SHORT HOP - My Career In Baseball by David Driscoll

[WWBL Commissioner]

darn it, I see that Tib posted and rush to the thread thinking...alright, story time, then I get here and it's a post of "no story yet" its like having the biggest present under the tree then when you open it, it's underware in a big box!!

[jaxmagicman]

Originally Posted by Tib

The good news: I have several chapters in the bag. The bad news: I've worked 54 of the last 72 hours and am still in the middle of editing them. I apologize because I said the 15th, but the new chapters are just not ready. Give me a day to recharge and delve into them again and I'll get them up ASAP.

Thanks. It's 2:30pm and I'm going to bed now.

Don't go to sleep. Sleep is overratted.

[Tib]

Okay, I'm back! But first let me say a couple of things. I can't tell you how gratifying it is how many of you were waiting for the SHORT HOP update. I'm only sorry I didn't have the energy to get it done on time. But it does mean a lot to me.

Second, this chapter was a wierd one. As a rule I don't like stat parades, but in order to set up future events I had to make sense of all the roster moves the AI made during the season. It was difficult and I found I couldn't do it without many pages of exposition. In short, in order for the reader to appreciate the remarkable events of the 2007 UL Central division race, I had to explain how certain players came to be on the team and how their performances contributed to the Knights' success. Perhaps you'll think that The Alchemy of Winning seems like a financial report, and you may be right - but there was nothing for it, it had to be done.

Whatever you may think, I believe Chapter 30, Dog Days, gets the story back on track. Thanks again for the support. I started out writing this for me, but I'll say now I'm writing it for all of you.

[Tib]

CHAPTER 29

The Alchemy of Winning

As I write this memoir my career as a player has come and gone. My recollection of events is as sound as you will find; helped by dozens of journals, pages of emails, several filled notebooks and the memories of people like Dave Guevara, Doc Caswell, and Walt Kimble. But ask me what it takes to win and my efforts to explain will fall short every time. Ask anyone who has attained success and you will get an answer based on their personal experience. There simply is no one reason why success comes to some and leaves others grasping.

My answer, when fans ask “what did Grier know that McKinnon didn’t?” is alchemy. Alchemy: the ancient semi-magical science that could reportedly turn lead into gold. Alchemy: the dangerous practice of tampering with the very nature of things, seeking always to make them more than they are.

We were made of lead, those first months of the 2007 season. There was no spark to us, no life. Then came John Grier and somehow we turned to gold. I know what he did, but I can’t explain how he did it. It wasn’t as simple as changing a lineup. It wasn’t as simple as making a couple of deadline trades. It was a subtle chemical change in our brains that altered our thinking. It was the power of belief.

We finished June 16-11. It was Kansas City’s first winning month in two years. Two years! Before our second half start at home against Baltimore Grier had a team meeting. Did he mention the good month? No. He knew we knew about that; it was in all the papers. Did he pat us one the back for giving him such a good start to his managerial career? No. He passed around a newspaper article.

It was about ten Chinese children who rose from terrible poverty to become college graduates, the first ever in their respective families. They were all from the same village, a village of less than 200. Their desire to pursue educations brought their families to tears because the village was too poor to help them. When they got to Hong Kong they didn’t have money. They earned it by getting one and sometimes two jobs each. They pooled their earnings together. Eventually, the eldest two entered college and graduated. Those two got better paying jobs and so the pool of money grew. Another two went to college and graduated, tutored by the older ones. And so on until they all had graduated. Now they were professionals, leading distinguished lives. When asked how, at such young ages, they could accomplish so much under such adversity, their answer was simple. “We knew it was possible if we helped each other.”

Grier said to us: “If ten Chinese children can do it, so can you.” It sounds funny, but it really was that simple. We were young then, all of us, and when young people don’t know better they listen and do what they’re told. It was more than just belief. It was a combination of readiness and aptitude.

We were 14-10 in July, thanks to the 11-win finish. After the All-Star game on Independence Day, Grier and Faraday traded Mark Lieb for Sebastian Pena. Then Grier really started to change things around, starting with Scott Haslam.

