A Sad, Soggy Story

Hey A’s,

Well. We uh had a tough one last night. Even before the rain started, the outlook wasn’t too
pretty for the A’s; while we struggled to produce at the plate in the early innings, the Bears
of Grunley more than lived up to their hype. We were hitting well too; we got some runners
on base, but the Bears were, unfortunately for us, as spectacular on defense as they were on
offense. A running, diving catch by their right fielder helped them narrowly escape the first
inning with no runs scored against them, effectively killing our momentum. Though we
held them scoreless in a quick second inning, which included a fantastic, falling-backward,
barehanded catch by Mangesh, we again failed to manufacture much offense and remained down
by five heading into the third. Then the rain started.

At first it wasn’t so bad – just a little sprinkling, but then the clouds started to turn, as did the
fate of the A’s, in an ominous direction. As tourists smartly fled the Vietnam Memorial, the A’s
rallied on. Well maybe rally isn’t quite the right word, but we certainly forged ahead with the
game. The pompous Bears tried to offer us an out with the “Mercy Rule,” but, true to our effing
dedicated selves, we soldiered on into the 4th. The Bears’ hitting saw a noticeable decline as the
rain continued to pick up and field conditions went from sort of damp to downright slippery.
Thunder, lightning, rain and wind were assailing the A’s from all sides, but we wouldn’t quit.
MVP Chesa Boudin led off the next inning with a moon shot down the third base line that
netted a triple, and with it, a glimmer of hope. But the elements had really taken their toll as
Justin “Watch my hammer throw impression” Casson nearly decapitated the third baseman. At
that point, the Bears sheepishly backed their way out of the game with a half-victory. As they
fled in fear of the First Effing Amendments, a few A’s stuck around to help polish off the beers.
By this point, we were all fairly well soaked, so we assumed it couldn’t really get much worse.
While I can’t exactly speak for the folks who trekked over to the metro, I do know that we got
caught in about the most impressive rainstorm I’ve seen in a long time. Torrents of buckets
of rain poured down in a matter of seconds, immediately flooding everything in sight. After
walking through a mud pit to find Constitution Avenue and standing in an ankle-deep river at
the corner of 20th street, a handful of us somehow found my car and then found our way over to
the post pub, where we rung ourselves out and finished the evening. My seats were still soaked
this morning, which was a great thing for me to forget as I hopped in my car on the way to work
today. So I’m now going on about 18 consecutive hours of being damp.

So A’s, I just want to thank everyone for being such troopers last night. I know it got a little
hairy out there, but I really appreciate everyone coming out and sticking with it. I hope that
spirit carries over into tomorrow, when we finally have the chance to make up for our first
rainout of the season as we play the NonPros, of the Dept of Energy (Non-Proliferation section).
The game will be at 6:30ish on the mall; we’ll probably be scouting the field so I imagine
we’ll be somewhere near 15th and Constitution. Please let me know if you plan on playing.
Hopefully, this game should be a bit easier for us than last night’s ordeal.

That’s all, folks

Effing A,

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