WW Softball : Winter Meeting

In an attempt to reflect on the year and collaborate on ideas to improve the team for the coming season, WW softball meet at it's headquarters (Hooters) this past Friday. The meeting was also a chance to celebrate Mike C's Birthday who had just turned 50. Some of the guys meet at PESH to watch Mike's son Grayson play basketball for the Varsity Plano East team before heading out to the meeting. GC, a Junior at PESH was in the starting lineup and helped his team stick it to Lake Highlands.

Most of the players made it to the meeting but a small few were unable to break free of their ball an chain. It should also be noted that some players actually managed to bring their ball and chain with them. There actually wasn't too much reflection on this year but we all know that 2007 was a good year for WW softball. On the road to winning all three seasons this year, we only lost two regular season games and we were one win shy of taking an end of season tournament.

The main topic of conversation had nothing to do with softball... actually I don't even think there was a main topic of conversation. I just remember talking about how much I love going to Hooters. As far as personnel is concerned, the general consensus is that our team is just fine as it is and WW is not looking to sign any free agents. In other words no one has meet anybody who plays softball this off season. Also, everyone is hoping that Rory will be good to go this spring. The only important informationt that was relayed is that we will be entering the pre-season tournament in late February. It is the first time Plano has held a pre-season tourny but it should be a good chance to shake free some rust. No seriously... JW you might wanna make sure all of those braces that hold your legs together during the games are free of rust. Other than that everone ha a good time.

I can not believe what I just saw!

In what is being described by some as the greatest game ever played in the history of the franchise the WWs softball team erased three seperate deficits to defeat Last Call and take the outright lead for Plano’s Men’s A Friday League 81138. WW got down early giving up 4 runs in the first and then failed to score a run in the bottom half of the frame. After holding LC scoreless in the top of the 2nd thanks in part to the head games of TJ Campbell, WW missed an opportunity to cut the lead down and hung up another zero. It was finally in the last half of the 3rd when the WW bats woke up and put six runs up to take a 6-4 lead. WW however was unable to hold on to the lead and again found themselves trailing 7-6 in the bottom of the seventh. Somehow the lower half of the WW order was able to scrape a run together in order to tie it up and send it into extras.
In the top of the 8th with two men on, a LC batter hit a sinking liner to left. Brian Macek took an aggressive angle in order to make the catch but lost the ball at the last minute. All runners scored and WW again trailed. Needless to say… Macek will have Boner of the week honors.
The bottom half of the inning had Macek leading off. Eager to atone for the missed line drive Brian led off with a double. Pete followed with a solid base hit moving Brian to 3rd. With Runners on the corners the Byron popped out to left center allowing Brian to score and Pete to advance to second on a pure hustle play by Pete. Scott then popped out to left center giving WW it’s second out of the inning. Still trailing by two JW stepped to the plate. Another basehit put runners on the corners for Mike. A sharp line drive platted Pete and somehow Mike ended up at second. With two on and two out and down by a run, the weight of the world was placed on Ralph Starr’s shoulders. What happened next is a moment that will live in WW history. Ralph singled up the middle off of the shortstops glove and drove in the tying and go-ahead runs. Mike and Ralph are this weeks co-players of the week.
After the game we sorted this all oout at hooters before we started drinking but in case of any mistakes please let me know and as always don’t pay attention to any spelling, grammatical and mathmatical mistakes.

Wow, this is a pain in the ass.

With the fall season underway WW was washed out of thier first game and won by forfeit to Alcatel-Lucent the Friday after. Unfortunately I wasn't able to make the third game and report on it but my sources tell me that Peter Bergan pitched a 1-hit shutout to beat Austin Ave. I am proud to sat that this weeks boner and player of the week goes to Pete. This is the second time Pete has held both the boner and player of the week awards. Congrats Pete!

