For those of you with a keen eye to detail, you'll notice that there is a new tab above titled OCD - Standings. The OCD of course stands for obsessive compulsive disorder which I've been self-diagnosed with. The only known cure are stats.
Its not really working.
Those of you who suffer from OCD, this isn't meant as a slight, just an attempt at humour and poking fun at myself.
So, there are 15 teams in the league, which means that there are 1,307,674,368,000 different possible orders of finish. I'm not tracking those. That's Mark Doyle compulsion. It has yet to be named.
My compulsion is with the individual team slots that they could possibly finish in. As of this moment (written before Tuesday's games) there are only 52 games left in the entire season. Doesn't seem like much, eh? However 2 teams can finish in as many as 14 different spots and 13 teams can finish in all 15 spots in the standings. So out of 225 different possible finishes, there are still 223 possible. With 52 games left. That seems crazy to me. We could have the number drop slightly tonight, but its entirely possible that it will remain exactly the same.
If you have any interest in seeing who's still alive for which spots, you know where to find it.
The Beer Cup
As they say in New Zealand, its not often that you win the Beer Cup. So when you do, you need to embrace it and celebrate. The Woody's have had more than their fair share of Beer Cup ownership, so I now they understand.
Well, your friendly neighbourhood Grisslies celebrated in the only way we know how, which would be over the top. Hey. Its what we do. And in the last 5 days we got a hell of a lot done!
We celebrated with kids of former team mates. They sure were happy for us!
We thought the whole town should celebrate with us, so we took the Grisslie banner, then the Beer Cup and got them all in a photo. But that wasn't quite enough.
So we hacked the town's website so the first thing you see on their home page is this:
Then Geoff Keogh took it for a boat ride.....it seemed to really that.
And Rob took it to meet Jesus. The water that was in it remained water....relax Mark!
Then Len Wercholoz had a great idea. Take it too a Jays game and let them see what its like to really win something! Boy did those guys enjoy it. The Jays are 5-1 since Lenny went down there.
Call is using it for fund raising to pay for a baby sitter.
This is Mr Chiasson after pounding his 6th beer from the Beer Cup. Danny says, "not only is a great looking trophy but it ALSO actually works as a cup. Can I take it home? Seriously? Can I keep it?"
Tina and I did our quick trip to Disney as we're want to do every so often & Mick and Min (we know them pretty well) were thrilled to get their picture taken for zillionth time. Because this time, it mattered.
The Beer Cup pics wouldn't be complete without our requisite picture with Dave McKendrick. Hey, you know how he got there? He walked.
Dude had all the classic car aficionado's eating sausages from his grill and taking pics with the cup.
Then that crazy guy strapped it to a dolphin and went swimming!
Oh ya, it was the Dude Beer Cup show. Actually, the dolphin jumped the net barricade and he had to rent a speed boat to get it back. As you can see he was successful and by all accounts the dolphin steak was marvelous!
Fraser avenue went NUTS!!! First they had a parade, which was pretty spectacular and all the speeches were brilliant, but the Farah For Mayor chants brought a tear to my eye.
Just like the Stanly Cup, when you win it you take it home. Geoff and folks caught up in the euphoria.
Ya, I know .... they look related, but no. Rob got a picture with the Georgetown PeeWee's stolen base leader
Andi, Len and Sue and their friend the Beer Cup.
Here's the Williams' family on a quick trip to St. Kitts, using the Beer Cup as a floatation device. Who knew it was so versatile!
In an effort to elevate his popularity, Justin Trudeau begged and pleaded for a photo opportunity with the cup. Despite Rob's staunch Green Party roots, he finally consented.
I have no interest in Monarchs. But Cameron Clark is all over it! He had Chuck Cragg put himself and the Beer Cup in a Fedex box and send him off to Parliament. Getting home was a little trickier.
Speaking of politics, monarchs and figure heads that do nothing.....Darren Ford brought the Beer Cup to uncle Rob. The senior Ford apparently couldn't handle the stress
And here is Dan Routledge. Completely overwhelmed with the Beer Cup. And still learning how to use the camera.
"I declare this national Beer Cup Day AND Justin Trudeau is a Putz Day!!" I hate it when people use the Beer Cup for political gain.
Rob McCarron....poor, poor, poor Rob McCarron. Rob Farah mounted a permanent shenanigans sign on the McCarron's front lawn, complete with the Beer Cup. Initially he wasn't happy, but he got over it.
The only time that we could reserve for Tom Enright with the Beer Cup was during his daughter's ballet class. And people DARE to say he's uncoordinated???? I bet his dance card will be full at the banquet after this picture.
The GAMES
Hot Tub Woody's
It seems that our last few games have had a 'playoff' closeness to it. This game and quality of the opposition was no different in this one.
The Woody's hit first and would leave runners on the corners to end the inning. The Grisslies were a little under their season average (yes we keep inning by inning stats) in the first when we tallied two runs by Dan Routledge and Geoff Keogh and would lead 2-0 after the 1st.
