February 23, 2013 - Game Recap

A-Man vs. Pace vs. Paul

Score: 11-35-28

Location: Patrick Henry Elementary School (Arlington, VA)

Not Present: Bluth

Inspired by the Valentine's Day miracle of wiffle wife, Joelle Lambert, gifting her husband, Paul, a rare, never-before-encountered 12-pack of authentic wiffle balls; and then following that up with a suggestion that he go play, we quickly mustered the Gil Tyree locals and arranged for a 7:30am contest.

The rare 12-pack.  Bravo, Joelle.

On game day morn, the orange Honda Fit came roaring 'round the corner of Veitch and 2nd St S, Golden Earring's 'Twilight Zone' blaring; and with a honk of the horn, 2 majestic men emerged, opposite each other, from their front doors, their boots fresh in the violet dawn, their attire thick, and their bare faces braced for the chill of the winter air.  For we were off to play wiffleball.

We broke out the new balls and began to play.  A-Man was first up to bat.  Paul started things off on the mound with a couple of bouncers--pitches that bounce before hitting home plate--in this particular instance, balls that bounced at about half the distance to home plate.  I can't remember the exact opening sequence but it was something like 3 walks and 3 home runs, with every pitch that wasn't a ball going for a home run.  A-Man ended up with 8 runs at the end of the top third of the 1st of 2 innings.  

Then I came up to bat and managed to get 10 runs by sprinkling a few singles and walks in with a few dingers--at least 2 of which were only thanks to Paul's fielding mishaps in the playground outfield; though, to his credit it is very difficult to make a good catch while wearing winter gloves--a point that I'm sure Desi's ex-roommate and occasional wiffle invitee, Jeff, would contest.

In the bottom of the 1st inning Paul drew several walks and had a few deep bombs.  He even did some showboating when a pedestrian walking on Walter Reed Dr hollered to Paul to "hit a homer!", after which he blasted probably the deepest one of the day.  He ended up with 14 runs.  The day was generally marked by poor pitching and above-average hitting.

A-Man fizzled in the top of the 2nd by hitting some grounders for outs and only managing to score 3 runs.  

In the middle of the 2nd I took my turn at the plate and managed to work some counts and get into the position of having the bases loaded with one out, and down only a run to Paul.  I got a pitch down and away and hit it into centerfield, headed straight for the contraption.  I had flirted with the contraption before, only to have the ball skim off the rim of it for a 2x homer.  Would this time be different?  The ball soared through the air, staying the course.  The depth was just right.  In it landed.  Now the question was would it rattle out through the +1, the -1, the +2, or the -2 hole.  (Recall that the rules of the contraption are that you multiply your expected run total by 5 and then by the coefficient of whichever hole the ball pops out of.  In other words, I stood at the mercy of the rattle of the ball, which would grant me somewhere between -40 and + 40 runs.)  Lucky me, it came out the +1 hole.  Good for 20 runs.  And it's a good thing that it didn't come out one of the backside holes because A-Man, who had been running towards the ball from left field, and who would have been the only one with a view from the backside, once he could tell the ball was definitely going in, decided to just lift his arms in the air and keep running to nowhere, too excited that the contraption had finally been engaged, and less concerned about the details of which hole it would come out of.

Lucky bounce.  The newly dubbed
Lin Sue Contraption

Paul, ever a lover of the game, and less concerned about his own prospects for victory, was professional enough to offer a nice gesture of congratulations, and laugh about just how in the world he was going to try and overcome this deficit in the bottom of the final inning.  With a 21-run deficit, his only hope was to play for the contraption, but I opted for a contraption-prevent defense (in which I could jump up and poke the ball out if necessary), so he just tried to blast lots of homers.  And to his credit, he did a fine job of it and ended up with another 14-run inning, but it was not enough to overcome the magic of the day.  

Game Highlights:

• Speaking of pedestrians on Walter Reed, we had a funny incident of overhearing an African American man berating someone on the other end of the phone with cursing and insults, and we commented how this was probably something you wouldn't encounter at the Provo field.  
• Bluth, a recent Northern Virginian, disappointed us all by not responding to emails to come and play with us.  There must have been a BYU football game going on somewhere.  
• While playing in the playground outfield, A-Man reacted to a hit by Paul by running towards it only to recall that there was a big, metal playground thingy about 1 foot away from him.  He rammed his thigh right into it and was stopped well short in his tracks.  In a postgame SMS interview he was quoted as stating, "I've got a nice thigh and knee bruise. The playground got the worst of it though."  When asked what the playground might be texting to its friends, he responded, "[that] it got assaulted by regulation size whiffle [sic] balls and then kneed in the face probably."

Game Notes:

• Having earned the right to name the contraption in centerfield, I have decided to call it the Lin Sue Contraption, in honor of the longtime co-host of NBC 12 News Phoenix, Lin Sue Cooney née Shepherd, for her achievements in phoenician investigatory journalism.  

Game Report by Pace Barker