Scott’s father faded from the picture and was replaced by two people: hitting coach Mark Schernborg and veteran utility outfielder Mike Bozek. Grier played with Bozek in San Francisco and quickly signed him as a free agent when he found he was available. Bozek was nearly out of baseball when Grier found him. Now he was a role player and his role with us was as Scott Haslam’s mentor. Bozy re-focused Haslam in the wake of the split from his father. He taught Scott the things Scott’s father never could. He showed him how to play the carom in right-center, how to handle the press, how to act like a big leaguer. Bozy gave Scott confidence. Instead of trying not to fail his father, Haslam began attacking the game. Schernborg gave Scott the value of his time. In addition to his regular routine, Schernborg prepared special hitting “review discs” for Scott to carry with him and view at home. He set up virtual hitting sessions against holographic representations of opposing pitchers like Drew Connors and Carlos Sanchez and Train Wilson. He worked with Scott via network connection, even during sessions with other players.

Schernborg hammered home to Scott (and to all of us) his idea that there was no such thing as a strike zone. “Strike zones are for pitchers and umpires,” he would say with contempt. “Not for hitters. Hitters have green zones. Every green zone is different for every hitter. You all have your own green zone. When you see a pitch coming into your green zone you swing. You swing hard. There are yellow and red zones, too, and I’m going to teach them to you.”
“Is there a parking zone, too?” joked one veteran.
“Yeah,” said Schernborg. “It’s right next to me on the bench.”

When KC wouldn’t pay his asking price during the off-season, first baseman Albert Gills was gone to free agency. McKinnon lamented, but it was fortuitous. Gilly was replaced with 25-year old Florentino Carrera, a terrific left-handed contact hitter who was a perfect fit in the #2 spot. What’s more, after waiting three years behind the aging Gills, Carrera was hungry to prove himself.

At second was Doc. In the twilight of his career, Doc was past his prime. Even by his own reckoning, his prime wasn’t that good. But Doc was Doc. He made everyone better. He had minimal range and struggled in the field. That put the pressure on me to get to balls up the middle, but that’s what I did best. I covered Doc in the field; Doc taught me how to read pitchers. He was also a great source of opposing player information. It was like having a scout playing to my left every day. Doc positioned me defensively the whole season. He also had a couple of very big hits left in him, as some of you know.

I played short and batted sixth vs. righties and second vs. lefties. After my hot start cooled off I never got above .300 again that season, but I was never below .257. With Doc’s help my OBP stayed near .380 all year. I switched to a LeatherTech WP-1 and dropped the Ironhands glove. I switched to amber-gray lenses in my shades and improved my ability to pick up twilight grounders.
.
If we had a weak spot offensively, it was at third. Our every day guy was 28-year old Alan Bennett. A terrific glove, Bennett the fluid moves of a Zed Neufander and the arm of a Derrin Glass. Bennett made my job a heck of a lot easier. Due to a nagging back injury he hit only .227, but he did have 20 homers and 75 RBI from the #7 spot. When Grier came on he traded KC’s 2006 2nd rounder Pedro Garcia for 26-year old Doug Baptiste to give Alan occasional rest. Dougie was a solid fielder but didn’t hit very well for us (.219).

One area Grier didn’t have to change was the outfield. Although sporadic at the beginning, Carreras, Frisina and Jones became three of the most feared outfielders in the United League. In center was the Golden Boy himself, Bobby Frisina. Batting leadoff all season, Bobby hit .252 with 28 homers and 73 RBI. He also led the team with 21 stolen bases.

In successful years you can always point out one or two players who seemed to hit their stride at just the right moment. For us, one of those guys was Hannibal Carreras. He was always mistaken for Florentino Carrera by fans (and the press, too!) because he hit right behind him in the order (“Now batting, Carrera; on deck, Carreras”). We joked that they should have put their first names on their jerseys because nobody could confuse Florentino with Hannibal. There was no mistaking his performance, though. He was the CBA’s 9th overall pick in 2005 and started in AA as a result. He never looked back. He wound up being promoted to the active roster around the same time as I. 2007 was his breakout year (.290/34/108). He set a UL record for walks with 148.

Von Jones fulfilled the promise of his #4 overall status by hitting .258 and leading the league in both homers (39) and RBI (134). Defensively, he led the team with 14 outfield assists. Forever moody and serious, except around us Squires, Jones channeled his smoldering energy into explosive performances. He had nine multi-homer games in 2007. We joked that his parents should have named him Volcano Jones.

