November 26, 2011 - Game Recap

Game 1
Pace vs. A-Man vs. Verlan 
Score: 5-3-4
Location: Patrick Henry Elementary School (Arlington, VA) 

Game 2
A-Man vs. Verlan vs. Pace 
Score: 15-10-12
Location: Patrick Henry Elementary School (Arlington, VA) 

It was a great start to the day when Verlan, decked out in about a dozen cotton layers, picked me up in a borrowed Mini Cooper with the heat blasting at about 90 degrees as we listened to 'Last Christmas' en route to the ballfield.  

Due to a freak accident involving my storage unit key and an elevator shaft we ended up playing with the classic skinny yellow bats.  As you can see from the scores it took us a bit to get going but now that the 3 of us have mastered the skinny yellow bats I bet you'll see scores up in the 100's next time any of us play with the bigger black bats.

Verlan made it clear right from the get go that he would not be doing any pitching.  His communal contribution ended up being his many shed layers which served as a semi-effective backstop; I think it corralled in 2 balls total.

Before the first pitch was thrown we decided to make the ruling that a ball that hits the 12-in thick log running along the left field wall would be good for a triple.  Improbably, Verlan hit this log on his first AB of the game.  We then dubbed the log, "Lewis Log".

Swing and a miss!  (You can see Lewis Log running along the left field wall)

I ended up winning the game by a narrow margin and we all felt up to a double-header so we just kept going.

In Game 2 I looked poised to come out with another win after putting up a 10-spot in the 1st inning but somewhere around the top of the 2nd A-Man went into a zone and he would not be taken out of it--even though I tried throwing off his eye level with a high fastball.  He sent one laser homerun out to deep left field  in the jungle gym where he just about gave a newborn a nice wiffle welt.  We sent Verlan to retrieve the ball and we all tried our best to avoid eye contact with that family; but hey, we were there first. 

By the end of the game we all had our bats going but A-Man was just playing on another level and he came away with the victory.

Game Highlights:

• We amended the ruling on the "dodgeballish contraption" referenced in the previous game report so that if a ball goes in one hole and out another the homerun factor would be multiplied by the product of the two corresponding coefficients of each hole.  (e.g. if 3 men are on base and you hit a ball that goes in the +1 hole and out the -2 hole the resulting homerun would be for -200 runs (4 x 5 x -10))
• For postgame fare we met up with the Wiffle Wives & Babies and went to the iconic Ben's Chili Bowl where they promptly seated us in the back room where all the white folks sit.  

Happy wifflers.  Unhappy babies.

Game Report by Pace Barker