January 20, 2014 - Game Recap

Paul & Bluth vs. A-Man & Pace
Score: 13-16
Location: Founding Fathers Field (Arlington, VA)

"I have a dream that Monday on the frosty fields of Founding Fathers Memorial Park white balls and black bats will come together for victory in the center field contraption."
-Paul Lambert

In honor of the late, great Dr. Martin Luther King, and also in honor of my younger brother, Desmond, we 4 Gil Tyrees convened on this chilly winter morn to wiffle in the new year.

Once again, fate pitted the private sector fat cats against the bureaucratic big wigs.

We got underway and the chess-like match of wits was immediately in force when, before the first pitch had even been thrown, I threw on some ski goggles which had the double effect of improving my visibility as well as distracting the hitter.  1-2-3 the hitters went down in quick succession, wondering what strategic counter they might make.  I guess that their strategic counter was either Paul's bright red Navajo chief ballcap, or when Bluth soon revealed that since our last meeting he had been seeing a sports psychologist to help him visualize his way through potential big spots in the game.  Once I learned this I made sure to pitch him inside early to help establish plate position for the later innings.

On our turn to bat we managed a double and some walks and some dinky singles to net 3 runs.

Then I came back on the mound and held them to 1 run, though I could sense that the goggles (borrowed, and 2 sizes too small) were getting too constrictive and I risked having permanent lines on my face.

Our bats started to come to life and we built up a big enough lead that I felt I could get through the rest of the game without the goggles.  Goggle-less, I went back out to the mound and they started knocking me around a bit, but not before our defense put a stop to their threat and kept us in the lead heading into the bottom of the 3rd.

During our half of the inning we had a few good hits but also the help of some shoddy defense out in the field.  Paul let a squibbler go right through his legs, and Bluth tried to bend over for a grounder but apparently couldn't reach down far enough because of the constriction caused by his jeans.  We ran the score up to a 12-5 lead.

We felt pretty confident heading into the 4th; confident enough to bring out my knuckleball against Paul, which was unfortunately served right back over our heads for a 2-run homer.  It may have been at this point that Bluth--always quick with an apt 90's hip-hop song--paid tribute to MLK's vision by singing, "Ring ding dong.  Ring-a-ding-ding-ding dong" (http://youtu.be/wWJqt0u_TCs?t=1m39s).  Then Bluth, emboldened by the psychological boost from his sports shrink, tried to play some mind games on me by holding the bat on his shoulders and standing tall at the plate while I delivered 1-2-3-4 close-call pitches that he took for balls.  Thankfully, A-Man and I kept our nerves and were able to get out of the inning clinging to a 3-run lead.

A-Man continued to demonstrate great batspeed, and he and I put up 4 more in the bottom of the 4th but it could have been more had it not been for Bluth's looked-more-difficult-than-it-really-was, over-the-shoulder, one-leg-sliding, massive-divot-creating catch that robbed me of a homerun.

Then, as I attempted to close it out in the 5th inning, I tried to sneak a lefty pitch past Paul but he promptly deposited it into deep right for a 3-run shot.  The inning continued and it so happened that Bluth found himself at the plate with 2 outs, bases loaded, and a 3-run deficit.  The irony of this being exactly what his sports psychologist had prepared him for I think only served to psych him out even more.  He was so nervous and giggly that he couldn't do much of anything for a time.  I resolved to pitch one in there the moment he stepped one foot into the batter's box.  With his head down and one foot barely in the box, I whizzed one by him that popped against the cone backstop for a quick 0-1 count.  Then on the next pitch he rolled over one for a soft grounder to A-Man to abruptly end the game.

Game Highlights:

• My ERA w/ Goggles: 2.50; My ERA w/o Goggles: 20.00
• Because there was an obstructive cone lodged in the Lin Sue Cooney contraption we proposed that any ball that goes into the LSCC and doesn't come out one of the 4 holes would be ruled an automatic out for causing a game delay.  Additionally, any runners on base would be wiped off.  The ruling passed unanimously.  
• The game was followed up with waffles, eggs, bacon, OJ, fruit, and purple potatoes.  
• For the first time on record, wifflers took a selfie picture to commemorate the game.

Game Report by Pace Barker

September 2, 2013 - Game Recap

Paul & Bluth vs. A-Man & Pace
Score: 6-3 (5 innings); 0-1 (3 innings)
Location: Patrick Henry Elementary School (Arlington, VA)

These boys of summer decided to bookend the DC summer with a Memorial Day game in May and now this Labor Day game in September.  The whole summer was just a buildup to this one glorious moment: the Bluth Monster back on the field.

On this early morn game day, the Arlington contingent got held up a bit by the wiffler with a newborn, but thankfully the delay didn't extend past the 15-minute mark so we didn't need to invoke tardy laps like in the days of Provo wiffle.

When we got to the field we tried to connect with Bluth who was coming in from Fairfax and hadn't been to the field before.  We scanned around in circles and suddenly saw him appearing from a right-fielderly direction.  His entrance had a magical glow to it: kind of like Ray Cansella appearing through the cornfields in 'Field of Dreams,' or possibly even like Sir Lancelot's death charge in 'Monty Python's Holy Grail.'

We hit for teams and started to play.  The combination of some rain that had fallen the night before and a fairly thick haze of humidity in the air made for a pitcher's ballpark.

Lambino was seeing the ball well (and pitching well) most of the day and started off the first with a few good knocks.  Bluth took some time to shake the rust off and started off early with a strikeout or two and some weak hits to the pitcher (me).