Joel Kral played mostly against lefthanders and filled in for Hannibal when he got hurt in late July. He never complained once, even when rumors started that he was on the trade block. It’s tough for a first round pick to get traded. Believe me, I know. But he still hit 21 homers and drove in 74 as a part time player. When the trade deadline came and went, Joel Kral was still a Squire.

Scott Haslam was one of our other surprises. With Bozek in his head and Schernborg guiding his bat, Haslam hit .393 and played terrific defense for Jones in the late innings. Most of his hits were in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings and many were game breakers.

In one of the best trades in recent years, Ton Faraday somehow convinced the Scouts to take Rich Godina and send us injured catcher Bobby Cardenas. The 25-year old blue chip Cardenas had been out for almost 9 weeks while healing a career-threatening ankle injury suffered in a play at the plate. He was considered damaged goods by just about everybody now. Nobody believed he (or anyone, for that matter) could come back 100% from an injury like that. Some of you may still remember the tape of that collision. Gruesome. Even Del Harrison was critical of the move. I saw it a little differently, as you might imagine. When I was told our only other shortstop had been traded I felt totally energized. The every day job was mine, there was no mistaking it this time. Later on when Grier signed Moises Chupp I felt a little threatened, but for the next two months I was the only shortstop in Kansas City.

Cardenas proved to be perhaps the most important move Grier made that year. He hit 13 homers in less than half a season and threw out 53% of base stealers. His throw to second was two mph faster than Mark Lieb’s fastball. What’s more, he was a good guy; hard-working and dependable. He was also an irreverent, wise-cracking pain in the ass. We made him a Squire right away.

Ollie Caffey was a genius. He inherited a pitching staff among the worst in the league. He had over the hill vets and scared kids who were getting shelled. He had guys with confidence issues and personality issues. He had internal conflicts between pitchers and catchers, pitchers and fielders, and pitchers and pitchers. He didn’t panic. He suggested moves to Clark McKinnon and was routinely turned down. “What do you mean you want an all left-handed starting staff?” McKinnon would say. “Ludicrous!”

Clark McKinnon said “Ludicrous!” to Ollie Caffey many times. Caffey waited. When Grier came in it was a different story. Supposedly, Grier told Caffey to run his pitching staff however he wanted. Five left-handed starters? Fine.

The story I heard was that Grier told Caffey 2007 was for building the car and 2008 was for racing it. But Caffey saw something no one else did. With Grier to okay the moves and Faraday to negotiate them, Caffey plucked some very carefully selected fruit. He wound up with a bushel of steady, unglamorous talent, full of poise and guts and nerve. And southpaws. Five starting southpaws. Caffey saw one other thing, too, I think. He saw the timing of it. He saw how they could come together, how their talents could mesh. Like a master watchmaker, he looked at the group of parts and envisioned the whole smoothly-operating mechanism.

He had some talent to begin with in Carlito Fuentes, Steve Parris, and Jose Araoz. The addition of Sebastian Pena to fill Britt’s spot was an absolute necessity because Pena had the same fire. Nobody liked the move except Caffey. He saw. I must have heard him say “he’ll be all right, he’ll be all right” to Grier a hundred times. Like Britt, Pena was stubborn. Until he came to KC Pena called his own pitches. Nobody could tell him otherwise. Not his coaches, not his catchers, nobody. At 28 and with a bad elbow, Pena had struggled so far in 2007. His pitch-calling hadn’t changed, but his velocity had. He was calling pitches for a man with an undamaged elbow and he was getting rocked. His ERA was 6.33. He was 2-7 when he came to us. Caffey set him straight. It was very simple: Caffey was calling Pena’s pitches or Pena was on the first flight back to the Dominican. Pena went 6-6 with the Knights. His ERA with KC was 4.60.

The consistently solid starts by Bob Saville and Jose Araoz were also a product of Caffey’s thinking. He made sure to start them on consecutive days against the same team because he knew Araoz would study how the veteran Saville set up opposing hitters. He knew Saville would help the young Araoz learn to do it himself. Bob Saville went 14-7 (including a 7-game winning streak) with a 4.07 ERA. Jose Araoz went 14-9 with and ERA of 4.11.

