November 28, 2014 - Game Recap

Paul & Pace vs. A-Man & R. Paul
Score: 11-10
Location: Butler Holmes Park (Arlington, VA)

In the wake of the November 19th 90-minute moment of silence to remember the inauguration of Founding Fathers Field before it was brutally hacked to shreds, we figured it was time to come to grips with reality and get back on the field.  Due to some great reconnaissance work by Paul we discovered a most-adequate plot of land that we're hopeful will serve nicely for years to come, and will avoid the plague of trailers that seems to be going around.

The likely replacement field for the now deceased Founding Fathers Field.

With the rarely-used R. Paul getting called up for some last-minute action, it was Paul & Pace who looked to be the favorites on this chilly, windy day in Arlington.

The first inning started off with the pitchers having an upper hand, with both pitchers (A-Man and Pace) tossing perfect innings for their respective teams.

As the innings wore on and the layers (which included bike gloves, ski goggles, and a 'Beardo' attachment) came off, the bats started to come to life, though with a fair share of wind to contend with.

R. Paul showed some grit early on by showing a willingness to crowd the plate which resulted in several bean balls and got him a couple of walks.

By the end of the 2nd inning A-Man & R. Paul were up 4-1 thanks to some scrappy play.

In the 3rd Paul & Pace loaded the bases but managed to drive in only one run, while A-Man & R. Paul tacked on another 4 runs.  R. Paul had a hilarious streak of singles that came in just about every way imaginable (right- and left-field slow rollers, right- and left-field medium-strength grounders, up-the-middle grounders, halfway popups that were just beyond the pitcher's reach and just shallow enough that a diving outfielder couldn't get to it).  Witnessing the repeated combination of the tantalizingly slow wiffle ball juxtaposed with the chaotic flurry of the unsuccessful fielders was just too hilarious after about the 6th occurrence, and after Paul & I nearly dove into each other trying to catch one of these balls we both had a fit of laughter for about 10 seconds laying there on the ground, the innocent white ball there between us.

The 4th inning was a little more of the same; A-Man & R. Paul running their lead up to 10-3.

Paul & Pace decided to bear down in their final inning, and with the combination of some decent hitting, help from the wind (one pop-up was headed straight for the outfield and then lifted up and ended up landing about 2 feet away from the pitcher), and help from the blinding sun (a dinky foul pop-up managed to touch down without a play from A-Man), were able to put up 8 runs to take a 1-run lead and be in a position to close out the game.  With all the momentum now on their side, Pace & Paul were able to close out the game without much drama.

Game Highlights

• In convening on Veitch St. before the game Paul reported on the comical site of A-Man running down the street in only his gym shorts, flip-flops, and undershirt hauling his trashcan, hurrying to catch the garbage man on his Friday morning route. 
• This was the first game in a long time in which no extra base hits occurred.  It must have been fate too because A-Man had a good hit to straightaway center that had the triple bench in its cross-hairs but somehow managed to glide right through the narrow slits for a long single.
• Pace was able to frequently channel his inner Byun Hun Kim by dipping down on his pitching delivery for some good sidearm submariners but with only modest success.
• It took Paul until his 4th plate appearance before even making contact with a ball.

Game Report by Pace Barker

R.I.P. Founding Fathers Field - The Nineteenth of November, Two Thousand and Eleven, Anno Domini, to the Twenty Third of July, Two Thousand and Fourteen, Anno Domini

"(1/2) In an unsuccessful attempt to knock on Paul's door (resulting in a confused Wally), I realized I should text this. The wiffle field known as Founding Fath(2/2) ers Memorial park, has two very large portable classrooms sitting on it. The scene is horrific exhibited by the foul pole table being slightly askew" 

"(1/2) We deserved a hearing at least with Arlington County Board before they made such a mistake - deprivation of wiffle life, liberty, and property without due(2/2)  process under the fourteenth and fourth amendments. I guess the Gil Tyree dues don't buy quite the lobbying clout it once did." 
-Text from A-Man, 7/23/14

It started with the July 23 text sequence from A-Man, and was confirmed today on my routine check-in on the grounds: The Founding Fathers Field has a giant trailer covering basically the entire field.

Mayhem.
"Behold now behemoth...; he eateth grass as an ox." (Job 40:15)

How these proceedings took place without the Gil Tyrees' involvement or consent is a legal atrocity for the ages.  The impact on the current and future generations of D.C. area wifflers is hard to fathom -- I get queasy just thinking about it.

The sheer injustice of it all has spawned a meme phenomenon on the Internet of a trailer being superimposed on significant landmarks to help draw comparisons of the true impact of this horrific occurrence.  

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