We definitely came out with some zing despite the long break and lack of punch at the end of our summer season (I credit the team warm-up and extra stretching...hey, we are getting older). A smoking team batting average over .600 for the night earned us victories over one team with big bats and another with scrappy speed. Two good wins. And, speaking of hot starts, our new guy Cale burned it up going nine for nine and actually hitting for the cycle in the second game. Sweet. Course, you know we had some strong performances when Terry's .889 average only puts him third on the team (behind Cale and Lee). Great start to fall ball boys! Let's stay hot hot hot!

Oh, and if you missed pregame at The Hogger, the talk basically revolved around Donkey Punches, Houdinis, a Dirty Sanchez and some Dragon thingy (yes, whether you wanted to listen or not). So, you know, a typical night for us at the bar.

Well, there was a bit of panic and confusion at The Hogger pregame as the squad learned that Dar, Vad, Terry and Caven were out. Who would pitch? Who would play short? How many infielders could we play at once? We pulled it together (Johnny on the mound, Craig at short, Karl at second, new look outfield) and took to the field. We came out a bit slow and found ourselves down by six in our final at bat. But wait! Twelve runs later (yes, a twelve run rally in our last at bat!) and we had pulled off one of our best comebacks ever! Our bats stayed hot in game two (eight run in the first inning), but we had to slug it out to be a speedy young squad by three. Another sweep and another fantastic team batting average of .618 (fifteen points higher than last week!). Rolling rolling rolling!

Jump to the second game. Cale crushes one deep over the right field fence to the delight of his wife. And, it's the only run we score that game. We lost 1 to 14. Not that the first game was much better. We lost 4 to 9. Five runs in two games. We had .600+ team batting averages the first two weeks and came out under .300 this week. Flat. We did have some great plays in the field (Brandon roaming all over the outfield), but not enough to offset a few long (painfully long) strings of misplays and errors. At least we got to family night at the Hogger a bit sooner (minus our usually dirty-minded waitress. Grant...phew!). Week off to regroup and think about vodka, turkey or Twinkies. Back with the bats in a couple of weeks.

Ball was flying tonight. As a team, we batted .589 and between both games and all teams there were eleven half-innings where five or more runs were scored. They were coming in bunches. We stayed resilient in game one and overcame an early deficit. Looked like we'd do the same again in game two, but we gave up eleven in our opponents last at bat. Not good. There was some confusion around a flip-flop (and the ump heard an earful), but in the end we could only muster a split for the night. Nice to have Caven back. Good to see Vad too.

Felt sloppy to me...but in the end we had solid bats (.550 team average) and two nice comeback wins. We're definitely a team of rallies this season and relied on a couple more long at bats to get us back in the game. One more regular season week and then off to defend our title in the playoffs. Keep hot and don't forget to thin out that wallet.

We've had some good batting weeks this season, but tonight, at least according to our team average of .621, was the best (Caven's 10 for 10 was pretty helpful). Nice swinging boys. Beat a familiar foe in game one and then 10 runned a pack of lumberjacks in game two, including, yes, the massive town house guy (as in bombing one over the town house). Couple nice weeks heading into the playoffs! Let's keep it rolling.

Didn't end exactly as we would have liked in the championship game, but we had quite an amazing night of softball leading-up. Came back in the quarterfinal down by six going in to our last at bat (GW finished it off with a walk-of double). Score 19-18. In the semifinals, we came back down by seven in the fifth and again down by three going into our last at bat in extra innings (Cale hit the walkoff single). Score 23-22. After those two brilliant comebacks, we didn't have much left for the final. We started out ugly down by twelve in the first inning to a familiar and strong opponent in The Big Bar. We shrunk the deficit to six, but that's as close as we got. Score 10-20. Ball was flying all over the park (for big and little guys alike). Team average for the night of .528. Season team average of .555 is the highest in five years. Props to Lee who hit 11 singles last night in 12 at bats. His final season average of .745 is the highest individual average in six years. Fun finish to the season boys. See you at all the offseason team bonding activities! Bracket