Bill Katz was a machine. He even pitched like a machine, with a short, powerful, popping delivery that fooled hitters. He threw a lot harder than people thought. He was a gym rat, forever developing new combinations of workouts to strengthen himself. He was only 5’ 10” but his body looked like someone poured muscles into a Jell-o mold shaped like a ballplayer. Nothing was a problem for Bill Katz. I know this because that’s what he was always saying. “Bill, I need seven innings tonight,” Grier would say. “No problem”. “Bill, we really need to rest the pen tonight,” Grier would say. “No problem.”

And then there was Rudy Galindo. Through all the staff adjustments, through all the negative press and finger-pointing there was Galindo, taking yet another start on 4 days’ rest, getting out of jams, showing unbelievable guts. He was the rock of the staff. When you hand some pitchers the ball you breathe a sigh of relief, you relax a little, because you know you’re going to get a good performance. I found myself counting the days until Rudy’s next start. Galindo was 18-10 with a 3.41 ERA in 2007. He made All-Star pitching for a team 20 games under .500.

But the bullpen was Caffey’s greatest triumph that year. When I talk about the alchemy of winning and the power of belief I’m talking about the intangible aspects of success. In our case that year, the change in the bullpen was a perfect example of it.

You know something’s wrong with your bullpen when a guy like Steve Parris is struggling with his confidence. It’s tough to pitch in the worst bullpen in the CBA; everyone looks at you as the reason for the team’s problems. But in our case it wasn’t just the personnel, it was how they approached pitching. When you’re a fielder on a bad team you suffer together, but when you’re a pitcher on a bad team you suffer all alone on a mound in the middle of the field for everyone to see. In short, the worst possible thing that could happen to a bullpen happened to the Knights: nobody wanted the ball.

Caffey and Grier began having bullpen meetings. I never attended, but I learned from Doc that Grier actually apologized. He said he was sorry they had been given so few opportunities to succeed. He apologized for the fact that they had been sent into situations without the right tools. What's more, he said, they were the best untapped talent in the league.

He and Caffey told them they were each adding a certain pitch to their repertoire. For Carlito Fuentes it was the split-finger. For Wilfredo Torres it was the sinker. For Bill Pirtle it was the changeup. That way they would not have to do five things well, but do only one thing well, to throw that one perfected pitch in the very situation they needed it most. This bullpen was not about overpowering the opposition, Caffey said, it was about executing the right pitch at the right time. It was about timing. It was Grier’s job to put them in a situation where they could succeed, it was their job to make the most of the opportunity. "For a bullpen, the ball is not a trophy," said Caffey. "It's not for one man to keep. It's a baton. Do your job and pass it on." Wow, did those guys ever get behind that idea. The very thought that they did not have to take on the whole league by themselves unified them.

With this formula in place we started to win games. With Grier and Caffey to guide us, we found ourselves leading 4-2 in the eighth instead of behind 5-1 in the eighth. With Schernborg’s green zone/red zone approach we began to walk, and walk, and walk. We were third in the CBA in bases on balls that year. This new success was something more than simple strategy. It was more than Grier and Caffey and Schernborg knowing what we needed. It was the subtle but powerful alchemy of belief that made us more as a team than we ever could have been as a group of individuals.

Now that I’ve explained how Grier and Co. changed our thinking, let me tell you how that thinking resulted in a run for the division title.

Next: Chapter 30: Dog Days

[jaxmagicman]

Wow. A run at the division. Say it isn't so!

I got a question. How did you simulate a manager change?

[Y0DA55]

Tib, I can't explain how good it was to read the new edition of Short Hop this week. I feel like David is a really good friend of mine who I haven't gotten to talk to in a few weeks.

Also, you do an incredible job writing this thing. Just wanted to say thanks.

[Tib]

Originally Posted by jaxmagicman

Wow. A run at the division. Say it isn't so!

I got a question. How did you simulate a manager change?

Thanks for the comment, YODA55. It felt the same to me when I opened SHORT HOP after 10 days of ignoring it during the holidays.

