The Gauntlet Has Been Laid Down.

The powers that be (The softball scheduling dude) has seen it fit to assemble the greatest softball teams ever to play the game (on Friday nights in Plano) into one single hyper-competitive league. This fall we will be seeing our old foe’s/beeotches Esi-out as well as Last Call, a respected adversary of old. The Texans will be in the mix as well as Chipotle who we faced in the semi-finals of the Summer EOS tourney. This is basically what we have all been asking for all along. None of these games will be cakewalks and we should expect to see a lot of close games going 7 innings. Or we could just beat the tinkle out of everyone and clinch the league 6 weeks in.

We kick off the season this Friday, August 28 against the Texans and then take a week off before facing our arch-rivals ESI-Bee-och on the September 11th.

Well that was a waste of a perfectly good Saturday

When the WW club first began discussing the Summer EOS it seemed as though it would never happen. Too many guys out of town and just not enough interest. I mean, come on. Who wants to run around in the Texas sun every other hour when you could be at home doing something constructive... like anything but playing softball. After a few e-mail exchanges the push for fielding a Summer EOS team gained some momentum. Two days short of the deadline we had finally set our roster with 12 guys. Only 5 of which are regular WW players. A quick scramble to get enough WW jerseys together was successfully and the Summer EOS was a go.

The day long journey for WW began at 9:00AM on field two against Big Sticks. WW had faced these guys in the past and no one could recall them ever really being a threat. After only scoring one run in the top of the first, BS would take the lead by 4. WW would need a few innings to take control of the game for good. The nail in the coffin was Bryan Jones' 3-run home run off the scoreboard in the 5th. BS couldn't manage to get their offense going after the first couple of innings, but they were able to keep the game close enough to play all seven innings.

WW wouldn't play again until Noon so most of the players went their separate ways. The Jones' of course went to grab a beer (You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning). Rik and Chris H went on to help two separate teams to victory filling in for missing players. JW, Melton, Mike Long and Byron went to Little Gus' and didn't have to wait too long to be seated at the counter. Now, I have a love/hate relationship with little Gus'. I get there, and I see all of these specials and I remember how good it was the last time I came. Then I start doing the math trying to figure out which special costs the least but comes with the greatest amount of food. I then precede to eat until I'm sick and begin to hate LG' for having such great food. I had the two eggs two pancakes special with sausage. It also comes with potatoes; which I hadn't had there before. This was far and away the best breakfast I've paid for in Texas. I'm coming out and saying it, Little Gus' is better than Poor Richards. Enough with the food review...

Next up for WW would be the Vipers. These guys were unknown to the WW crew but looked to be a formidable foe. The team definitely looked the part, and I overheard a couple of their players talking about where they played college ball. WW again would need a little bit of time to warm up and would have to struggle to maintain a lead, once again being the visiting team. Solid defense is what bought WW enough time to create a comfortable lead. WW would again play all seven innings and outlast the Vipers.

After an hour wait WW moved to field 1 and took on Next Generation. Again WW faced an opponent they had never meet before in competition so they weren't sure what to expect. A couple of guys from NG couldn't help but mention that they 5 guys that played college ball. I think I was more worried about the fact that their SS had neon green shoes. Actually he wasn't too bad. A couple of guys though he had good range but when you are playing in shallow left you kind of make it look like you have range. I don't really recall this game being too close. We were the visiting team again but we got ahead and didn't look back. Mike Long blasted a 3run shot to help put the game away and the WW bats made up for a couple of mental mistakes. The most notable play of the game was a pure hustle play by Chris H. Morris knew when he hit the ball that it was going to be a close play so he took two steps and dove to first. Unfortunately his hustle wasn't rewarded and he was thrown out by 50 feet. Very good effort though.