The 2nd was role reversal of the first, with the Hot Tub Woody's getting runs from Peter Hayward and Chris Ross while the Grisslies went down in order, which only happens once every 12 innings. The game was knotted at 2's after 2.
In the 3rd the Woody's would get another couple of runs, this time with Tito Presenza and Will Goodin counting. The 4-2 lead after 2 and a half wouldn't hold as the Grisslies had their biggest inning of the night when Routledge, Cameron Clark, Keogh, Micah Williams, Darren Ford and Doug Dwyer would score. The Grisslies stood with an 8-4 lead after 3.
The tide was stemmed in the 4th with Woody's only sending four batters to the plate and the Grisslies eking out another on Routledges third run of the night. 9-4 Grisslies after 4.
Then the Hot Tub Woody's bats took off in the 5th. Presenza led off and scored, followed by Jeff Dancey, Goodin and Gord Robinson who all did likewise. After an merciful out, Chris Ross would reach and score and the inning once again ended with Woody's on the corners. The Grisslies continued to score in every inning, once again getting a single run when Ford would score his second of the game. After 5 the score was 10-9 for the Grisslies.
The Woody's 6th had Presenza lead off and score. No one else mad it past 1st base and the game was tied at 10's. The Grisslies half of the inning saw yet another single run scored, this time with Clark counting his 2nd of the game. Grisslies 11, Woody's 10 after 6.
The Woody's needed just a single run to force a bottom of the 7th. And there inning started well with back to back singles from Ross and John Mulgrew putting runners at 1st and 2nd with none out. The next batter was a routine fly ball on which the runners couldn't advance. 1st and 2nd with one out. A low liner to Dan Chiasson in right center that initially looked like it would fall in. The runners broke. Dan caught up to the ball and fired to 2nd base for the inning and game ending double play.
Grisslies 11, Hot Tub Woody's 10.
Tap Masters
Our first game of the year was an 11-5 loss to the Woody's. It was okay, I was happy with defense and we managed to exercise the demon of the loss with our win this week. Our second game of the season was against the Tap Masters. This time it was 14-8 loss. Again, a good game, but all we had to show for our efforts as an 0-2 record.
Could we exercise a second demon in a week?
We've been getting good at that since July 9th. We had beaten the Beer Bros. who two years ago gave the Grisslies their 2nd worse loss in franchise history. We tied the Dog Catchers and we traditionally don't do great in games against wicked offensive clubs. We beat the Brew Jays for the first time in history. We sweep the Draft Kings in two games giving up a total of 10 runs to them and most recently we avenged our opening game loss to the Woody's who are also the authors of the Grisslies worst defeat EVER. Last year they scored 35 run against us in a single game.
Another demon? Well, minus Cam Clark, Dan Chiasson, Darren Ford and Tom Enright, the task was daunting.
And it didn't look good early. The Tap masters got 3 in their half of the 1st, but the Grisslies rebounded for 2 of their own. The Tap Masters really opened it up in the second counting 6 to the Grisslies 2.
Down 9-4 is not a real comfort zone for our squad.
The Tap Masters outscoring us 5-4 in the third didn't help as the stretched their lead to 14-8. The Grisslies finally had a moral victory in the 4th when the Tap Masters scored 3 and Grisslies countered with 4. Still a 17-12 lead for the Masters after four.
In the 5th the Grisslies defense finally showed up. Sort of. The First 3 Tap Masters reached base with the top of the order coming up. We got a fortunate bounce and turned a home to 1st double play to leave runners at 2nd and 3rd. Then a fly out ended the ending with Tap Masters finally rolling a zero. The Grisslies then had a bat around inning scoring 7 to take a 19-17 lead.
The Tap Masters won the 6th inning 1-0 to get with one (19-18) heading the open 7th inning.
Then it got crazy.
Stef Kapp led off for the Tap Masters and singled. Steve Porter followed with a single moving Kapp to second. The runners couldn't advance on a fly out, but the top of the order was coming up. Darrell Hager singled scoring Kapp. Ryan Feehely singled scoring Porter. Scott Peters singled scoring Hager. Steve Brooks singled scoring Feehely. Sandy Bell singled scoring Peters and Brooks.
When the dust had settled, the Tap Masters had scored 6 to take a 24-19 lead.
Another bad spot for the Grisslies heading to the bottom of the 7th.
Len Wercholoz led of with a single and would score. he was followed by Rob Farah who would single and score. Doug Dwyer would double and score and Dave Potocki would also double.
With the score 24-22 for the Tap Masters and Dan Routledge and Potocki on base, rookie Micah Williams strode to the plate.
FLASHBACK: Down 3 to the Dog Catchers in the Bottom of the seventh, Williams hit a 3 run homer to earn a tie for the Grisslies.
Williams turns on one and hits one fair and deep, but its got a good hook on it. It hits the foul pole (below the fence) and skews wildly into foul ground. The runners score and Williams ends up at third with one out.
The Tap Masters make the right baseball play in intentionally walking Geoff Keogh to set up the force play. But Craig Escott rose to the occasion and singled sharply between third and short, plating the run and winning the game.
Wow.
