To begin, I wish to thank everyone who participated in the league this season: Especially the managers, players and administrators. Even the Umpires. Another thank you to everyone who has read the Ducks blog, and all the fans who came out in record numbers to support their friends and family in the NABA. Form this Ducks perspective, the league is as stable, and as fun as it has ever been and it is because of your/our dedication.
This past April, I went to john Herb Field to watch tryouts, before the preseason draft. I talked with a few guys from the Warriors.
“I’m amazed the league is still around,” Doug Ryba said. “After the first season I thought for sure it would fold.”
"Celebrate five years of marriage with gifts of wood or clocks, the traditional anniversary gifts. Silverware represents the contemporary alternative."
-e.How.com editor
The Pittsburgh NABA’s fifth anniversary season was characterized by unprecedented competitive balance. Expansion brought us the Pittsburgh NABA Champion Owlz, and the Hurricane-Carters, rounding out the league at twelve teams. Only three clubs won fewer than ten games, and only four teams finished under .500.
2008 brought significant change for both the South Oakland Ducks, and the Pittsburgh NABA. South Oakland's return to prominence coincided with a noticeable upswing in depth and overall talent in the league. Not only did the Ducks record their first non-losing season since the 2003 championship team, the Eagles, Rakers, and Oilers all enjoyed renaissance seasons.
I played in the first game in league history (losing pitcher), and have missed only two games in six seasons. Most of the players who are still around from the sandlot days will agree, the league has never run so smoothly and the players have never been this good.
There was a time when if you showed up to watch a game, there was an 89% chance you’d either play in the game or umpire.
I am proud of my teammates for the way our team took the change in stride and made the fifth anniversary season of the South Oakland Ducks and the Pittsburgh NABA memorable, and most importantly, enjoyable.
The league is still in its adolescence making one NABA year about 3 human years.
The Bad News
No need to dwell here, the good outwieghed the bad by about 85-15 percent.
About once a month, we saw the sky open up and animosity, controversy and lameness drench the league.
The showers were sporadic, but when it rained, it came down in buckets.
My sources are confidential, and reliable:
Allegations too outlandish to print in this humble blog were aimed at managers and League officials. There were childish actions on the field leading to highly contested ejections, and the umpire situation was less than desirable. Due mostly to a 500% increase in attendance this season, there were a few senseless acts by fans.
Finding a new umpire association is on the agenda for this off-season. Hopefully we can retain the rights to “Right Down Broadway”.
I do not necessarily agree with every administrative decision Joe has made during his tenure, but I know for a fact there was never any conflict of interest or any bias in favor of his own team.
I moved to
There is definitely room for improvement, but we played a lot of good baseball this summer. The Ducks never wound up as the center of controversy, really, so who knows how I’d feel if we missed the playoffs because we lost a game with no umpires or something to that effect.
Excitable Boys they all said...
If every team was well behaved, played hard in between the lines and went out for drinks with other after the games were over, things would be boring. We’d find ourselves in some kind of Vonnegut-like baseball utopia where everyone turned out to have mind control brain implants and lived on Copenhagen Long Cut ™ and Gatorade.
Without teams like the Confederacy, who can be found in the deep south of the Monongahela Division standings, or the OlwZ, who have the best collection of young talent south of
2008 Brookline Black Sox
Without villains there can be no heroes.
A Shakespearean season in
2008
There was a different buzz around the Ducks' dugout this season, a thick yet understated feeling in the air; a feeling I think I knew in the late 90's when I'd embrace my girlfriend after American Legion games and the smell of pine tar and chew mingled with the scent of shampoo tinged with smoke. Excitement and a harmless sense of freedom which becomes most potent within the confines of a baseball field. A feeling almost drained from memory.
In late June, a loss to the Rebels put us in last place in the division with a 3-7-1 record. That's when the Ducks blog started the 2007 Rockies theme and we took off; going 8-2-1 over our last eleven games, which by my account was the tougher part of our schedule, to make the playoffs on the final day of the season.
The Ducks stretch run of 2008 was unprecedented in our five year existance, and will live forever in Ducks’ lore. We won our last four games to make the playoffs, only to be defeated by the Black Sox in the Wild Card game. The Ducks have as good a chance as any team to unseatClaudius, the Owlz, from their throne in 2009.