Two hours later WW would face off against Chipotle who had no problems moving through the lower bracket, run ruling a couple of teams along the way. WW would not have a problem against the burrito makers and would actually win their first and only run rule game of the day. The defensive play of the game came at the hands of Macek, who went all the way to the fence chasing down a towering fly ball only to stop at the fence... camp out for a few seconds and then make the catch with his back to the infield. I couldn't tell if he just got lost with a 'Who put this fence here' moment or it he just stopped to pray but he eventually reeled in the popup and put an end to a potential rally. Although WW won this game convincingly, we also suffered our biggest set-back of the tournament when Bryan Jones came up lame after his AB in the first inning with a hamstring injury. Byron moved to Right center to try and fill the void in the out field but after the game Bryan would not return to the defensive lineup and only saw one more AB in a pinch-hitting role. This win would put WW in the finals against the Saints who eventually manhandled Chipotle to win the losers bracket.

With Bryan Jones out of the lineup WW went on to face the Aints in the finals. WW would actually be the home team for the first time in the tournament but got off to a rocky start finishing the first inning down 3. The second inning was over quick and WW found themselves down 7-1. WW was able to stop the Aints bats for a couple of innings and was able to tie the game up by the fourth inning. The Aints would eventually take back control of the game and hand WW their first loss of the tourny.

Five minutes later we would start it all over again. This time around WW would be the visiting team and would have control of the game early. After the first couple of innings the score went back and forth. until time expired with both teams tied. We went to a full count extra innings format where WW would take a three run lead. The Aints then came up to bat with the meat of their order and had some solid clutch basehits to put the game away.

It was rough to play all day long only to see us lose to a team like that. This isn't unfamiliar teritory for WW. This happened a year or two ago against the same team, and I remember the same frustrated feeling. It sucks to go all day playing good, smart ball only to lose in with two outs left in the final inning. It really sucks to do that losing to a bunch of D-bags. Aside from Mike Cs lifelong friend Zad, these guys are just a bunch of thugs. They are pretty much what I don't like about softball. Running their mouths all the time, throwing behind runners and running their mouths all of the time. I think the problem with guys like these is that they never really played ball at a higher level so they don't know what it is like to play with class since they've never had an authority figure to teach them. They also haven't played against guys that would put up their crap. Whether or not they just weren't good at baseball or their parents couldn't keep from dropping them on their heads I just can't stand teams like that, and I really hate losing to them.

Thugs or not, the Aints were a good hitting team. Those guys play a lot of tournaments and probably treat softball much like we treat our livelihoods. For a bunch of once a week league players, I think it says a lot to be within two outs from beating a time like the Aints. Despite the physical errors and lack of hits with 2out RISP, which typically comes with playing playing ball for 8 hours out of the day we still played these guys tight and I believe that all of our guys left it all out on the field.

WaterWorks Disappointed In Summer EOS Finals

After coasting through the winners bracket WW dropped two to the Aints in the finals. The second loss went into extras where the Aints hit a walk-off double with the winning run on second to complete the four run come from behind inning.

Summer EOS Tourny

The roster has been set. Names are listed in order of awesomeness. I’m not sure if list is ascending or descending. Our first game will be at 9:00 AM on field #2. A loss will have us playing at 11:00 AM on field 1. If we win we get a break until Noon and we will play on #3.

Joe Westrich
Byron Humphrey
Rik Montgomery
Brian Macek
Chris Heinrich
Mike Long
Bryan Jones
Brian Melton
Jason Jones
Travis Piesker
Adam Stellar
Fred Clausen

Friday Night Lights Fantasy Football League Live Draft Date, Time and Location Set

