As a Dylan fan, and one who generally distrusts white people and corrupt New Jersey police officers, it is unfortunate, but later, unbiased revisiting of the evidence has reaffirmed Hurricane Carter's guilt.
The Hurricanes are cheaters, just like the Miami Hurricanes. They have seen fit to award themselves a 0-0 tie for a game against the Black Sox which never happened. The Hurricanes' lone win was a 7-0 victory over the Owls, which was probably a forfeit. We aren't in position to take any team lightly. If we do we will lose. If I were to name my team after a Dylan song, I'd have gone with the (Subterranean Homesick) "Blues". Or, naturally the South Oakland "Eskimos".
I was at this Phish show where they covered, Dylan's "The Mighty Quinn"
The Ducks (4-7-1) have four days off before traveling to Pie Traynor field to play the Hurricanes (1-3). Naturally, following an entire week off, the Ducks play back to back games this weekend (sat. vs. Hurricanes, sun. vs. the Bulldogs (1-7). ) South Oakland is presented with a great chance to get back in the thick of the playoff race. Yesterday the Ducks learned they would be awarded a forfeit victory for an early season game against the Rebels, which was illegally canceled by the Confederacy. The retroactive win comes on the heels of a brutal three game losing streak. With the W, South Oakland climbs out of the cellar and past the Rebels into fifth place, just two games behind the Eagles for the third and final playoff spot in the Monongahela Division. The Ducks remaining schedule now consists of eight division games, and four games vs. the Allegheny Division, which consists of two teams with winning records and four teams with a combined three wins. We should have seen this coming Last season, the Monongahela division sent the sub-.500 Knights into the playoffs. This lead to an uproar from the Phantoms, who finished above .500, and in 4th place in the Allegheny Division, but did not qualify for the post-season. The current format has the top three teams in each division advancing, instead of an NHL-type format which would have the division winners seeded one and two, with the next four teams qualifying for the playoffs. When the topic of playoff seeding was brought to the table in the off-season meetings, the vote was to keep the same format. Now, there are five teams in the Allegheny Division with one or fewer wins. Under the "division winners plus four" format, South Oakland would hold the sixth playoff spot. I doubt the Phantoms are whining about the seeding this season, as they sit 1/2 game out of third place, with a 0-3-2 record. There's no reason for us to complain, we almost quacked into third place last year, despite being pretty bad.
In Regards to this weekend's games, conspiracy theories, and bulletin board material. The league expanded this season, the OwlZ, and their superfluous "z" were added to the Monongahela Division, and the Hurricanes were added to the Allegheny. The Owls, roster is full of NABA veterans, and small college players. The Hurricanes are struggling, I'm sure their roster lacks the "star power" of the Owls, who have Faygo, (a sick pitcher) and a bunch of kids from the RMU team who were league runners up, in 2006. Those guys have obviously played together before, they remind me of the Yankees from the Bad News Bears.
Bulldogs player, and league president Joe Graff, added the Hurricanes to the Bulldogs' Division, and put the Owls in the Monongahela. Interesting...Of course this could be an attempt to even out the divisions, based on last years parity; add the better team to the softer division, and the team that's weaker on paper to the division that was better top-to-bottom. What I would have done if I ran the league and had to deal with all the BS Joe does, put the worse team in my division. It also could have been an arbitrary decision.
Also, the League president and schedule maker, has pitted his team against the Ducks twice, when he could have chosen to play any of the other five Monongahela Division teams twice. Big mistake. Clearly he conspired with the Bulldogs front office and hand picked his team's inter-division schedule, and the decided they wanted two games against South Oakland. The Ducks were 1-1 against the Bulldogs last season.
The Bulldogs got jobbed in their game on Sunday. There was a terrible call that lead to the Black Sox scoring the go ahead run in the top of the seventh(made by the same guy who called Eric Lee out in our game), and (all other things remaining equal) the Bulldogs scored in the bottom half of the inning, they tied it up instead of winning, and went on to lose in extra innings. The Ducks did not fare well against the Black Sox on opening day.
