September 3, 2012 - Game Recap

Pace vs. A-Man vs. Paul

Score: 12-22-9

Location: Patrick Henry Elementary School (Arlington, VA) 

We got underway at 7am in an effort to get out ahead of the weekend heat wave (and also to give A-Man enough time to meet with his school group so they could prep for the science fair or something)  but 7am turned out be the muggiest hour of the day.  Possibly the muggiest hour of the year.  I would go so far as to say that it was as muggy as all get out.  After the game, when I got home, I struggled, like I’ve never struggled before, just to get my shirt off.  It took about 4 attempts and a near dislocated shoulder but I finally succeeded. 

We were hopeful that Verlan would be up from Charlottesville for the Labor day weekend but apparently UVA feels the same way about labor that Arizona does about Martin Luther King, Jr. 

A-Man and I got there first and were soon joined by Paul, who made his way over on a mountain bike, and who was greeted with a halfhearted, 2-man victory tunnel.  The victory tunnel’s lack of enthusiasm may have been due to the oppressive humidity but as you will soon see, the real enthusiasm killer was Paul’s pitching in the early going. 

We started the game with Paul pitching to me, and after about 5 consecutive walks we all congregated on the mound to confirm the pitching distance was correct and to provide some shoulder pats and words of encouragement to Paul.  He then resumed and things didn’t get much better.  He had pitches going well behind me, pitches going too far out of reach to put a bat on them, and several (and these were the comical ones) that only made it about 10 feet from the mound before colliding violently with the ground.  Fortunately for Paul this field doesn’t employ the ruling at Lambert Memorial (Provo, UT) where if a pitch bounces before reaching the concrete (i.e. if a pitch lands about 5 feet short of home plate) it’s considered a wild pitch and the runners advance.  Several walks later I finally capitalized with a grand salami (an outfielder could have made a great play to catch the ball but A-Man was too deeply lulled by all the earlier errant pitches to react in time).  The joke was on me though because even though I put up a quick 10 runs my batter’s eye had lost all sense of calibration from Paul’s wild-pitch tactic and I struggled at the plate (and the mound) for the rest of the day and I managed to only put up 2 more runs in the ensuing 3 innings. 

A-Man picked up right where he left off--crushing balls into the left field jungle gym… and also dropping easy pop-ups.  Even after getting behind in the count he can still make you pay with a 2-strike dong.  He’s probably the toughest out in wiffle right now--think David Eckstein circa 2007, or maybe Joe Friend circa 1998.  So even after my big first inning, A-Man fired right back with a 10-run jobbie of his own.  He continued to hit well in the 2nd against Paul, but I did manage to make a leap of Kirby Puckett proportions above the pull-up bar to steal a homer from him.  A-Man ended the day with 22 runs (17 of them on my watch at the mound) which was good enough for the victory. 

Lambino had a stretch of brilliance at the plate but was victimized by some great fielding which may have taken him out of the zone.  He was seeing the ball well in the early going but then had a deep shot to left center which sent A-Man running backwards while negotiating the jungle gym equipment.  He clumsily shot out his left hand and made an impressive over-the-shoulder snag.  Paul commented that it reminded him of playing catch with his 3-year old, Wally, both in the way he ran (or trotted), and in the way he just kind of stuck his arm out and the ball stuck.  And a little later Paul had a laser to left field that was caught even before you could say “bat-toss”. 

Game Highlights:

• After making my Kirby Puckett catch I was given the honor of naming the pull-up bar structure that played a hand in the feat.  I dubbed it, “Pull-Back Pole” and then we all had a good laugh about how terrible of a ring it has.
• This game marked the nearest anyone has ever gotten to hitting a ball into the “dodgeballish contraption”.  In the top of the 3rd I hit a ball to deep center and it was sailing right for the contraption and it actually landed on top of the rim and bounced out.  Tantalizingly close. 
• In a splendid display of solidarity and approbation, Joelle Lambert of the Wiffle Wives Club went to Shopper’s to get doughnuts for the hungry wifflers.  

Game Report by Pace Barker