Boat-Raced in the Playoffs

Another Bad Gnus season has come to an end. The final game of the season was a somewhat bittersweet night. It is always great to get on the field with the fellas on a lovely, late summer night and toss the ball around. But knowing it would be the last night like this for 6 months is a bummer.


Going into the game against the defending champion T-Sox, there wasn’t much reason to look ahead on the bracket schedule to see when the next game in the tournament was being held. There was a time when the T-Sox where in the same class of beer league softball teams with us. That class also included the Long Islanders and the Silver Bullets.

Both the Long Islanders and the T-Sox have upped their recruiting the University of Miami levels. They persuaded Kirby to leave Ahern for the T-Sox and feature several new, athletic players. I imagine their recruitment party was held on some swanky yacht, cruising slowly on the Delta. Greg Young making it rain Pac Man Jones-style around the strippers hired for the event. Sky box seats at Rivercats games being thrown around for outfielders who can hit .800 and gun down unsuspecting 40 year olds at home if they dared test their cannon.

There are plenty of good guys still on the T-Sox. Those guys all date back to the days when the Bad Gnus would win half of their games. However, one their new guys have shot up one of my Top 5 lists with a bullet. There is a new member of the Top 5 A-Holes in Arden Park Softball league. That list hasn’t been dusted off for quite some time. It appears that the Top 5 guys on the list all where members of Win Financial. Atop the list was their Bro pitcher memorialized in this post from two years ago. http://badgnus.blogspot.com/2009/06/boom.html

The new object of my distaste is the left-center fielder from the T-Sox. Here is a Richard that certainly saw this game as the athletic highlight of his life. He is the epitome of “Softball Guy”. He is playing this game and every game as if it was game 7 of the World Series. I’m sure if his coach in high school didn’t have a vendetta against him, he’d be playing left field for the Giants this weekend. He even had his cheek full of dip to make this Monday night at Arden Park as close to the Monday night at Fenway Park he should be having. I’m surprised he wasn’t wearing eye black to combat the setting sun.

It has long been a Bad Gnus tradition to throw behind runners. A lot of times it doesn’t even matter if there is a play there. It’s just fun. In this instance, there actually was a play. After another T-Sox hitter hit a line drive base hit to left field, Softball Guy rounded second aggressively, because he’s looking to go first to third on a base hit directly at our left fielder. Howard sees this as an opportunity for a needed out and tries to throw him out at second. The ball hits softball guy, who then was ready to take off for third if not for the good catch by second baseman, Teen Sexy.

After Softball Guy scored, he was paced back and forth on his bench, complaining and cursing loudly to any teammate that would listen to him about the play. This was followed by him popping off to a very surprised Howard as he was jogging off the field. Howard had no idea what he said or why he would be angry. Howard is a good natured, Bad Gnu through and through. I had to tell him what the kerfuffle was even about. I only knew because I witnessed Softball Guy’s grousing from my perch at third base.

About the game… the Bad Gnus started off with a run, but the offense let them down the remainder of the game. The 1 run lead did not last long. The T Sox hit the ball hard all night. The game remained close because of the stellar defense of the Bad Gnus. I haven’t had much cause to celebrate our defense this year, but on this night, the gloves were reliable. The only errors I can remember were plays that turned singles into doubles, not outs into singles. We can live with those. Keith, Stuart and Clayton all made nice catches in the outfield. After the Gnus struck for 2 runs in the 5th inning, I was surprised to learn we were only down 9-3. Despite all of the base hits by the T-Sox, the Bad Gnus had held them to single digits. Unfortunately, the bats would not wake up for the Bad Gnus and the game finished 9-3.

The 20th season of Bad Gnus softball is in the books. We’ll see you all out there again next spring, unless I’m able to gather my own Delta yacht trip in the offseason.