WCFBA League play moved to the East Bay this weekend with a visit to Washington High School. Captain Steve Bennett christened our first weekend their this year with a mighty blast to deep center field for a home run. The weather was nice and the BBQ/Party at Joe Gagliardo's bodacious home nestled at the foot of the East Bay Hills was refreshing, even though I was astonished to find Joe, a Giant Cy Olyde Pitcher, is really a closet Yankee. Particularly impressive was the diorama of 5 inch statues depicting the 1927 Yankees.

930 AM GAME

by Jim Realini

This game was notable for several reasons. First, the way Joe Gagliardo was pitching, Elk Grove would have been better off accepting a forfeit. Joe one-hit the Elk's over six and Duane Blevins finished off with two more scoreless innings. The second reason to remember this game was the rebirth of Ben "Pool Boy" Chen!! Ben does not qualify for the Kangaroo Court this time, instead Ben led the Tokyo players with three big bingles and a great play to douse the flaming speed of JC Penney trying to score. OK so maybe it wasn't flaming speed but the Elks did go down in flames like Tom Cruise's first attempt with Kelly McGinnis in Top Gun.

After Ben's big day at the plate, Tokyo was bolstered by Gagliardo with two base hits before he bolted home to prep the BBQ. Mike "Pool Boy" Miller cracked a double, finally enjoying playing on a winning team (his own words--please note NYG's). Kim Rupert, this weeks celebrity from the Seals Stadium Memorial, Lynn Harkreider, Doug Rusch, Keith DaCosta, Mark Gemello, and Duane Blevins all slapped singles to foreclose the deal on the punchless Giants from Elk Grove.

I guess you could call this a true forfeit since nobody from Elk Grove provided any information for the record about their performance.

130 PM Game

by Jim Realini

Heath Keller took out his frustration over watching his daughters softball team achieve a premature elimination from a tournament on Saturday by baffling the Oakland A's over five innings. Keller struck out 10 over six innings faltering briefly in the sixth after sitting through a really long rally in the top of the inning as the Giants piled up 25 runs. The 25 runs allowed Don "Zito" Dewitt to continue his preparation to make his pitching debut at some future game.

The real story behind this brobdanigan effort crushing the Oakland Elephants was the Giant bats belting out 19 hits compounded by several miscues in the field by the A's. Steve Bennett hit his first home run as a Giant coupled with two solid base hits. Frank Weishaar started the rout with a triple in the first inning and he later added a single. John "BHL" Haines had another torrid day at the plate with two doubles and two singles. On one of his doubles the Umpire took mercy on the A's (as he later admitted) and called John out at third trying to stretch a triple. Willie Wineberg slapped two solid singles, while Don Dewitt, Steve Conroy, and Greg Terra each slapped singles to contribute to the A's demise. Heath Keller and Ruben Donig each wrapped singles to pile on the Oakland boys.
The game ended on a bizarre double play. Bases loaded, five runs in, and Zito Dewitt is just looking for a ground ball to get out of the jam and stop the bleeding. Two bouncer to Keller at third, he fields cleanly and looks to second but ole number 57 ain't there yet. So he casually looks home and flings a seed to Realini at the plate. The Colonel then looks to first and rears back to make what has to be a perfect, but makeable throw to nab the batter when he hears the exhortations of the entire left side of the field screaming for the ball to come back to third. Why? Because the original A's runner on second must've come down with heatstroke or something because he just now is running to third. So the Colonel throws a swift strike to third ending the game.