the time and we asked them if they wanted to practice with us and they eagerly took the soaked outfield and shagged balls for us. we let them take some swings too. they had a lot of fun. rich worked with the girls and told them a few of the things he thought they were doing wrong and soon we were ready for game 2.
the next game we played against a pretty friendly team that we were much better than. they had black shirts that said "the hustlers" on them. leah decided to put all the girls in pig tails at the start of this game and when i laughed, she proclaimed me next. so somewhere there are disturbing/adorable depending on who you ask pictures of a bk in piggies. unfortunately the piggies stymied me that entire game. i hit 0 for 4. including hitting into a double play. the pigs kept flying in my face in the outfield too. tom managed to take out their pitcher with a really hard line drive right at her. despite me stinking it up we still ended up beating this team like 12 to 1 or something. we switched our fielders around from game one and kept the configuration for the rest of the game.
game 3 was against a team of white shirted people with the expression "balls deep" on the front. i redeemed myself this game by hitting 3 for 5. this was the game i think things really turned around on the day. the whole team was finally tasting some victory and most people on the team were hitting better. we ran over this team too. they seemed pretty decent, but i think we just had a lot of momentum and rich is an excellent pitcher that they had a really rough time hitting against. i think the final was around 14 to 2.
game 4 was the last game we needed to get to the championship game. we had hour breaks between the other games, but we had to play this one immediately after. joe had me lead off this game. i was happy about this. i like being lead off batter because i get a lot of base hits and sometimes those just result in force outs on other players if we already have runners on. i'm pretty fast though and often if i hit it on the ground i can get to first before they throw me out. i don't remember a lot of this game. i remember getting a solid hit my first at bat and the first baseman asking if we were as tired as they were. i really wasn't feeling tired at all though. i hit something like 3 for 5 this game. we smashed these guys too. it was something over 10 to 1.
so now im on game 5 and i'm starting to understand the limits on a softball tourney report. we had to play the team we played first that we lost to. everybody stepped up for this game. by now i was feeling very comfortable in the outfield. i had some really great running catches this game that saved us several runs. we ended up getting ahead of them pretty early in the game. it was like 7 to 1 for most of the game. then we scored more and it was 11 to 1. the other team was obviously pissed. i think they smashed all the other teams they played too and were expecting a pretty easy victory. the last inning got a little scary when they started to rally a bit. but we eventually shut them down holding them to only 4 runs.
the downside was this was double elimination and we had to play them in another game immediately after. the game started out great for us. we quickly scored 6 runs on them in the first inning. unfortunately they answered back immediately with 6 of their own. then we scored one and the game slowed down to us being up 7 to 6 for the next few innings. the rest of the game is a blur. i know they didnt score any more and i think we got up to 13. then they had a pretty good 5th inning and got up to 10. we managed to hold them to no runs the next inning. but were unable to score any more in the 6th or 7th. so it all came down to our 3 run lead in the last inning. and then unhappy things started happening. rich walked one of their first batters putting two people on. leah dropped a ball she was right there for. then tom went back for a hard catch and just barely missed a catch that ended up scoring enough people to win it. frowns.
for our trouble we won $150 which was $50 more than what we payed to play. so we got paid to play which was pretty cool. i dropped in at the prerelease and everybody was still playing magic unfortunately. had a big dinner at the nickel and then went out ale asylum, players pub (for ping pong with steph, snake and joe) and then finished it all off at the paradise lounge. by this point i was totally exhausted. i got home and layed on the small couch for about five seconds and immediately fell asleep. kyle and noelle woke me up and made me go to bed which i was thankful for since i was already pretty sore from the 6 games of softball. i think i might have minorly pulled or worn out something in my left leg cause its been bothering me whenever i stand up. i've been just avoiding doing that for most of today. sleeping 9 hours seems to have helped it a bit too.
woke up around 8am to pick up steph. plan was to get breakfast with joe and then have time to take it easy or hit the batting cages before we got to the softball tournament. steph fell back asleep when i was on my way to her house. i had to call her twice to wake her up and then she told me she'd be out in 2 minutes. 15 minutes later we were on our way. while i waited i contemplated at what point you end up calling the person again to make sure they aren't asleep. steph drank a bit much the night before.
breakfast at the curve was as usual really good. i went with the eggs and american fries instead of the usual multiple gigantic pieces of french toast. it was a good call. it felt like better energy food. unfortunately by this time it was pretty close to the start of our tournament at ten so we had to book across town to get there on time. i asked how many runs we would score in our first game and joe predicted 4. as i was putting on my cleats in the parking lot an ump walked by and asked if i had metal spikes. i told them that i thought plastic coated spikes were supposed to be ok. he told me they weren't so i had to play the whole day in the chucks. reminder, go cleat shopping soon.