As for a run at the division - no one was more surprised than I. Then again, KC has several young first rounders on the team: Dave, Bobby Frisina, Von Jones, Joel Kral, and Jose Araoz to name a few. Lots of potential.

As you know, manager changes are not a part of ITP, but when I looked at the numbers and saw a certain pattern of success after the All-Star Break, it seemed like the perfect time to achieve one of my story goals: that John Grier become manager of the Knights at some point. What I noticed was that these young neglected players were finally playing. The AI had gotten rid of some older vets. Why would it do that? Probably because KC wasn't really in contention and not likely to make a run anyway. They had the worst pitching in the league, remember. I got depressed just writing down the game scores.

But I asked myself: Would McKinnon make those changes? Answer: Not in a million years. Who would make these changes? Answer: a new manager bringing in a new approach. John Grier. I had already spent considerable time "setting the table" by establishing certain conflicts with Clark McKinnon, and establishing that Grier was a good manager. What better time than the All-Star Break to bring him in? Also, the whole Lance Britt/Mark Lieb trade fiasco happened and (truth be told) I was a little pissed myself. When Lieb was almost immediately traded for Sebastian Pena it seemed to me that's what a new manager would do - a dynamic new leader who wouldn't waste time dealing with old bad deals would absolutely drop a guy like Lieb ASAP. Plus, Pena's numbers after the trade also made it easy to write his storyline (old dog learns new tricks with new manager and has success, thus proving new manager's approach is the right one).

So, like so many things in SHORT HOP, the ITP results fit one of my goals for the story. In goes Grier. I had no idea KC would challenge for the division. I hadn't simmed that far ahead.

[clutch]

Great job, Tib. I don't think this can be said enough.

[Hoeksam]

I agree with everyone else, Tib.

Best. Read. Ever.

[Tib]

At long last, Chapter 30! A milestone for both me and the Kansas City Knights.

A quick word on the next photo album: uhhh... not going to be here for a lilttle while. No time to search for just the right pics. But I'll do something before too long; everybody may want to know what the Squires look like.

Thanks once again for the supportive comments.

[Tib]

Chapter 30

Dog Days

The 2007 Knights were not the first team to turn things around for the better halfway through the season. We weren’t the first team to experience that almost unexplainable shift in our collective psyche that made us realize we were a good team. But I’d venture to say we were the one team in history to hold success at arm’s length out of fear.

At the CBA level where competition is at its highest, teams strive for any kind of positive momentum. When they find some, they latch onto it with an iron grip and hold on for as long as possible. In our case – and this may seem hard to grasp – we almost didn’t believe we were as good as we were playing. Grier’s new approach aside, we were still a young team and sometimes young teams don’t see the positive changes right away. We’d win, but we’d think: “we’re still seven games under .500. We’re still a losing team”.

It was a surprise to us, some of the successes we were having. Sometimes we’d get into the locker room after a series and reporters would ask us how we managed to beat the Cleveland Hammers 2 of 3. We’d just shake our heads and say, “We’re not sure.” I remember thinking “is it happening now? Right now? So soon? Can it happen that way? Aren’t we supposed to earn it the hard way, or something?”

After the All-Star Break we were cruising at a .500 clip, which was fine considering our previous record was nothing to get excited about. Then something happened. It happened at home against the world champion Washington Sentinels. We showed up. We came not just ready to play, but ready to kill. Nobody said a word, nobody offered a lecture. Nobody had to. In that locker room before batting practice there was a feeling. There was something new in the air, something that hadn’t been there the previous 96 games. It was: We can do this. We can beat these guys. We are good enough to beat these guys.

We beat them 13-4. On television. Hannibal Carreras hit two home runs. But that wasn’t the fun part. When I came up in the eighth with a 12-4 lead I was looking for a good pitch to drive. All I wanted was to turn on a Randy Matchkiss fastball and show him I could hit. Lord knows he had proved to me he could pitch many, many times over. Well, I didn’t get a fastball – Matchkiss was too smart for that. But he didn’t know I didn’t care about his little strike zone. He didn’t know about the Knights’ new approach to hitting. I cared about looking for a ball in my green zone, and my green zone included a low inside breaking pitch. When it came I almost couldn’t believe it. When you get a ball in your green zone, you swing, said Schernborg. You swing hard. So I did.