What's really killing the Bulldogs is the pre-season injury to their best starting pitcher who was hit in the hand during batting practice, and lost for the season. Brian Strom is a good ball player and a friend of mine, but he'd be the first one to tell you he's no pitcher.
The table is set for the Ducks this weekend, we have to take advantage of a couple struggling teams and build some momentum. It's great to be competing every game and to be playing exciting baseball, and we have to proud of that and optimistic that we can turn the corner. But if we can't turn our improved play into victories, it will be nothing more than bittersweet consolation, when we look back on a season of near misses.
Chris Wojoton went 3-4 including a double, a home run, a single and a walk against his former team, and Eric Tans hit the game tying single in the bottom of the seventh to cap a frantic comeback by the South Oakland Ducks(1-3-1). The Ducks played the game without their starting center fielder, right fielder, DH, second baseman, third baseman, shortstop, and catcher. Rick's biceps didn't show up, which moved South Oakland's starting first baseman behind the plate.
Faced with a depleted roster, Coach Jones had his work cut out for him.
As painful as it was, the reality is the glass is half full for the Ducks after the tie. South Oakland erased Phantom leads of 2-0, 3-2, and 7-3. The Ducks equaled the offensive output of the prior three games by scoring seven last night. Smith (0-2) pitched six strong innings, allowing three earned runs. Mark, "Last thoughts on Woody" Guthrie pitched two shutout inning in relief. The Ducks trailed 2-0 in the bottom of the first when Ryan Novak (lower left) hit a 2-run home run to tie the game, driving in Chris Wojoton. After the Phantoms scored in the top of the third, Wojoton hit a solo HR in the bottom half of the inning to make the score 3-3. Gwin threw out a guy stealing third by ten feet thanks to the tag by Wojoton, who played a strong game at third where he was filling in for Guthrie, who was filling in for Eric Lee in center field. In the top of the fourth, the Phantoms scored four runs on two hits, two walks and two errors, they would score again. It was 7-3 going into the bottom of the fourth. South Oakland scored one in the bottom of the fourth, two in the bottom of the fifth, and one in the bottom of the seventh to scratch out a 7-7 tie.
Bullet points
Garrett Moore played a solid right field, he was 2-4, with an RBI, reached on an error, stole a base and was generally disruptive on the base paths. Speed kills.
Eric Tans had a great night at the plate, he doubled and singled in the tying run.
The Ducks are undefeated since KT switched to gray pants.
This is the kind of game we lost last year.
Novak and Wojo were huge last night.
Most of the runs we gave up were a result of guys playing out of position. Thank you, to everyone who showed up. Even Coby and Kirk Gibson, who arrived in the 5th after they spent the evening ice-sculpting for under-privileged children in Slippery Rock, came out to support their teammates.
Ben Gwin needs to start hitting like Ben Gwin can hit; he is 1-12 so far this season. Since we went to wood bats, he's hit .485 and .493 in the past two seasons. Even taking into consideration favorable bookkeeping, he is doing poorly by his own standards. Ben Gwin will start hitting.
On Sunday I was reading my 9-month old daughter Tolstoy, she just kept saying "Da-Da-Da-Da, Baaaaa-WEEEE", and then turned her attention to her book, "Animal Babies" which is a small 12 page cardboard book with pictures of baby animals. The hitting analogy is in there somewhere; instead of trying to write ten-line sentences about a wisp of smoke blowing over the Russian countryside, I should simplify things ie, "I have a bill, feathers and webbed feet, what animal am I?" At least I showed up and caught. I catch a good game for an outfielder.
If anyone is weary of my voice, and the inevitable Ben-centric semi-rants that pop up in this blog let me know and I will send you the admin. information and you can post stuff as well.
I'll buy a drink for the first person to "edit" the Blacksox wikipedia page.
Smith and Guthrie both pitched well, do they both get a "no decision"?
I wonder if we'll finish this game on Saturday before we play the Phantoms again.
It's nice that the Pens' game won't interfere with our game on Saturday, or vice-versa.
Our first rundown went horribly wrong.
We're entering a stretch of five games in nine days including two important division games against the Eagles and Owls respectively. During this stretch we will discover the true fabric of our pitching depth.
