Patrick's Post Game Wrap - May 14th, 2008

The Patrick’s Softball team improved to 3-0 this Wednesday with a 24-11 victory over Flame Bar.  The rules of our league state that each team is allowed two home runs, after which each home run hit will be counted as an out.  The Flame Bar team didn’t allow this to hinder their effort as they continued to launch balls over the fence (8 in all), effectively killing any chance they had of competing with the Patrick’s team.

Gary Schmiesing continued to show power at the plate (a fact he again attributed to finally having reached his “ideal playing weight”) as he recorded two triples in the game.  Many comparisons could be drawn between his performance and that of other finely conditioned athletes as he rounded the base paths with the speed and agility of David Ortiz, hair flowing out behind him in Magglio Ordonez fashion, and as he glided into third, one could not help but notice the similarities between Gary and Minnesota Vikings Defensive Tackle Kevin Williams after Williams returned a fumble recovery 90 yards to “the house” last season (and later required oxygen).

The first “diving play” of the season worthy of ESPN highlight film was performed on offense rather than defense as Ben Hawkins managed to avoid being tagged out by gracefully diving back into second base on a sharp ground ball hit to the shortstop.  Unfortunately, Ben failed to realize it was a force play and as he lay sprawled out on the ground, triumphantly touching second base the opposing team’s shortstop casually walked up to Ben and tagged him out.

Joining Ben in the “bonehead move” parade were veteran players Mike Tollefson and Rob Moline.  After hearing ball three called, Mike tossed his bat and began trotting to first.  It was not until he was half way to first that the umpire was able to get Mike’s attention to remind him that you must have four balls to earn a walk.

Not to be out-done, Rob Moline on two separate occasions began completing a fielding play and then half way through, apparently lost interest, lowered his head, and was observed admiring his “swell” new softball spikes.  The opposing team took this opportunity to advance a base.

On a positive note Bill Arthur, who for the first two weeks of the season had more zeros behind his name on the stats page than Bill Gates does behind his net worth figure, recorded two base hits.  Congratulations Bill, it’s good to be “off the schneid.”

The team’s average number of runs scored per game has continued its upward trend so far this year as demonstrated in the chart below.

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