GAME 14 - Everybody Was Kung Fu Swinging!

Intro


I have Rob McCarron to thank for this edition.  He planted the idea over the weekend and it took awhile to get going, but here we are.  If you don't like this one, Rob is a tall blond guy with a white truck.  Complain to him.   

So last week we did the history lesson with Ingo's background. Considering that I've heard back from lots of people about that one (not Ingo of course) I think it was reasonably successful. 

I thought that this week, just to mix things up a bit, we would do a little geography lesson. Now I know that Jeff Shulze reads the BLOG regularly, so I don't want to be insulting to our American brethren, but its a well known fact that Canadians are fairly geographically astute. Or maybe you THOUGHT we were before reading this edition!

Canada has some really unique town names.  There are many that you've heard of over the years, have become part of our culture and we don't really think of them as unusual anymore.  We don't bat an eye at town names like, Squamish, Yellowknike, Porcupine, Wawa, Flin Flon, Kamloops and Moose Jaw; but if you think about them for a second, you have to admit that they are kinda odd.

Then you have another group of towns that are unusual, and you probably haven't heard of, but it doesn't take you long to resolve it in your head and say, "okay, I get how they came up with that one."  Towns like, Foxtrap, Yankeetown, Beaver Dam, Fruitland, Snowball, Drink Water, and Little Black Bear are a little funny but you arrive at the origin pretty quickly. 

Then we have the truly bizarre.  Strangely, many of the 2010 Grisslies are in some way affiliated with these odd town names. 

Take Brett Mabee and his association with the Rotary club of Climax Saskatchewan.  He joined inadvertently when he thought he was joining a fan club for the band Klymaxx.  Yeah, Brett fell in love with their hit song "I Miss You" (who didn't) and having all the posters, the fan club was simply the next logical step. 

When Simon Smith's family emigrated to Canada (from parts unknown, I'm still researching that one), they didn't come straight to Ontario.  They first landed in Montreal and were shuttled off of Dorking BC which is just outside of Surrey.  The town of Dorking doesn't need any help from me in the jokes department, they do it all themselves.  I think my favourite would be the DISCOVER DORKING website, closely followed by the DORKING DIRECTORY.  Simon's family's stay was fairly short in Dorking but in their brief time there they established the Dorking Breeders Club, which in my mind is a bit of a redundant name.

Then we have Sober Island, Nova Scotia.  Not surprising, no Grisslie has ever been there! 

Its seems that most everyone in town is from somewhere else.  That makes Tottenham a lot like Vegas, except for the nightlife, weather, gambling, shows, Elvis impersonators and movies made about it.  Otherwise, though; eerily similar!  Two games into the season,  I'm sitting across from Dave Argue in the Clubhouse and I ask, "So Dave, where are you originally from?".  Dave takes a sip of his root beer and grunts, "Forget".  I'm thinking, "no wonder they call him Argue".  

Cal Steeves, who thankfully and finally returned from the strained hamstring, is an East coaster.  His family is from Spread Eagle Newfoundland which isn't the funny part.  The hysterical part is that Spread Eagle is right by Conception Bay and has a beautiful view of the Dildo Arm skyline.  Welcome back Cal!  Too bad the grooming business didn't work out, but its probably for the best. 

The foray into witchcraft by Kevin Boston is well known and documented in a previous edition of The BLOG (<=== everyone knows that when the text is another colour that you can click it and it takes you somewhere...right? Seriously, Man From Glad, you knew that right?).  As I was saying, Radar comes by this whole witchcraft thing quite honestly.  When his parents first discovered his talent for wizardry, they shipped him out every summer to Witch Bay Camp which is about 30 mins south of Kenora.  For those of you who really don't know Ontario to well, Kenora (which is in our Province) is 1,923 KM from Tottenham; Jacksonville Florida is 1,890 KM away.  They learned many useful skills there like turning Toads into Frogs, making air COMPLETELY disappear, turning Donkeys into Mules and mastering the Wingardium Leviosa (pronounced Lev-E-O-sA; not Lev-E-O-suh) spell that can make birds actually fly!!!  Radar's parents thought that camp was worth every nickle! 

After game five this year, I'm sitting next to Dave Argue in the Clubhouse again.  It had recently been pointed out to me that 'Argue' is in fact his REAL name and not a nickname.  Again I ask, "So Dave, where are you originally from?"  He takes a long pull from his ginger ale with two slices of fresh lime and says, "Forget".  Now I'm thinking, "it might not be a nickname, but does it ever fit!".  

When Tim Osmond's family was finally booted out of Utah (let's see if anyone gets that one), they flew up to Alberta and landed in ......wait for it......VULCAN!!!  Ever since, Tim has been obsessed with everything Vulcan.  He can do the Mind Melt (G...R...E...A...T   P...A...I...N...), the nerve pinch and can accurately calculate the odds of us coming back in any single game.  Its amazing.  Of course, the fact that he calls Rob and I "captain" all the time, refers to scoring a run as "beaming up", and a strike is "setting the phaser on stun" is a little odd.  But what the heck.  He's a rookie. 