423 feet later, my ball landed in the back of the left field bleachers. I was rounding second, running much too fast to enjoy my second homer of the year, when I realized I was still holding the bat handle. It had broken in two just below the label.

That’s when I knew. If a scrappy 5’8” shortstop could hit a broken bat home run 423 feet, what else could we accomplish?

We started August on a six-game winning streak. Saville threw a 4-hitter in game one of the streak. In game two Florentino Carrera doubled to score me with the go-ahead in the 8th. After game three we were in second place, which sounds great, but only six games separated the entire division. In game five Araoz fired a 3-hitter. In game six I had 3 RBI and we were 53-52 – over .500 for the first time in almost two years. Carlito Fuentes had 3 saves in the six games and didn’t give up a run. God bless the splitfinger.

We hovered around .500 for the next two weeks. We had stops in Boston (where Theron Richards put on a clinic against us), Seattle (where we took 2 of 3), and Chicago (where Rudy Galindo hurled a nasty 3-hitter). I had been struggling a little, partly due to some fatigue and partly due to my knee. But our first game against Detroit was another turning point.

I was pulled in the 9th. Grier says to me when we come in to bat: “Good job, Hop. Take a load off, I’m giving the older generation a couple of swings”. He sends up Mike Bozek who has had a total of 0 career at bats against Efren Gomez. What does he do? He doubles down the right field line. Then who comes up for Fred Ward? Doc Caswell. Doc, who had been hurt for a week with back spasms, comes up and hits the sorriest looping single you’ve ever seen in your life and Bozy motors around for the winning run. The average age of those two hits was 34 but we partied at home plate like we were all 14 again.

After the game Grier quiets us down for a moment. “Good game today,” he began. “Some of the press will ask me why I used Bozy and Doc in that situation and not Freddie and Hop. I’m going to tell them what I’m going to tell you: because they were the two who were going to win it for us today. Tomorrow it might be someone else. The next day someone else. Everybody on this team is my go-to guy.” I’ll tell you, it makes a team feel bulletproof to hear their manager say that.

The next day Bill Pirtle left the team.

Pirtle was one of the best guys on the team. He had a good heart and really wanted to excel. But as many of you know from his own book, Bill had a problem with depression. While he was with Kansas City his condition had not been diagnosed and he was trying all kinds of things to keep his “personal darkness”, as he described it, at bay. But it was a losing battle, as you might expect, and he found himself fighting on two fronts. On the one hand he was suffering from clinical depression without any medication to combat it. On the other hand, that depression was affecting his confidence on the mound. July and August were tough months for him, though his 4.59 ERA was not that bad.

Finally, after a lead got away from him two days in a row against cellar dwelling Detroit, Bill met briefly with Grier and Caffey and left the team. Medical leave, they called it. We didn’t know when, or if, he would return. To our surprise (and his doctor’s), Bill came back less than a week later. “I’m not a hundred percent healthy yet,” he explained. “But I’m better, and I’ll give you guys a hundred percent of what I’ve got.”

The high summer skyline of Detroit was replaced by the clear, cloudless skyline of Cleveland. It was a big series for us. Another turning point. The Hammers held first place and were playing well. Albert Gills was with Cleveland now and he was talking in the press about how they were going to teach us a thing or two and about how young we were and how much we had to learn. “Let’s show him what we’ve learned,” said Grier.

And we did. We scored 22 runs and gave up 7 in a 3-game road sweep that jumped us over Chicago and into second place, just one game back of our dismayed hosts. In game three of that series Carlito Fuentes struck out two in the ninth to preserve the tie and we took the lead in the 11th when Bobby Frisina homered.

After the homer, Caffey turned to Grier and said, “You want me to get Parris ready?” Grier nodded, but before Caffey reached the phone, it rang. Caffey’s face was serious when he put his hand over the receiver.
“It’s Pirtle,” he said. “He wants the ball.”
Twenty-five heads turned to John Grier. There wasn’t a sound for the space of about five heartbeats.
“Give it to him,” said Grier.

Bill Pirtle pitched a perfect 11th.

The next day we were back in KC against the lowly Colts. Von Jones hit a ball off the clock tower in left, 465 feet away. Bobby Cardenas became only the 3rd catcher in UL history to hit for the cycle. I was in the middle of my second 10-game hitting streak of the season (.341). We won 16-2.