Player of the week : Peter Bergan - 1 hit shutout

Boner of the week : Peter Bergan - Allowing a hit

The Great, Late Tournament Update

OK, I’m going to make this short and sweet in order to show off some of the pictures from the tournament. And I also don’t really remember most of the details of what happened. WW Finished 2nd place in the tournament after losing their opening round game to the Dallas Bronc-hoes. This was quite disturbing seeing as how the DB played like a bunch of little girls. Before the game Byron stated that he was ‘not going to make an error the whole tournament’ and then ruined the suspense for everyone after the booted the first ball in play and then it was all down hill from there. The score was like 9-6 and Pete only gave up 2 earned runs. So the Boner of the tournament goes to the Water Works Softball team. Byron is in the picture below but he's in the back row and his head is still up his ass from the first game.

The good news about playing a horrible game is that it can only get better. And it did. After knocking out a few other teams we wound up playing the Saints who knocked us out of the spring tournament. WW managed a come from behind victory in this one. There were too many plays to think of that kept us in the game but I think everyone remembers Scott going into second base head first in order to beat out a force play and prolong our come-back inning. I don’t have a picture of Buckshot but just imagine what the love child of Stone Cold Steve Austin and Jay Buhner would look like all grown up and that is Scott. After dropping the Saints we went to the Championship to play Down and Dirty. We needed to win two in a row in order to take the crown but a tired WW team was no match for the steroid injected Down and Dirty team.

This is what Brian looks like before he turns into a flash of light…

Here is Albert seconds before realizing there is no way humanly possible he can steal third…

This is what Babe Ruth would have looked like if he wore sun glasses…

And now for the player of the tournament... Chris Weyand. Chris had something like a 16 AB hit streak going. He is the model for quite consistency.

My most disappointing memory as a part of the WW softball team is missing the after party at Mike’s. Regrettably my wife was in the middle of pretending to have a baby so I rushed home only to go to the birthing center only to find out there is nothing going on. If I had the authority to give out a boner of the week to a fan I would have awarded it to Liz. From the looks of the pictures everyone had a great time. Sorry I missed it.

Seriously this time. Now we are Back to Back Champions

Apparently in the Plano Leagues you can be lazy and not show up 3 times before you are kicked out of the league which means we had to play PHBC(2-4) again last Friday. PHCB was still no match for WW softball despite the best efforts of the left side of the infield. PHCB had yet to score a run when the bases were loaded in the 3rd with no outs. On a routine 5UA – 2 Tag, double play (possibly a triple play if they could have gotten the runner out at first) Byron actually let the ball hit square in his glove without catching it and then watched it roll away letting all runners reach without a play. If you watch the slow motion replay you can actually see the moment Byron tries to pull his head out of his ass once the play is over. This definitely puts him into the front running for Boner of the week. But then the last inning happened. JW who had actually made the play of the game on a hot line drive over his head (Joe’s reach over his head is about 8’3”, The line drive was 8’3 ¼” high. You do the math… JW has mad ups) wound up screwing the pooch on two consecutive plays in the inning. This gives JW and Byron the first ever co-Boners of the week. The player of the week will go to Brian Macek who had put a couple of burn notices on the PHCB outfield and wound up with a couple of little league homers. Although WWs won handily 12-6, the victory was the first time this season WW did not run rule a team. Thanks Byron and JW but mostly Byron! This victory assured WWs second consecutive league championship.

BACK-2-BACK

With the 14-0 win over PHBC and a forfeit win over the Masterbatters Water Works Softball will repeat as Friday night A league champions. With two games left in the season WW is 1 game ahead of the nearest competition Austin Ave. who holds a 6-1 record. WW is scheduled to play PHCB who has forfeited twice this year and have been kicked out of the league so this Friday’s game will be another forfeit win. Which means that even if WW looses its final game against The Varsity, WW would win the first place tie breaker against Austin Ave. since WW has beaten AA head to head. So far WW is undefeated, run ruling every team in their path.

Another team is run rulled. Yawn...

