Peninsula Division GHOST MAN ON THIRD Fall 2009, Issue 9

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2 Peninsula Division GHOST MAN ON THIRD Fall 2009, Issue 9 NEWS & NOTES Contributing to the GMOT: Want to help the newsletter? Send me your stories, recaps, and pictures every week by Saturday to be included in the newsletter. It can be difficult for me often time to recap games that I didn t watch or play in. Your stories and recaps help out a lot. Also, if you have any ideas (columns or features), or if you would like to contribute in any way, feel free to let me know by ing me at brent@kickball.com. Big shout out to Justin Littell from Jagernaughts. He s been sending some awesome write ups every week. Week 10 Costume Scrimmages: Here is the schedule for tonight's games (All of these are 6:30 games.): TailGators vs. Chubby Gangsters Jagernaughts vs. Wilfred Brimley 5 O'Clockers vs. Foul Balls vs. The Emperors Club (mixed squads) As these are all scrimmages, we'll be responsible for reffing our own games, just like on the playground. Between your games, if you guys want to play serious games you can, or if you want to play with modified rules (no bunting and underhand pitching, etc) you can. These games don't count, so go to town! After we play some kickball, we'll head over to Sandbar at about 8 o'clock for some drinks. The two teams with the best costumes, as chosen by President Britney will get some free pitchers! If you guys have any questions, please let me know! Looking forward to a fun week of kickball! End of Season Party: Mark your calendars for November 21st. That will be the date of the End of Season party. More details to follow. Even zombie Jack-O bunts.

3 The Emperors Club 4, Foul Balls 3 WEEK 8 RECAP It was a back and forth affair with both teams trading runs each inning. LF Kayla Reed came through big in the game for the VIPs. She came out to play even though she was a little under the weather, and not only did she help the Club avoid the forfeit, but she also drove in the tying run in the 4 th with a very clutch single. Once on base, she ran aggressively, yet smart at the same time and came across for the go ahead run. 1B Patrick Jones had a great game on defense pulling in every ball thrown his way. Foul Balls C Roger Jackson played outstanding all game, except for a crucial miss-throw late in the game. (If you ask him, he ll tell you all about it. It s been 3 weeks and he s still beating himself up over it.). In the bottom of the 5 th, FB threatened to tie it up as they got a runner to 3 rd with 2 outs. At that point, Coach George Tyrannosaurus Sex Kiriazidis made the controversial call to intentionally walk Greg Moore and Andreas Beyersdorf to load the bases for Leah Frazier. Leah then popped up to 3 rd to end the game. The Foul Balls were frustrated at the strategy used by the VIPs in the end, however, many people would say it was a smart decision. With the victory, The Emperors Club clinched the regular season championship, the number 1 seed in the tournament with a first round bye, and a bid to the 2010 Founders Cup! Foul Balls 13, Chubby Gangsters 0 After losing a close one to the VIPs, the Foul Balls were not in the mood to get upset by the Chubbies. The Gangsters came into this game high as a kite after their big week 7 win against Wilfred Brimley. As you can see by the score, they came crashing back down to earth. Foul Balls were relentless on offense, as it seemed as though there was one big dark blue blur going across the plate all night. The highlight (lowlight, depending on your POV) was Foul Balls turning a triple play in the 2 nd inning to kill a promising Gangster rally. 5 O Clockers 6, TailGators 1 After a successful start to the season, the Gators have fallen on hard time, daddy. The Clockers cruised to the easy 5 run win.

4 Wilfred Brimley s Mustache Ride 3, Jagernaughts 2 Recap by Justin Littell The Jagernauts came into week 8 with a new found purpose after holding the division leaders to 3 runs in week 7. They squared off against the Mustache Riders in a rematch of, well, a previous game. In what turned out to be a classic pitcher s duel, it squared Eddie Seavers with his new "super spin" pitch against the Mustache Riders J.C. Cashwell with his, well, "super spin" pitch. The Jagers got on the board early with aggressive base running by Eddie Seavers and Dan Moore, however the Mustache Riders came right back and scored runs in the 1st, 2nd and 4th innings. Nicci Surething commented "Wow! J.C.'s pitching had so much spin on it,...i thought I was drunk seeing that ball move like that! However, I did manage to fight off a few bad pitches and get on base". Katie Litle, on the DL with a club foot, added "J.C. struck me out in our last meeting, and I was scared to get struck out again, so I let a street sweeper run over my foot so I wouldn't have to play!" However, Katie did contribute by doing an excellent job at first base coach. Finally, Tom Janule, in a phone interview from his rock band's tour bus said "I didn't know you guys were playing the Mustache Riders this week or I would have post-poned my band's first North American World Tour tour! The ball would have found it's way to my crazy legs somehow!" The Jagers, which lead the league in one run losses, added to the stat with another heartbreaking one run 3-2 loss. However, the Jagers feel that the recent string of close games after getting beat by a few blowouts earlier in the year, are showing signs of success. With a few other minor adjustments, the Jagernauts hope to close out the year on a winning streak.