The next day we lost when I double pumped a throw in the 9th and bounced it past Carrera. We dropped to 2 games back. But in game three Joel Kral, who hadn’t played in a week, hit two homers – one struck a hot dog cart in the right field patio. Buns, dogs and condiments went flying everywhere. The poor vender, a nice guy named Mel Cejka, was covered in ketchup, mustard, relish and onions. That’s what started the wonderful Hot Dog Homer tradition they have in KC now. That’s why the carts in Kansas City have targets painted on them.

We traveled to New York. When we got there, the infamous Admiral press was indifferent to us. They were indifferent about anything that didn’t have to do with the UL East. When we left three days later they hated us.

August 26th: Galindo throws a shutout, but believe it or not that wasn’t the real story. New York’s Matt Candleman had us all fooled. We couldn’t get anything going. Then in the fifth Grier tells Doc to grab a bat. A little early for a substitution maybe, but Doc stands up and says, “I know Candleman from the Mid-America League. Remember what I told you guys about how he sets up to throw the overhand? If he gets me 0-2 he’ll burn one up and away, then he’ll bring the curve.”

Sure enough, Candleman gets Doc 0-2 and, then tries to get him to chase up and away, but Doc was too smart and laid off. Here came Candleman’s big overhand – and there it went, over the left field wall! I thought to myself, Doc Caswell hit a home run? Against Matt Candleman? Are you kidding me? As if that weren’t enough, in the eighth Doc came up with Sal Borrego on the mound. “Borrego likes the forkball too much,” Doc said to us from the on-deck circle. Next thing you know, pow! – there it goes! Doc’s second homer of the night. We lost on the 27th, but won on the 28th, taking 2 of 3 from mighty New York. I went 6 for 11 in the series, but my tenth error of the year dropped me to third in UL fielding.

Then we went home to play Oakland. At 73-55 the Mammoths were making a mockery of the rest of the league. They made a mockery of us in game one, 4-1. My 10-game streak was over. After the game Rob Saville announces, “It’s all right, boys. I’ll get it back tomorrow.” And on August 31st he won his seventh decision in a row. That made us 68-62. That night Cleveland lost to Seattle and we found ourselves tied for first place.

We had gone 17-10 in August. We were 31-20 since July 1st. Looking around the locker room at the end of August, I saw that fire had replaced fear, confidence had replaced confusion. Determination had replaced hesitation. At long last, we were in first place and one thought boomed in my head:

Now what?


Next week: Chapter 31: September Reign

[Faroo6]

Best. Read. Ever.

doesn't get old, does it?

[WWBL Commissioner]

This is great stuff Tib, I look forward to next week

[The Funk]

Fantastic job as usual, the pennant race is genuinely exciting, go KC!

Originally Posted by Tib

The combined age for those two hits was 34 years old,

I'm a little confused about this phrase, I'm probably being really stupid, but could you possibly spell it out for me? Thanks.

EDIT: Is it to do with the two players' major-league experience?

[Tib]

I was trying to find a clever way to say Doc was 35 and Bozek was 33. It was supposed to be an "older guys are contributing" kind of thing.

[Y0DA55]

But wouldn't that be the "average" age and not the combined age?

[cubuff38]

Welcome to Playoff City, population KC Knights.

[jaxmagicman]

Originally Posted by The Funk

Fantastic job as usual, the pennant race is genuinely exciting, go KC!

I'm a little confused about this phrase, I'm probably being really stupid, but could you possibly spell it out for me? Thanks.

EDIT: Is it to do with the two players' major-league experience?

Yeah I was confused as well. I think maybe combined should be replaced by average.


Great read. I am excited about next week's September Reign.

[Tib]

Originally Posted by jaxmagicman

Yeah I was confused as well. I think maybe combined should be replaced by average.


Great read. I am excited about next week's September Reign.

Yeah. Should have said "average". I've changed it now.

[jaxmagicman]

Such service. Tib, I must tell you that you are a master storyteller. You have a knack for foreshadowing. After I read what you were eluding too later on, I can go back and say "Damn, he foreshadowed that really well." Great job!!!