Speaking of Rob (I swore I wouldn't tell this), his family is also from Quebec, well...they were after the Lebanon years anyway.  Rob's family was sent by the Quebec government to Saint Louis, Quebec.  Never heard of it?  Me neither.  By the time Rob left it was called Saint Louis du Ha! Ha!  As you can see by the Canada Post sign, the exclamation marks are now actually part of the town name!  Way to be a positive influence on the Quebecois culture Rob!

Game 9.  Back in the Clubhouse.  Sitting with Dave Argue.  There is a lull in the conversation and I reluctantly ask, "So Dave, where are you originally from?"  Dave picks up his Cranberry cocktail with a splash of orange juice and says, "Forget".  I vow to never ask again. 

The Del Greco's are obviously a little bit Italian.  Okay, a lot.  But when they first left Italy, they settled in a small German town before coming to Canada and re-integrating themselves into their Italian culture in Woodabridge.  So, when you hear us call Piero a Wanker, stop thinking that it means ANYTHING bad!!!  You guys are just being mean. 

Everyone of course knows Danny is an East Coaster, but did you know his home town?  Danny gets really defensive about this because the town had something to do with a rabbit farm they had there.  Anyway he's from Shag Harbour and I really don't see what the issue is coming from a place named after a type of carpet?  His defensiveness MAY have something to do with the UFO incident.  Hard to say, but I think he really needs to let it go.  Maybe Danny and Timmy 'two-beer' can have some kind of ET convention?  

 Greg Tracey actually came straight to Tottenham.  His family did not.  They landed in a small town in Minnesota and despite it being "a great place to live", they high tailed it out of there.

 And then we have Ingofische who has taken recent abuse.  I'm sure that it comes as no surprise that Ingo's family settled in Ingoldsby which we learned last week is some derivative of the "ruling god" of Germanic / Danish legend.  (I love it when a plan comes together!)

I break my vow.  Not that vow.  The Dave Argue one from before.  Game 12, Dave and I are the last two in the Clubhouse and I brace myself and say, "So Dave, where are you from Originally?".   He purposefully picks up his Shirley Temple, gripping it harder than he should.  He leans into the straw and takes a long, long pull.  he puts down the drink firmly and a little to loudly and a little too sharply and at the same as me, says "Forget".
 
I snap. 
 
Doug:  "Dave, what's your problem, I'm only trying to be friendly and find our where you're from". 

Dave:  "And what have I told you?"

Doug:  "Forget, Forget, Forget, Forget.  I feel like Costello and you're Abbott.  Who's on first.  What's on 2nd, I dunno's on 3rd. Give me a break man!"

Dave:  "I come from Forget, Saskatchewan".

Doug:  "Oh....How about those Roughriders, huh?  Go Green!!!"

The Speech

Rob's message was pretty short and sweet last night.  "You hit the ball, you catch the ball, you throw throw the ball".  "Stop thinking, it only hurts the team".  The message being this, we play pretty well when we get into the flow of the game, but we "think" too much early on instead of letting the game to come to us.  Actually, Rob said a few other things that I think would be best kept to the Grisslies for now, but the above kind of caplusizes things.

That being said, Robbie pulled out his portable 8-track player, took out the Johnny Cash tape and fast as lightening, threw in a well worn Carl Douglas cartridge, started swaying and the people in the stands started with the oh, oh, oh, oh.....

Click on the title below to hear the music.

Kung Fu Swinging

Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Oh, oh, oh, oh

Everybody was for Kung Fu swinging
Those bats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But we swung with expert timing

They were funky Grissle men from funky Tottenham
They were driving balls up and they were knocking them down
It's an ancient baseball art and everybody knew their part
From a single to a gapper, but swinging for a homer

Everybody was Kung Fu swinging
Those bats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But we swung with expert timing

There was funky Dave Argue and little Timmy O.
He said here comes the Hurtin' Units, lets get it on
We took a bow and made a stand, bats swinging at our command
The sudden motion had the Units trip, around the bases the Grisslies skipped

Everybody was Kung Fu swinging
Those bats were fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit frightening
But we swung with expert timing

Olliffe and JT were a jumbled mass of nerves
It seemed like Jens and Dickson were looking for reserves
Tonight the Grisslies were strong as steel, and the Units were back on their heels
Tonight we pull back the curtain, and its the Units that will be hurtin'

The GAME

Is it just me or is everyone getting sick of the "we played pretty well" line?

Well, we played pretty well. 

I think our fatal error was not having Rob give the speech between every inning, because it sure worked in the first!  The Grisslies came out with the bats pounding and for the third game in a row Rob, Doug & Dave started out with successive hits.  The difference was that it didn't stop there.  The team batted around in the first inning with Rob and Doug both collecting second hits and we rolled a 6!

That may not seem like a lot to the rest

The Units played a sound game and chiped away where they could and put together two big offensive innings.  The final score was 15-10. 

There's no shame in losing to a 1st place team and keeping it close tells me that we're just about ready to break out of this.

Amost.  Stay tuned.

We have the second place team (the Brew Jays) on Thursday night. Is that the day our luck turns?

Until Thursday....Out.