tournaement was coed softball double elim. rd 1 we played this team of jocky dudes who were all wearing matching dark blue shirts with miller lite insignias on the front. they seemed pretty assy. most annoying guy on the team was their 3rd baseman. way overcompetitive beefer dude who yelled out his own biased ump calls on every play and yelled at his team even when they were winning. we had a pretty good first two innings. we were up like 4-2 or something. of course reaching joe's predicted score so early killed us. their bats really turned on and by the end of the game it was 18-4. this put us in the losers bracket. i batted five times. got 2 hits and a walk. walks can actually be pretty devastating in this league because if you walk on 3 straight pitches and you're a guy, the girl behind you in the lineup gets a free walk.
between games we used the 3rd diamond that nobody was using to practice on. a few of our girls weren't hitting so well that first game and we wanted to get them some batting practice. there were two kids on the field at the time and we asked them if they wanted to practice with us and they eagerly took the soaked outfield and shagged balls for us. we let them take some swings too. they had a lot of fun. rich worked with the girls and told them a few of the things he thought they were doing wrong and soon we were ready for game 2.
the next game we played against a pretty friendly team that we were much better than. they had black shirts that said "the hustlers" on them. leah decided to put all the girls in pig tails at the start of this game and when i laughed, she proclaimed me next. so somewhere there are disturbing/adorable depending on who you ask pictures of a bk in piggies. unfortunately the piggies stymied me that entire game. i hit 0 for 4. including hitting into a double play. the pigs kept flying in my face in the outfield too. tom managed to take out their pitcher with a really hard line drive right at her. despite me stinking it up we still ended up beating this team like 12 to 1 or something. we switched our fielders around from game one and kept the configuration for the rest of the game.
game 3 was against a team of white shirted people with the expression "balls deep" on the front. i redeemed myself this game by hitting 3 for 5. this was the game i think things really turned around on the day. the whole team was finally tasting some victory and most people on the team were hitting better. we ran over this team too. they seemed pretty decent, but i think we just had a lot of momentum and rich is an excellent pitcher that they had a really rough time hitting against. i think the final was around 14 to 2.
game 4 was the last game we needed to get to the championship game. we had hour breaks between the other games, but we had to play this one immediately after. joe had me lead off this game. i was happy about this. i like being lead off batter because i get a lot of base hits and sometimes those just result in force outs on other players if we already have runners on. i'm pretty fast though and often if i hit it on the ground i can get to first before they throw me out. i don't remember a lot of this game. i remember getting a solid hit my first at bat and the first baseman asking if we were as tired as they were. i really wasn't feeling tired at all though. i hit something like 3 for 5 this game. we smashed these guys too. it was something over 10 to 1.
so now im on game 5 and i'm starting to understand the limits on a softball tourney report. we had to play the team we played first that we lost to. everybody stepped up for this game. by now i was feeling very comfortable in the outfield. i had some really great running catches this game that saved us several runs. we ended up getting ahead of them pretty early in the game. it was like 7 to 1 for most of the game. then we scored more and it was 11 to 1. the other team was obviously pissed. i think they smashed all the other teams they played too and were expecting a pretty easy victory. the last inning got a little scary when they started to rally a bit. but we eventually shut them down holding them to only 4 runs.
the downside was this was double elimination and we had to play them in another game immediately after. the game started out great for us. we quickly scored 6 runs on them in the first inning. unfortunately they answered back immediately with 6 of their own. then we scored one and the game slowed down to us being up 7 to 6 for the next few innings. the rest of the game is a blur. i know they didnt score any more and i think we got up to 13. then they had a pretty good 5th inning and got up to 10. we managed to hold them to no runs the next inning. but were unable to score any more in the 6th or 7th. so it all came down to our 3 run lead in the last inning. and then unhappy things started happening. rich walked one of their first batters putting two people on. leah dropped a ball she was right there for. then tom went back for a hard catch and just barely missed a catch that ended up scoring enough people to win it. frowns.
for our trouble we won $150 which was $50 more than what we payed to play. so we got paid to play which was pretty cool. i dropped in at the prerelease and everybody was still playing magic unfortunately. had a big dinner at the nickel and then went out ale asylum, players pub (for ping pong with steph, snake and joe) and then finished it all off at the paradise lounge. by this point i was totally exhausted. i got home and layed on the small couch for about five seconds and immediately fell asleep. kyle and noelle woke me up and made me go to bed which i was thankful for since i was already pretty sore from the 6 games of softball. i think i might have minorly pulled or worn out something in my left leg cause its been bothering me whenever i stand up. i've been just avoiding doing that for most of today. sleeping 9 hours seems to have helped it a bit too.