Owners and GMs of the twelve team league will descend upon the Bennett Sports Bar (Plano Location) in an effort to lay claim to the greatest talents available in the NFL, all in the hopes of amassing the greatest team ever to compete in the FNLFFL. All essential team personnel will be arriving at 5:00 in order to discuss and possibly vote on outstanding issues for the upcoming season. There seem to be plenty of hot issues surrounding the start of this year’s draft. The first being whether or not this league is a keeper league. I am aware of at least two owners that were under the impression that the league was currently operating under a keeper league policy. Since there weren’t any rules created adding restrictions and limitations on the league in the scope of keeping players, the commissioner should have no problem stating that this year will be the first keeper draft. If this is the will of all of the owners, an official statement should come from the office of the commissioner stating the beginning of the keeper league and that players should be drafted accordingly. Another point of contention amongst owners is whether to allow slot positions in the starting lineup. While two slot positions may seem a little too excessive, many owners would like to see the addition of at least one flex position which will make late round picks even more important. The ruling on the slot position will mostly affect beer drinking owners who will more than likely be under the influence by the late rounds of the draft, which will be critical picks with the slot position in the starting lineup. There have also been calls to combine both divisions creating a single league of twelve teams fighting for six playoff spots. All in all this will take away from character of the league and create more meaningless games late in the season. Last years season was by all accounts a great season with an abundance of playoff races. While it is true there could be just as many teams battling for a playoff spot. You have to remember that with a balanced schedule late in the season there is a greater opportunity of playing against a team that doesn’t have playoff hopes or has already locked up a spot. When this happens there is always the possibility of collusion. Combining the leagues could be one of the worst things to ever happen to the league if the vote goes through. Again, the two leagues option adds a nuance to the league that promotes competition. This is a major factor in some of the calls by owners to simplify the scoring removing the special team points, defensive points, etc. If the league falls into this trap it will become a cookie cutter league without uniqueness that currently draws in the fans. It will be interesting to see what issues go to a vote and what the outcomes of those votes will be, but all in all I think everyone is just excited to be getting closer to the start of the season.

WW suffers worst regular season loss of the year...

It's actually our first regular season loss of the year. I do feel somewhat responsible for mentioning the quest for a perfect season in my last post. Either way you slice it, it was a bad loss. I know we went into the game with a laid back approach that win or loss we still had the championship, but I just hat losing to AA. Actually I don't think since I've been playing that we ever had lost to AA. I do enjoy seeing us flip the lineup and have the outfield in the infield and vice-versa, I really look forward to these types of games. I just wish it was some other team. WW started out kinda soft giving up 8 runs in the first as AA peppered the right side and to their credit, hit the ball really well in the first. WW was unable to get anything going in the following innings but tighten the defense up a little. Jay and Rik made some nice sprawling plays to rob basehit linedrives. Brian twisted a 5UA-3 double play at third. We were able to string together some runs but a horrible effort by the back end of the lineup made it difficult to extend rallies. The anchor of the bottom of the lineup was Byron who had an oughfer night at the plate. Nice job... Boner of the week for you. The player of the week will have to go to Mike Carroll for bringing a woman back to life while on a business trip. This is not some kind of euphemism, this lady was dragged from the bottom of a pool by Mike himself and wasn't breathing. Mike and another good Samaritan administered CPR and got this woman breathing minutes before the paramedics arrived. We will have more on this story in a later post. On a side note, I just misspelled paramedic and the spell check suggested spermicidal. I assumes that is what it sounds like, but I am still failing to understand this term. I digress. WW was able to keep from being run ruled with a three run rally but time ran out on the dream of a perfect season. 14-8 was the final. Some of the WW team will be competing in the Summer EOS tournament but we are still working the details out about whether this team will feature the WW name or the Tuesday Night Development team name Strikeforce. Either way we will be roasting our asses off this Saturday.

That was a little anticlimactic...

