 | Your Junk my Happy Zone | |
| by Brandon Corbett |
Sure, there was long grass on Friday night, the wind was up and there was a chill in the air on Saturday, and Sunday was played in a mud pit, but Opening Weekend went great and featured a ton of exciting game play resulting in some early season surprises, both positive and negative. Let's count our way into talking about the week in WSEM:
1 undefeated team
2 angry neighbors
3 very different field locations
4 home runs by two players to lead the league
5 -hundred on-base percentages for half the league!
6 games played by the Jason Mattseals!
7 teams participating
8 I ate Checkers... and I'm out of ideas...
Jeff Biegas of the Jason Mattseals swinging for the
fences in front of fans at Lafayette Park in Detroit
One [not the start of another random list, I promise!] great thing about a league is building up expectations and then the surprise of watching completely unexpected things happen. Joe Seto of the Commandos put on possibly the most surprising, dominant on-field performance. 4 HR, 10 RBI, a .571 AVG, and 1.429 SLG% at the plate, and 12 K, 0 BB, and 2 wins on the mound; he took control of every facet of the game and took the Commandos to the top of the WSEM standings after week one. I will not elaborate much on the Commandos 2-0 start as the wins came against the 0-6 Mattseals, but it is great to see them off to a winning start and showing they can play the game well.
There are a couple other players who are happy surprises atop the league. The always hilarious Josh "Truffle Shuffle" Roberts (Git r' Done) leads his team in more than just ridiculous on-field antics with a .462 AVG, and Cliff Comstock (DeLoppes) leads the entire league in hitting with a .625 AVG. [Update:] In a simultaneously hilarious and head-scratch-worthy stat the Flying Squirrels lead the league with 32 hits, but are dead last in the league with only 15 runs scored. On the mound Matt Murtha (Squirrels) leads the league in strike outs with 27, while Michael Constanti (Ass Kickers) is 2-0 with a 3.25 K/BB ratio and surpassing his brother, Brian, as the ace of the team. David Buhr (Belgian Wiffles) blew even himself away by slugging out of the park what he described as, "the only two home runs (he'll) get all year."
Chad Hoppe and the Wiffling DeLoppes cruised
and clawed their way to a 3-1 start to the season
Outside of individual players and teams, the big shock of the weekend, just by looking at the stats, is the high offensive numbers across the league. You have heard it a thousand times if once: this is a pitchers' league. So, seeing half the league batting over .300 is completely out of left-field [home run pun intended]. The numbers do not paint an exact picture, though, as the weather and field conditions hindered pitchers' accuracy, thus driving up offensive numbers. Still, an impressive start for the offense, and think of it this way pitchers: it is a lot easier to bring an ERA down than to bring a batting average up. So, you have that going for you.
Now for a couple fun observations with a bit of a "what the...?" touch to them. First, the Jason Mattseals are one game short of being a quarter through their season! Take a second to process that... three days into a twelve week season; they are 3 weeks ahead of schedule! It is an anomaly, and it is due to them being good guys, good sports for stepping up and filling the slot left vacant on Saturday by the Warriors. We had intended to ease the Mattseals and Commandos into WSEM with two games against each other, and that happened Friday night, but things sped up quickly for the 'Seals on Saturday; as it was put on the NWLA boards by Brian Meyers, "those poor Mattseals." We here in the front office have a lot of gratitude and respect for "those poor Mattseals" and are giving them the unofficial Oberon All-over Performance Award for their efforts on and off the field to help the weekend run smoothly. Thanks, 'Seals!
Ass Kickers' Mike Constanti pitching out of a jam
against the Belgian Wiffles with David Buhr on second
A second "laugh out loud, then stare at each other silently for a few uncomfortably long moments," absurd account from the weekend: twice, at two different fields (Detroit and Brownstown) neighbors who do not think parks are to be played in felt the need to come over, or yell from upstairs windows, about how we should not be there. Both mentioned something about baseball fields, but we were not playing baseball and baseball fields invariably make terrible wiffleball fields - outfield walls are terribly shaped and gravel infields are a nightmare. So, their arguments in that regard were invalid. General consensus around the league is that they thought we should just be sitting in basements doing drugs and playing video games, and while some of us are down with that, we are not always down with that. We are going to keep an angry neighbors tally over the season, and maybe we will make an honorary award for best (read: "worst") outrage from one of them. When delivered we will make sure not to walk through public spaces.