5 Jagernaughts 9, TailGators 0 WEEK 9 RECAP Recap by Justin Littell The Jagernauts came into week 9 focused and determined to start their late season push toward the championship for second place. As the balls were literally flying off the feet in the first inning, the Jagernauts started out kicking around and promptly putting up 8 runs. Sara(h) M. commented "During the warm-ups I had, at one point, two balls in my chest, so, naturally it was very easy to kick only one when I was up." (C'mon people ball jokes are always funny Is this thing on?) They added an "insurance" run in the 3rd in the more conventional situation kicking style. Starting pitcher Eddie Seavers steadily improved is "super spin" pitch and releiver Justin Littell were able to hold the Gators to zero (yes a shutout) runs, thus improving their run differential by 300 percentage points. Staten S. was pleased with the outcome "This is an excellent team right now, we would have never accomplished this on a team run by Kim Merritt." (Too soon?) While the Jagers defense has been steadily improving by the use of radically fielding and pitching strategies, the Jagers accomplished such a offensive explosion by hacking into the NASA's mainframe supercomputers, plugging in stats for each kicker and going through 100,000 simulated games. Doing so allowed the computer to produce a lineup that smoked the Tailgators. Also, because the supercomputer was running Microsoft Windows Vista, Katie Litle wrote down an alternate lineup from Eddie Seaver's dictations on a napkin in the car 5 minutes before game time. Either way, the original copy of the improved lineup was placed in a safe deposit box and all subsequent copies were destroyed as to not tip the competition. Katie commented after the game "I give Eddie credit for saying all of those names, but in reality, the order would have been lost had I not written it down" MVP of the week goes to Katie Litle for writing down Eddie's list and Beth Seavers for having a birthday. The Jagernauts look to use the scrimmage day to make minor adjustments in the order and pad their starts for their fantasy owners. They look to continue their late season push to obtain second place in the Peninsula division standings by only needing to produce 185 more runs in the last two games of the season, and go out in classic George Costanza style - on a high note. While for some mortal teams, this seems like an impossible feat, the Jagers have other thoughts.

6 The Emperors Club 7, 5 O Clockers 3 This game started out close as the two teams traded runs in the first couple of innings. However, the VIPs took advantage of new pitcher AJ Belleville, who was filling the shoes of Corey Carlyle. Sources close to the 5 O Clockers have stated that Corey has quit the team this season, most likely to free up some more time to battle the twilight drakes in the dungeons of Ulduar with his level 80 rogue orc Regardless, if that s the reason or not, his absence made a big difference in the game, as The Emperors Club had little problem getting runners on base. (This is no disrespect to AJ, because he pitched well. Only to point out though that Corey is one of the best pitchers in the division.) With the win, The Emperors Club improved to 11-0 and are only one game away from completing the undefeated regular season. Foul Balls 4, TailGators 1 A couple of early mistakes sunk the Gators chances and the stout Foul Balls defense made it tough for them to climb back into the game. Wilfred Brimley s Mustache Ride 5, Chubby Gangsters 1 The last time these two teams met a couple weeks ago, the Chubbies scored their first victory of the season with a 3-2 upset. It was not to be this time however, as the Ride took care of business and cruised to the easy win. I wish I had more to say about this game. I was there. I reffed it. But for some reason, I can t remember a single thing about it I think I m getting old. I guess I ll just say that Eric Taylor sucks. The Mustache Ride s Sabra Swilley at the plate.

7 With only one week left in the regular season, The Emperors Club have clinched the regular season championship. Behind them though, it s a toss up between the Clockers and Mustache Ride for 2 nd place, with 5OC holding a ½ game lead over Wilfred. Foul Balls are also lurking in 4 th place, and could move up to 3 rd with a victory in week 11. Week 10 Weather WAKA kickball on ESPN! ESPN Page 2 writer Jemelle Hill joined Norfolk s own Frosty Balls for a scrimmage before the Founders Cup. Read about her experience and watch the story at the link above! Want to Talk Kickball on the Internet? Of course you do! Visit the forums at to talk all things kickball, including a forum set up for the Peninsula Division!