A-Man and I were making some decent contact but not enough to overcome the deadzone in left center, as well as Bluth's impressive defense -- on one occasion he charged in for a grounder from deep left and dove on the ball and snatched it with one hand just before it stopped rolling; and then performed a very graceful somersault follow-through.  He explained that we shouldn't be surprised by this: that he had a history of compensating for his declining bat skills with excellent defense.

In the middle innings Bluth engaged me in an at bat for the ages.  He ran me up to 10 or so pitches by continuing to foul off some quality put-away pitches.  We then had a showmanship contest of calling for timeouts, balking, stepping out of the batters box, etc. (and then the catcher, Paul, called for a timeout of his own).  In the final pitch of the AB Bluth blasted one over the monkey bars in left field.  I commented, "that's not a bat you want to wake up."

In the end Paul had a dinger and a triple, Bluth had a couple badonkadonks, I had one of my own, and A-man fell victim to the uncooperative left field (as well as to the stress of a newborn).  A-Man and I just couldn't get the bats going and we lost 6-3.

Since it was a quick game we decided to squeeze in a 3-inning double header.  A-Man's Livan Hernandez "slurve" really threw Bluth off, and watching from left field it looked to me like he swung about 5 feet in front of the pitch.  The aforementioned challenging hitter conditions, coupled with the fact that the distance between home plate and the pitchers mound had somehow narrowed by about 5 feet made for a very low-scoring game.  Both pitchers dueled but in the end, with only one out to work with in the bottom of the 3rd inning, A-Man clocked one to straightaway center for the walk-off victory.

Game Highlights:

• Paul struck out thrice against A-Man, once on a 6-2 count, once on a 4-2 count (on both occasions A-Man just kept throwing it in there and neither one of us felt like mentioning that he had technically walked already), and once on a called 3rd strike, courtesy of catcher Bluth who said that it might not have been a strike locationwise, he's just a sucker for good movement.  (Paul is just now learning about the first 2 controversial strikeouts.)
• A-Man had a ball crumple on him after hitting it; something you don't see as much in the live-ball era.  I commented that had Crato been in attendance he would have yelled out: "Damage!"
• In honor of Jane Lambert we all met for waffles afterwards with the Wiffle Wives Club.  By the way, don't ever get Trader Joe's hash browns -- you're better off driving to the nearest Denny's and taking out.

Game report by Pace Barker

May 25, 2013 - Game Recap

A-Man vs. Paul vs. Pace
Score: 11-15-26
Location: Patrick Henry Elementary School (Arlington, VA)

In Memorium
In memorium we play
We recall the fallen this Saturday

It goes beyond mere hits and pitches
Something deeper in us itches:

To wield the bat most worthily
and bring honor to the family tree

What we are we owe to them
We stand here now we sons of men

We offer up our very best
In peace dear fallen may ye rest

We convened for a 7:00 a.m. game on a cold and windy (16mph) Memorial Weekend Saturday.  The field is really taking on its own wiffle identity by doing something most good wiffle fields do: occasionally surprising its patrons with new twists -- in this instance supplying us with 3 orange cones, which were put to excellent use.

Right at the start it looked like it was going to be a pitcher's park kind of day as everything A-Man was hitting was dying in the wind and hooking left; the grass was also thicker than usual.  As the left fielder I over-corrected for one AB by charging in and playing A-Man at about 8 ft from the plate and about 5 feet outside of the 3rd base line.  He promptly hit a dinky RBI single towards left field and I resumed my original position.    He ended with the one run.

Then I pitched to Paul and managed to get all 2 outs on him with just 2 pitches.

Then A-Man pitched to me and I "drove" in 2 runs, although I really need to give all the credit to Paul and his shaky fielding -- I think he had 2 bobbles on soft grounders and 1 dropped pop-fly.  (He would tally up several more bobbles and a few dropped flyballs over the remainder of the game.)

In the 2nd inning the bats started to come to life a little bit as the wind would occasionally pause or shift directions.  A-Man put up 5 runs, and then Paul put 2 on the board.  Then Paul pitched to me, and after rolling over one for a groundout I really started to hunker down and put on a rally.  Paul didn't help his cause by walking me about 8 times in the inning and setting up 2 grand slams, after the 2nd of which Paul dejectedly said aloud, "Oh man... Joelle told me to win today."  I started to discover the trade winds down the line in left field -- if you hit it straight down the line the ball would ride a wind tunnel and you could sail one over the playground equipment; but if you hit it too far to the right it would die in the outfield.  I ended up with 17 runs in the inning.

In the 3rd A-Man put up a few runs to bring his tally to 9.  Paul got up to 6 I think, followed by a bat toss.  I drove in 7 for a total count of 26 runs, thanks to what A-Man called my best bat speed since my prime.

Then in the final inning A-Man got 2 more runs to end his day at 11.  Paul started putting on a moon-shot clinic hitting several solo or 2-run dingers at such a height that, with the wind and the playground obstacles, I got so turned around out there in left that I commented to A-Man that you really need to just dart for a spot without looking for the ball, and then when you get there look up and hope the ball is there.  He added 9 runs to his score, but it wouldn't be enough to extend the game.

Self-toss batting practice

Game Highlights:

• Paul took a bean ball directly in the nose; possibly a record
• Paul proposed that hitting the left-field foul pole / table on the fly should be counted as a double.  A-Man seconded the motion.  The motion was ratified with a 3-0 vote.  

Game Report and Poem by Pace Barker

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

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