WW was expecting a double header last Friday and instead received a much needed early trip to the bar. The 8:00 game was against PHCB( 2-3 ) who, according to their run scoring ability appeared to be the only competition for WW outside of Austin Ave. That assessment couldn’t have been anymore incorrect… WW blanked PHCB 14-0 in 4 innings. Technically since PHCB forfeited earlier in the evening they were kicked out of the league and should have forfeited against us at 8:00. Apparently the umps didn’t get the memo and we were able to play. Pete pitched the complete game yielding only two hits. For Pete it was his first shutout ever in his softball career. This feat will earn Pete (top right) his
second straight player of the week award. The Boner of the week goes to Rik(bottom right) for injuring his groin while playing for the Heartbreakers. This is actually the second week in a row a WW member has been injured playing for this team. I predict Bob goes down next week with a torn meniscus while playing for the Breakers. The game was typical for WW, Brian hit the ball hard and ran really fast and everyone else followed suit except for the running really fast part. Solid, smart defense helped lift Pete to his 3rd victory of the season. After the PHCB warm-up, WW expected the Masterbatters on field 8. The batters who had already forfeited earlier in the evening were nowhere to be found. The game was called at 9:05 and we were at the bar around 9:07 where we were served the finest beer and wings in all of the land. Not a bad week and it sure as hell beats a rainout.

Making up for lost time

In the event that we can beat the odds against a 40% chance of rain this evening WW softball will double dip against PHCB and the Masterbatters. PHCB owns a 2-2 (1-2 against teams .500 or above) record including a forfeit while the Batters have yet to win a game. One of our fans has brought to my attention that the name Masterbatters comes from that teams inability to score. PHCB which seems to be the only real threat to WW outside of Austin Avenue has a 15 to 9 run average which does not include their forfeit. Game 1 start time is 8:00. Tonight is also full-priced hot dog night so be sure to bring your family and friends out to the game as we need to increase our fan base.

Is there anyone we can't run rule?

Somehow, amidst the many thunderstorms that rolled through North Texas on Friday, Heritage

Yards in Plano was spared. WW softball was able to hit the field and the bar after dropping the Buttcrack Johnnies 13 – 1 in 5 innings. At least I think it was five. Hell I don’t know. I was too excited about ending a 4 week beer/wings drought. At least I think it was 4 weeks. Hell I don’t know. I was too excited about being able to eat beer/wings. Pete Bergan gets the player of the week honors for pitching/playing 4 innings on a bruised kneecap. And now for the Trojan Boner of the week… And it goes to Pete Bergan (Pictured to the right) for getting a bruised kneecap. Although this injury happed in a game before ours, Pete still gets the nod. On a hot line drive back up the middle, Pete reacted too quickly and swiped at the ball early leaving his knee cap exposed and you can assume what happened after that. Other than that I didn’t really take too many notes from the game but Ralph Starr put a burn notice on the left fielder and Rik made a hell of a catch on a looping line drive.

Damn it! Who did the rain dance last night!?

Looks like we will have to wait another week before we can get back after it.

LAST SEASON, I led this team in ninth-inning doubles in the month of August!

In an effort to try and bring SABR metrics into softball I'm thinking about trying to get someone to keep score during our games. If anybody has a wife that knows how to keep a book let me know. It doesn't pay well but they will get the thrill of seeing us play softball and the option of hanging out with us after the game. The only main requirement is being able to color-in squares. Actually, I can probly keep it while we are batting but I do want to know if you guys think it's a good idea or not. I just don't want to see someone let the stats go to their head.

Apparently there isn’t enough Diamond Dry for field two.

Looks like we will have to wait until next week to try and extend our winning streak to four games. We will play the Buttcrack Johnnies (1-2), who lost to us 16-6 way back in June. Game time is at 9:00 and hopefully partytime will be around 9:30 again.

Softball gods return from vacation and thank the thunder gods for watching after everything while they were gone.

If Plano Parks and Rec has enough Diamond Dry sitting in their field house the Water Works softball team could return to action tonight in a rematch against the Masterbatters. The Masterbatters (insert your own joke here) are hoping to avenge the June 1st nail biter loss to WW. Down 22 – 0 the batters started a rally late and with two outs in the bottom of the third their only hope at a run was gunned down at the plate to end the game. I don’t remember who made the play because I was too busy arguing that the runner was safe. I agree with Will Leitch at Deadspin. I don’t know why but it does always seam funnier when a team that is getting the crap kicked out of them manages to score at least one run. http://deadspin.com/sports/college-baseball/it-seems-difficult-to-lose-57+1-251113.php