A Good Evening

It started with Hitchcockian suspense.  The long awaited championship rematch with the Brown Stars.

We had all the hallmark elements of a Sir Alfred script last night.  In fact, our star shortstop was battling a bout of vertigo.

The doctor told Fortier to sit this one out but Steve, not listening to the doctor, played anyway.  What Fort did not realize was that his dizziness was contagious.  In the first inning, we were whirling the ball around the field on defense and we watched the Brown Stars circle the bases because of our sloppy play.  On offense, we could not smack the spiraling sphere.

In the second inning, our defense was still reeling and we let up another run for a 3-0 deficit.  We scratched a lone run in the bottom of the inning with a Bobis hit, a Martin fielder's choice, a Lipsey single and a McDonnell RBI for a 3-1 score. 

Trying to make the game more suspenseful, we gifted them another notch in the top of the third and were quickly going downhill. 

We needed a plot twist and two of our leading men executed perfectly.  The inning started with some controversy when the umpire made a bad call and essentially allowed the lead-off hitter to steal first base.  With Martin pitching and Danielsen playing first base, they were determined to catch that thief.  As the runner tip-toed his cat burglar lead, Martin bulleted the ball straight to Danielsen and he handcuffed the runner putting him back on the bench behind bars.  This changed the direction of our story.

In the bottom of that frame, the Cougars batted merry-go-round style and all 11 players had their chance at the dish.  After two quick outs, the Green Team had eight straight hits and we scored seven times to take an 8-4 lead.  The big hit in the inning was a two-strike bases loaded double by Martin.  The ball was hit so far that Bobis even stomped in from first base.

Our opponent clawed their way back and were within one run at the end of the sixth inning.  We were up 8-7.  The Dirty Brown Team would have had more runs if not for ridiculous relay play from Radtke to Fortier to Bobis who then made a perfect peg at third base to stop a sure triple.  Just know that your captain was playing shallow and had the ball go over his head in left field so we could make this game a cliff-hanger.  

After our seven run output, our well was dry for the next three innings.

Then, during the top half of the last inning, the Brownies took the lead on a towering two-run homer.

The Cougars were fighting off impending doom.  Entering the bottom of the last inning, we were down 9-8. 

In order to stick to the suspenseful script, our first two batters were quickly out.  With two outs and no hope, your captain hit a single down the third base line.  Fortier ripped a two-bagger and now the Cougars had men on second and third.  Fortier, feeling fuzzy, had Boomgaarden pinch run and be his body double on second.  Our tallest Cougar then came to the plate and promptly fouled one off.  We were down to our last strike with the tying and winning runs on the bases.  The next pitch was so high it would even give the most fearless person acrophobia.  Danielsen mightily swung his lumber and chopped the ball through the infield as Rads and Boom scored to give us our first walk-off victory.

A Hitchcock beginning and a Capraesque ending.

It was a.......

Not Joking Around

Going into last night's game the Cougars had one win and two losses.  Our goal was to get to par and even up our record. 

Just the word par has Melchiorre wincing.  You see, our designated second lead-off hitter was an early scratch from the game because he was run over by a golf cart this weekend and spent a few hours in the ER.

Because it was a 9:00pm game and he had so much such confidence in the Cougars, he decided to take a snooze during the contest and instead be the hero of the postgame.

Like the game of golf, softball is a very dangerous sport.  As the Cougars rolled up to the field for our game we saw an injured Chicken Shacker.  Witzy has been on fire in the field lately but was forced to stop, drop, and roll after he took a fresh Clincher to the head.

The Cougars were safe and alert in our match against Ethervision and won 14-4.  We had outstanding play by the entire team and here are some of the highlights.

Our lead-off hitter, Bookstaber, started the game off with a single to right field.  Well, for most people it would be a single.  Our own Handsome Dan glided easily into second base with his swift feet for a double and soon after scored our first run.  Stabber pounded the ball all night and had four hits.

Lipsey also racked up four hits and scored each time.  All this with a bruised sternum suffered last Friday night in the coed league.

McDonnell and Lipinski each racked up three hits driving in key runs to keep the momentum going during the two innings when we batted around and dropped five runs each time.  

Dr. Phil even had a Martin-like slide into third to knock the ball out of the fielder's hands, leading to an eventual run.  Philthy is doing all this with a cracked bone in his phinger. 

The all-star on the field last night was Hoglund.  Twice with the bases loaded Dan had crucial hits driving in four runs.  In the field, his play was stellar including an excellent rundown as well as a double play (yes, I know the ump called the runner safe but we Cougars know that dude was so out).

After the big victory, we moseyed on over to the best front porch in Wilmette.  The postgame was an awesome affair and Dave and Barb always put on a great spread and treat the Cougars like champions...which we are.  

Cooked up for the Cougars were sausage, hot dogs, nachos, avacado, peppers and all the fixins'.

Like Johnny Carson, who celebrated his last show 20 years ago this week, our own Diamond Dave is the king of late night.  

What would late night be without a little comedy?  Enter Lipsey, a.k.a the Jokewriter.  In the past, Cougar postgame topics of discussion have ranged from poker to the EU crisis to Wilmette building code.  Last night's topic was Lipsey's joke writing. 

Did you hear that Eugene Polley, the man who invented the remote control, died yesterday?  If that's not a Lipsey joke waiting to happen, then I don't know what is.  The Cougars are always willing to help a teammate out and came up with these punchlines to complete Lipsey's potential joke:

• Yeah, he must've pushed the wrong numbers.
• They're planning to bury his ashes in the couch.
• His batteries must've run out.
• He couldn't get the pause button on death to work.
• They had trouble finding his body, but it was in between the cushions.

There were lots of jokes flying at the post-game, but we will not be jokin' around on the field next week when we have the championship rematch against the Brown Stars.