Lastly, one serious, not funny in any way incident from over the weekend. Dennis Pearson, Git r' Done fireballer, injured his pitching arm on Saturday in a game against the Mattseals. The extent of the injury is not yet known, but information gleaned from Facebook threads has it sounding like he may be sidelined, or at least not taking the mound, for some time. He had thrown 20+ innings two weeks prior at the Wind Up Tournament and 10 Saturday putting wear on his arm before the damage was done attempting to peg a runner out at home from left-field. Dennis, we wish you the best and a speedy, full recovery for your arm.
There are a couple other players who are happy surprises atop the league. The always hilarious Josh "Truffle Shuffle" Roberts (Git r' Done) leads his team in more than just ridiculous on-field antics with a .462 AVG, and Cliff Comstock (DeLoppes) leads the entire league in hitting with a .625 AVG. [Update:] In a simultaneously hilarious and head-scratch-worthy stat the Flying Squirrels lead the league with 32 hits, but are dead last in the league with only 15 runs scored. On the mound Matt Murtha (Squirrels) leads the league in strike outs with 27, while Michael Constanti (Ass Kickers) is 2-0 with a 3.25 K/BB ratio and surpassing his brother, Brian, as the ace of the team. David Buhr (Belgian Wiffles) blew even himself away by slugging out of the park what he described as, "the only two home runs (he'll) get all year."
Chad Hoppe and the Wiffling DeLoppes cruised
and clawed their way to a 3-1 start to the season
Outside of individual players and teams, the big shock of the weekend, just by looking at the stats, is the high offensive numbers across the league. You have heard it a thousand times if once: this is a pitchers' league. So, seeing half the league batting over .300 is completely out of left-field [home run pun intended]. The numbers do not paint an exact picture, though, as the weather and field conditions hindered pitchers' accuracy, thus driving up offensive numbers. Still, an impressive start for the offense, and think of it this way pitchers: it is a lot easier to bring an ERA down than to bring a batting average up. So, you have that going for you.
Now for a couple fun observations with a bit of a "what the...?" touch to them. First, the Jason Mattseals are one game short of being a quarter through their season! Take a second to process that... three days into a twelve week season; they are 3 weeks ahead of schedule! It is an anomaly, and it is due to them being good guys, good sports for stepping up and filling the slot left vacant on Saturday by the Warriors. We had intended to ease the Mattseals and Commandos into WSEM with two games against each other, and that happened Friday night, but things sped up quickly for the 'Seals on Saturday; as it was put on the NWLA boards by Brian Meyers, "those poor Mattseals." We here in the front office have a lot of gratitude and respect for "those poor Mattseals" and are giving them the unofficial Oberon All-over Performance Award for their efforts on and off the field to help the weekend run smoothly. Thanks, 'Seals!
Ass Kickers' Mike Constanti pitching out of a jam
against the Belgian Wiffles with David Buhr on second
A second "laugh out loud, then stare at each other silently for a few uncomfortably long moments," absurd account from the weekend: twice, at two different fields (Detroit and Brownstown) neighbors who do not think parks are to be played in felt the need to come over, or yell from upstairs windows, about how we should not be there. Both mentioned something about baseball fields, but we were not playing baseball and baseball fields invariably make terrible wiffleball fields - outfield walls are terribly shaped and gravel infields are a nightmare. So, their arguments in that regard were invalid. General consensus around the league is that they thought we should just be sitting in basements doing drugs and playing video games, and while some of us are down with that, we are not always down with that. We are going to keep an angry neighbors tally over the season, and maybe we will make an honorary award for best (read: "worst") outrage from one of them. When delivered we will make sure not to walk through public spaces.
Lastly, one serious, not funny in any way incident from over the weekend. Dennis Pearson, Git r' Done fireballer, injured his pitching arm on Saturday in a game against the Mattseals. The extent of the injury is not yet known, but information gleaned from Facebook threads has it sounding like he may be sidelined, or at least not taking the mound, for some time. He had thrown 20+ innings two weeks prior at the Wind Up Tournament and 10 Saturday putting wear on his arm before the damage was done attempting to peg a runner out at home from left-field. Dennis, we wish you the best and a speedy, full recovery for your arm.
I'd like to take the chance to point out that Dennis' right arm is missing
in this picture to lighten the mood here at the end of this article ...
That's a crap ton of innings in a short amount of time!!!
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