HOTG Blog : Your source for WW softball's latest breaking news... Two weeks later

After a lengthy off season WW softball hit the field in the Plano Pre-season Tournament. This Event combined A level with competitive AA giving us some of the toughest competition I have seen since I've been writing for WW. The boys opened up against Long Gone ( I think ). After a rough first inning where some IF errors spotted LG a couple of unearned runs WW offense was boosted by a Towering Bomb of the bat of Mathew Jenkins. WW was able to take a commanding lead and hold of a late surge from LG which included to HRs off of WW pitching. A two hour break in the action sent some of the guys over to Brooklyn's for a couple of pizzas and a cold beer to 'prepare' the team the long road ahead.
This is where things start getting a little fuzzy for me... Yeah, One beer will do that to me. While waiting for the next game to start Byron was traded to Long Gone (the team we played in the first round) as they were down a man... Hilarity ensued. Byron was stuck out in left field where he looked like a retard trying to hump a door nob. After getting burned a couple of times, he missed a routine flyball with a runner tagging at third and 1 out. Byron's comments about the play. "I felt pretty good out there, I beat the ball to the spot, I had the timing down for the throw to the plate and then the clouds parted for a brief second and the sun was right in my eyes. There was nothing I could do about it". This beats his last excuse of "I was running an a gopher just popped up out of the ground and tripped me". Byron hit well for LG sparking a couple of rallies sparking a late comeback and a LG win. The error machine that is Byron was then sent packing back to WW.
The next game on the clip for WW was against a AA team that hit lights out. These guys were pretty good and WW looked a little dead... Even though Pete brushed of a bruised elbow from a wild through throw during warm ups it wasn't enough to hang with what ever the hell that team was named. Needless to say we lost that one.
That loss pulled the team together as they were now 1 loss away from elimination. We played WW style softball for the next couple of games, stringing together hits and playing tight defense.
With a shot to make it to the final four WW faced off against Last Call. LC was beaten at the hands of WW twice last year and was hungry for revenge. Fatigue had started to set in for WW whose line drives were turning into fly outs. We were never able to really mount a comeback attempt or a late rally. If you ask me, I think we were all ready to pack it in and head over to Pete's for the cookout.
WWs finished the Tournament 5th place which isn't bad seeing as this was a combined A and AA tournament. The Defensive Player of the tournament goes to JW who was constantly make plays that a man wearing 3 leg braces should not be able to make. The Offensive Player of the Tournament is going to go to Mike C. It seemed like every time I came up to bat he was on base.
After last weeks rain out WW will play it's season opener March 14th against Budweiser at 8:00PM.

Pitchers, Catchers and Old Men Report

WW softball held a small workout this past Saturday at the High Point athletic fields in preperation for the February 23 preseason tournament. Nothing much to report here but here are some highlights.

-Those in attendance, JW, Al, Mike and Byron

-Mike's Z06 kicks some ass. Can't wait to see him and Brian race... what who said that.

-Not throwing for a while and then throwing again sucks.

-Infield looked pretty good, we should be ready in time for the tourny.

-We had a couple of rounds of good BP. Everyones back should be hurting by now.

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.