WCFBA League play finished the traditional first third of the season at Riordan High School in blustery,Candlestick Point Weather conditions. While we all had a lot of fun, it would have been nice to personally thank Ron Isola for the awesome job he did as our host this year.

930 AM GAME

by Matt Schmuck

I think we decided today to rename our league to the Alaskan WCFBL. It was around 40-degrees with a wind chill factor of negative 12. Frozen-Rope was an understatement. Welcome back Buzz. Buzz started on the hill for us today. He pitched pretty well, but we didn’t help him much. We had at least 9-errors defensively today. It was obvious Buzz was getting his baseball legs back as was evident at his first AB. The count was 3 and 1, here comes the pitch, Buzz takes off to first assuming it was a ball… But no no no, STRIKE TWO!!! Back to the batter’s box….

The big news today was Mike Hughey. O.K. Hughey, first you owe us for being late as a pool player two weeks in a row, that would be Two-Dollars. Then in the first inning you were on your phone in the dugout, and out on the field down the first base line. Even after we all worked you over about the phone. That would be another dollar dude. Next we started working on Mike Hughey’s nick name. Most of us know him as Mooch. We really don’t want to know how he earned that one… Realini calls him Hug-Hey. Coach Weil thought that all this time everyone was calling him Smooch, that was enough to get most of the team laughing. Then Buzz told us that Hughey calls himself “Hue-Dog”, which sent the team rolling on the ground. Hughey told us that’s what his friends from Richmond call him. So after we all got up brushing off the peanut shells and dead sunflower seeds we voted on “Smooch”. Of course after we had a very good laugh at Smooch’s expense he goes out and throws out a runner from right-field and ropes a line-drive base hit. I guess we should call him “Mr. Smooch” from now on. Nice Job.

Even amongst our rough glove action today there were a couple of sparkling moments. Coach Weil in Left-Field comes running in for short popup. Now I had the unique opportunity to view this very up close as I was playing Short at the time. I noticed he started to stutter a bit as he was closing in on the ball and sure enough “Clank”, the ball pops up and out of his glove, Rich starts two-stepping and spins around “SPANK” the ball hits his glove again and bounces back up in the air and finally SNAG, catches the ball. Stayed with that one!

Then the catch of the day, as Coach Weil was playing Center late in the game, on a full-out dead run (as always imagine a 48-year old full-out run), he stretches out and snags a slicing fly. Great grab.

The A’s didn’t go crazy on us hitting, we kind of gave them the game with all our errors. But, the A’s did show some serious glove work, they had a ringer on their team today. #40-Williams was all over the field. I think the umpires checked his Dominican-Republic based birth certificate, but the forgery was pretty good so they let it stand.

Batting Stats:
Coach Weil 1 for 3
Doug “George Herman Ruth” Meyer 2 for 2 with a RBI Very Nice!
Tenner 1 for 3
Pool Boy Jack 1 for 2 with a walk and a RBI
Realini 1 for 3
Scotty 2 for 3
No Johnson 1 for 3
Mr. Smooch 1 for 2 with a walk and two RBI’s.

130 PM Game

by Jim Realini

This game was more exciting than the score might indicate. The first half of the game was a tense seesaw battle where both teams threatened to break it open and both teams made their own pitchers suffer from bouts of circumspect nonsupport. Duane Blevins and Sil "Cheeze" Krevocheza battled valiantly until the Giants broke it open in the 4th and then supported the relief effort of the grizzly old veteran Mark Gemello to end the game. Yours truly got the Giants off to a double-digit scoring day with a bases loaded solid single to right in the bottom of the second. After that, the sizzling hot Gordon Simmons (4 for 4 with 2 doubles) and Joe Gagliardo (single and double) smacked in a bunch of runs to tighten the league race by sinking the Philly boys. Blevins was 2 for 2 (singles) as was Doug Rusch while Mike Shafer and John "BHL" Haines each smacked bingles to top off the Giant barrage.

Beginning, middle, and end of game defensive gems showed the Giants were more than just a fantasy today. Kim Ruppert snagged a two hop throw from Simmons while blocking the plate to slap a tag on a tardy A's runner at the plate to complete an inning ending double play. Doug Rusch made a superb catch of a flailing liner to left to save the day in the fifth and catcher Jim Realini, ignoring battery-mate G-man's vociferous exhortations to the contrary to snuff the Cheeze Man at second trying to advance on an overthrow at first to end the game.