South Oakland Ducks Baseball: Gameday [19] Ducks take on Black Sox in Old School Monday Night Matchup:

Cheese is MIA.

The Ducks have lost three straight to fall a game and a half behind the Black Sox for second place in the division.

1909 Cincinnati Reds

The Bad News is we have scored 4 runs in our last 3 games, we've seemed lethargic at times, we haven't had that clucth performance out of anyone since Captain America wiped his ass with Sorosky's guarantee and dominated the Gray Bats during a game that seemed like an eternity ago.
The good news is we have a game tonight, the first of two remaining against the team we must overtake to earn a first round bye.

Sports are humbling, and after a franchise best 12-3 start, we were in the driver's seat, and we proceeded to lose 3 straight, two of those games were there for the taking.

Saturday night I had a brief conversation with the only other sober kid there, Pete Chalfin, he talked about the NABA League he played in in NY, then he called us a bunch of pussies and said he have 20 K's tonight.

Just kidding - he never said that, not to my face anyway {quack}.

Anyway, he said basically the leagues were comparable, but what still lingers with me is how he said that the teams even had the same personalities to paraphrase he said,
There's the ass holes, the team full of college kids, and the guys to take it too seriously, and the teams that suck and can't get enough guys together."

It got me thinking about the character of our team, collectively.
Not questioning it, or anyone's effort or anything, but it's been an odd year.
We have played great baseball at times, and at times we look like a joke.
It's confusing.

In the narrative arc of things, this is clearly a turning point.
We will go along way to defining our team and our season tonight.
We're playing .667 baseball, that's good, only the Owlz and Black Sox have a higher winning percentage.

But I still get the feeling, a lot of teams think we're overrated, basically because I do most of the "rating" as the guy who runs the most read blog in the league, and that we've lost some shitty games, well 2 or 3 anyway half our losses have come against the Owlz, who will finish the season with the best record in the league.
But after 18 games, you are who you are.
One terrible game on Saturday doesn't erase the 12 wins.
Reports of the Ducks' demise are greatly overrated.

There is a fine line between getting up for a game, and being too tense, and between being lose, and not-focused.

I don't even know what that means, but it seems relevant.
Let's just play baseball, baseball is fun.
Let's have fun and play hard.
Right on the edge of dirty, that's how I like to do things.

Rob Cool recruits guys from Allegheny County Community College.
Kenny recruits from Allegheny County Jail - and Penn State.
Goldie's a beast.

I do know the Black Sox are a good team, that will not be without their starting center fielder and shortstop tonight, as they were in our first meeting.
I don't think we had Dowling, Novak, Fletcher or Mars last time.
If we win we guarantee the edge in the head to head tie breaker.

Novak is back

We have six games left.
Only two of them are against teams with winning records - both Black Sox games. (although the Bulldogs might get their shit together by the time we play them in the finale)

The Black Sox have the Owlz twice which increases the possibility of a few Black Sox players violating parole and getting thrown in jail as a result of the melee that is sure to ensue during the double header in Imperial, they might have to forfeit another game while Randy scrambles to get bail paid.
they also play the new look Matadors and the Warriors, on paper they have a tougher schedule.
All we can do is play our game.

Randy is a shoe-in for the PGH NABA hall of fame Coaches Wing.

{Re-Cap of Saturday night's party}

The Black Sox hate sleeves. -
Kenny gets angry when Chalfin tells him of the offer he received from Rob Cool's to pitch for Imperial

Kenny Powers: You lost to the Eagles?!
Ducks: We Beat you!

Repeat.

the cops showed up three times.
Solid, work Guth and KotH.

***

The Ducks, Black Sox rivalry is as old as Megan J. is hot.
The only bench clearing brawl in Ducks history was against that team.
They ruined our chane to repeat in '04 after we forfeitted a playoff game, and had to play a game with 7 guys after a rain-out and rescheduling dominated our roster full of kids who worked nights. That was after we won game one of the 3 game semi-final 7-0 Kenny Powers pitched that game.
Their starting shortstop looks like he wants to punch me (or someone) in the face every time I see him. (to be fair I don't see him that often).

A good indicator of the history here is that when Bob Faust, who played on the Ducks from '05-'06 showed up for BP the other day, the first thing he asked was,
"Are the Black Sox still in the league?"
"Yeah," I replied.
"Those fuckers," he said.

Bob Faust had his arm broken in a Ducks Black Sox game in 2006.

The Black Sox talk a lot of shit.
They generally back it up, but I will quit playing baseball the day I let any 6'4" 260lb. ex-con in a baseball uniform intimidate me.

Kenny Powers knows how important this game is to his squad.
There are Pitt. vs. PSU implications in this one with Chalfin throwing tonight.
Kenny, myself and Briton, and i think Slavonic are the original PGH NABA'ers playing in this game.
It's hard for me to hate any of the guys who helped keep this thing running during the early days. It's good that we have teams that are a bunch of ass holes on the field in our league, it makes things more interesting.