There is a feeling of want heading into the off-season. As fantastic and improbable as the season was, there is still unfinished business. The loss in the playoffs has begun to settle like the aftertaste of a stale cigarette. The 2009 Ducks will add an all-star pitcher Jeremy Barchie and have OF, pitching, and catching prospects in the pond system ready to make their 2009 Ducks debut. As the league improves so do the Ducks, as the Ducks improve so must I to keep contributing. So it goes...
There is not much that hasn't already been said about the 2008 season.
Defensive Player of the Year, rookie right fielder Coby Kolaja gave his take...
I've listed all the game recaps before the blog archive at the bottom right of the web page.
Before the season started, Ben Gwin became a father, and TC Jones took over as manager. 2007 Offensive Player of the Year, Adam Oliver, left town.
The season began with nine returning Ducks with more than one year of tenure; Gwin, Smith, Whalen, Moore, Lee Murphy, Pusateri, Campbell and Roth. Jones, McCray, and Guthrie had a cup of coffee with the 2007 squad.
Roth, 2007 Co-MVP, and Pusateri, 2007 Defensive Player of the Year, would only play four games between them. No one has seen them since mid-May, they missed out on a great season. Will they be back next season? Rick played in only a handful of games, Gregg Campbell was touch and go for most of the season. The new blood brought life to the struggling franchise.
Ducks starting short stop Andrew McCray tore a collateral ligament of some sort in April. It was uncertain whether he would play at all, but he wound up being one of our most important players this season, solidifying the second base position, and coming up with clutch hits against the Eagles and the Rakers down the stretch, while hobbling around on one leg. That's leadership.
The Ducks would eventually be awarded a forfeit against the Rebels in the third game of the year. That was the event that really shaped this blog. The Rebels called the umps and the league president to cancel a Ducks home game, after I had spent three hours raking the field during the afternoon before the game. The Ducks were 2-2 before being dominated by the Owlz.
After the 17-2 defeat at the hands of Team Typo, the Ducks played the Matadors at home in what was our most memorable game of the season, the game which became the microcosm of the never say die Ducks. Trailing 7-0 in the bottom of the sixth, we came back and won 8-7 on the Flash’s game winning hit.
That was my best game of the year.
We have momentum going into next season. The Confederacy must fall, the Black Sox loss must be avenged, the Owlz must go down, and they must go down hard.
2009 Team of Destiny.
BULLET POINTS
- A well rounded team by all means.
- Guthrie playing Gregg Maddux to Homa's Roger Clemens en-rout to a 3-1 record this season.
- McCray, playing without knee ligaments, was our most consistent infielder.
- Novak hitting a home run in his first at bat as a Duck.
- Wojton homering against the Phantoms, his former team.
- Wojton's performance in the playoffs
- Sign up for Fall Baseball here
- Eric Tans' game tying single in the bottom of the 8th vs. the Phantoms
- Les Gies didn't score a run that wasn't huge, and along with Coby served as a nice foil to the intense Novak.
- I second the commendation of K.T. He sat for the entire Matador's game except to pinch run for Coby, he scored a run and Coby re-entered. When I scored the winning run an inning later, he was the first one out of the dugout to congratulate me.
- A.Smith dominating the Oilers.
- E.Lee's game winning RBI vs. the Matadors.
- Jesse Smith sharing his Red Man in the Warriors game
- I can't wait to see what Jesse Smith does with a full season's worth of plate appearances
- The outfield defense in the Rakers game
- The late inning heroics of Spagnola, Moore, and Murphy. all three made the most of their opportunities, and brought good energy adn a positive attitude to the team.
- C'mon Sorosky, quack.
- My photoshop debut:
- the encore
- The last game against the Bulldogs: 12 batters of domination.
- The Ducks front office can sleep when we're dead. Rob Cool of the Owlz is already on a recruiting trip in the Far East. The Owlz play to win, and they have made the league better. Congratz on a stellar season, and for being god sportz about all the "z" jokez.
- Fago for MVP
- Jones for Manager of the Year
- Nick Homa for Pitcher of the Year
- I'll be blogging about the Pttsburgh Blues travel team, featuring myself, Nick Homa, Mark Guthrie, and Duck on the fence, (Fast51ball?), Ben Sorosky. We will scrimmage the Owlz before our trip. We'd love to have some quacking in the stands.
My daughter's middle name is Paige
Quack.
