Good
Morning A’s,
What
a tremendous start to our season yesterday! After being accosted by a
gang of unruly and stubborn futbollers who demanded we relinquish their prized
home field that they had absolutely no claim to whatsoever (no I’m not bitter
about it…), the A’s were bigger men and women and decided to move to an
ancillary field on the southeast side of the Ellipse. Thankfully, that
field proved to be fertile ground for the stomping of the Rakers of Muck.
The
A’s took the field to start the game, making this our home opener, though it
wasn’t held at our home field because some jerk decided to put a fence up
around that. Let’s just call this field our practice bubble.
Anyway, things weren’t looking so great off the bat as the Muckrakers started
off the first inning strong, with a single followed by a 2-run homer to the
shallow right field fence. One more run came across before the first half
of the inning was over and the A’s would get a chance to make up some lost
ground. We took advantage of that right away.
Opening
up the bottom of the first with four singles, the A’s started to cut into the
Rakers’ lead as the game’s MVP, Emily, scored the first of her two runs for the
day. We put two across in the bottom of the first, narrowing the lead to
1. After a scoreless inning and a half, Fulton and Kathleen singled to
start the third. Following a fielders’ choice that cost us a baserunner,
second MVP James “Grizzly Adams” Owens hit a blast well beyond the left
fielder’s reach and used his uncanny speed to stretch the hit into a 2-run home
run. Two more singles followed, and our MVP scored again on Will “The
Hammer” Horowitz’s deep triple.
Again,
the A’s stellar defense held strong. Ole skip here started off the 4th
with another triple, this one to dead center field, and scored on Sandy
Pinder’s clutch single through the gap. At this point, the A’s were
rolling with a 6-3 lead. With another strong defensive outing from
each team, the 6th inning started with that same score. The
Rakers scored quickly to start the inning but the A’s were determined not to
let another runner in. Grizzly Owens hit another shot to lead off the
bottom of the inning, and scored on some heads-up base running on a sacrifice
infield hit by, who else, our MVP. We decided to go one more inning, in which
the A’s defense bent but didn’t break, allowing in 2 more runs (which could
have been three had it not been for the quick thinking of Rabbi Scott Sanderson
with the force-out at home) from the Rakers before walking off with a glorious,
hotly contested 7-6 victory.
This
win was a great way to kick off our 2011 campaign. Thanks to everyone who
came out to make it a success. Next week we face off against the squad
from Blue State Digital, the aptly named Online Tools, who I’m sure we’ll make
short work of. Please let me know if you plan on coming out to join in
the fun/slaughter of these geek squad rejects. The game will again
start around 6:30 and should again be played on the mall. I’ll shoot for
the practice bubble again to try to make things easy; on 15th Street,
right before Constitution, on the right-hand side of the street facing
south. I would greatly appreciate volunteers to help carry equipment to
and fro, or to supply beers.
Finally,
a few of you have asked me about jerseys after I went ahead and ordered a bunch
(grrrrr.) Let me know a name, number, and size you’d like if you want
one. I likely won’t order them for another week or two, meaning they’ll
be delivered in about a month, but if you want one, let me know.
Thanks
A’s. I’ll send around another email before our game on Tuesday, because I
clearly don’t send enough.
Effing
A,