Maybe it was just me, but there seemed to be a lot of hype built into the WW Goodfellas game last Friday(7/31). Some of that hype was probably lost when GF lost to AA in extras the week before. Still there seemed to be plenty of reasons out there tp make the second matchup a good game. GF was able to play long into the Spring EOS tournament so there was a sense that they would be a formidable foe prior to the first game of the Summer season. A GF player had mentioned to Mike C. that they had WW circled on their calender so they obviously knew who the team to beat was. After WW beat GF 9-3 another player made the excuse that 3-4 of their best players weren't at the game so I guess I was lead to believe that GF had the potential to hand WW their first loss of the season and have an outside shot at stealing the league championship. This perception was indeed incorrect. Maybe GF has some ringers that just weren't able to make it to both the WWs games and maybe they are better than they showed this season, but I never expected them to get romped 16-0 through 4.
WW got off to a great start putting up 4 in the first and never looking back. Mike C. was on the bump again to allow an ailing Pete some time of from the field. I could only remember one runner reaching Third and the outfield did a great job of keeping the ball in front of them (It was physically impossible to get the ball behind them for the first couple of innings since they seemed to be sitting on the fence) and off the ground. There were way too many good things that happened this game which makes it tough to pick a POTW. I think one of the things I enjoy about this team is that we really don't have any standout. We play solid together and pick each other up. In the end I think we'll give POTW to Mike C. for shutting down GF again. BOTW has to go to Byron for sending Jay from second on a basehit to LC. He just looked so fast rounding third, I didn't want to stop him. It was like poetry in motion... until the last 20 steps when the catcher had the ball.

Time to Get Caught Back Up...

So it's been a while since the last post... The last time we checked in we heard about how a shorthanded WWs team easily handled Austin Ave. Since then, WW has handed Rick's Appliance Repair and Hiro a loss to put their magic number at one with two games left to play. Let's summarize these two games...

WW had their work cut out for them when they faced Rick's(1-3) for a second time this season. The first time these two tangled, WW managed to escape with a 17-2 victory. This time around it wouldn't be so easy as Rick's made some adjustments that all but assured their second win of the season. Always thinking one step behind, Uncle Jesse (Rick's Manager/Brian trust) came out of retirement/off the DL to play firstbase. This allowed Uncle J to orchestrate his strategy a little closer to the action. We also saw Hannibal Lector move to the outfield so that Rick's could try out a new pitcher in the hopes that giving WW a new look from the mound would slow down their offensive assault. These managerial moves along with some pre-game misfortunes for WW seemed to spell victory for Rick's. First we saw Brian Macek show up to the park without any shoes. Byron received a call on his cell phone from Chris H. in the parking lot explaining the situation. Byron, always the improviser looked into the cab of his truck and noticed his golf shoes sitting next to his workout shoes. They were white/brown saddle shoes... Nice! Crisis averted. WW got off to a slow start and at one point trailed Rick's by a couple of runs. This was do in large part to a calamity of errors on a single play from Byron. Byron's bad play put him in the running with Brian for BOTW. During the third inning WW offense got rolling and began to put the game out of reach. Once the game began to get out of hand WW began shifting their defense around to try some players out at different positions. This move allowed Byron to redeem himself from his first inning blunder by mowing down a potential base stealer at second. WW also was able to turn a couple of double plays and managed to hold Rick's to three runs on the day. Once the dust settled it was a 15-3 victory for WW. The Boner of the week would go to Brian for ShoeGate. It's tough to pick a player of the week when everyone is hitting and not making mistakes... I can tell you who wasn't a player of the week. That might be easier.

WW then set their sights on Hiro(1-4) who fell to WW 17-6 earlier in the season. I'm not sure what the family friendly way is to describe what happened when WW was supposed to play Hiro so I am just going to abstain from trying to describe it. Basically, No one from Hiro showed up to the park. No one called in a forfeit. This was obviously premeditated or else there would've been about 7-8 guys in the other dugout calling their friends on cell phones going "Hey man... Where you at?". This wasn't the case. At any rate, WW took some BP and the forfeit and went to HooHoo's. On the way to Hoots some of the WW players stayed behind to watch the rest of the Austin Ave. GoodFellas game. AA had given away a 5 run lead to niceguys and couldn't manage to get a runner from second to home with one out. With time expired the game went into a one pitch extra inning format. AA was able to get out of the top half without any damage and then manged to score a run with two outs on a cluster foofah play. It really wasn't as exciting as it sounds.

After the two victories to the one win teams WW had a bye week to get ready for Goodfellas(now 3-2). WW would only need one win with two games left of a loss of less than 5 runs to niceguys to clinch thier second championship of the year.