NWL 'YAY'

		A Cup of Nick Coffee
		by Nick Coffee

I haven't been the most motivated person lately. Since the season started, I find that excitement I had leading up to those first games has lingered away. I know I missed my deadline for last month's "Cup of… " and I skipped out on last week's games against Belgian. I even gave up my left field position for our newly acquired Greg Brannan (anything for the team). I still do look forward to getting out on those sunny weekend days and playing a little bit of Wiffleball, but the event that I’m really looking forward to is the NWLA tournament weekend.

This year is going to be a little different. I'll have to miss out on watching some of the Big Wood games, because our London games will be playing at the same time. It looks like we have a pretty good SEMIs team this year. There were many changes to the team, the biggest being Carl skipping out on it to be the full-time manager of Big Wood. I don't blame him, this tournament was his idea and even though Gallaway had the initiative and took it to the next level, Carl still should be there every step of the way. I knew I wanted Nick Braden and Josh Nagorski on the team. I remember how much fun they were last year just as spectators. Their big bats and Nick's slow pitching skills [perfect game at Slow in the Snow!] should be a huge asset to the team. Chris Paquin wanted to be on Big Wood, but those spots filled up faster than a heroine addict’s methadone prescription. Chris has been playing great and he'll definitely contribute to the slow-ball game. Dennis Pearson has a great bat and will hit the ball a mile. Hopefully he'll have more than 10 home runs otherwise it will be a disappointment. When I found out that Evan Bortmas was available and he was planning on heading down to Columbus, I didn't think twice about asking him to play on the SEMIs team. He has to work out some possible conflicting dates, but if he's able to go there is no doubt he'll be an all star. I'm not that good, but I have played in the tournament on and off since 2004, so I guess I'm grandfathered in.

Nick high-fiving Austin at the 2012 tournament

The NWLA tournament sounds like it's going to be a step up from last year, minus the unlimited free food, free hotel and free swag. From what I hear from Carl, they are having 13 teams this year, which will cause quite the headache for round robin games. I believe they are holding a two-game seeding round and then a double-elimination tournament. For teams that lose the first 2 games of the tournament, they might have a "toilet bowl" tournament, which will crown the winner of the losers. I know NWLA [read: Gallaway] doesn't like gimmicks, but I think this is a pretty cool idea. I don't want to bore you with explaining why each player should or shouldn't be on the team or who should've made it instead; the team looks strong and I think pitching will be our key to victory. I do think that since we use different bats in WSEM, the barrel size of the yellow bats might hurt us in the NWLA tournament. I might be pleasantly surprised, hopefully I am. I'm excited to get back from the London tournament and jump right into my 3rd base coach position. I doubt other teams in the league will have as big of a fan base as our league. I do wonder if the returning teams saw how much fun our fans and coaching staff were having and hopefully they bring a couple caravans full of people.

So even though I'm not jumping-out-of-my-seat happy and excited about every weekend for our games, I am so eager about getting out of work on Thursday July 18, driving straight down, checking into our hotel and waking up Friday morning in beautiful Columbus, Ohio. I know that this 3-day weekend will exceed my good time expectations. I do hope we keep winning and our trip extends until late Sunday and I also hope I win my first London playoff game. I'll do anything for this team, but this weekend I'm not giving up the left field position.