The Clash = Genius

One of the finest examples of song writing...ever. (The original video can be found here.)

GFC Winter '09 Update

Man, am I way behind on keeping everyone up to date with what's going with kickball. After making an appearance in the March issue of Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine, the GFC finished with their second consecutive regular season without a loss (a tie is not a loss). For those who are keeping track at home, that brings the streak up to 19 straight regular season games (17 wins and 2 ties). Even though another team went 8-0 to capture the regular season championship, we have already punched our ticket to Vegas and can play spoiler to other teams that have yet to secure a bid. Also, after two weeks of smack-talk and covert decorating of people's houses (re: getting Fawed), we managed to beat our incestuous arch rivals the Valley Girls in what was probably one of the most well-played games I have been involved in.

Monday brought the start of the playoffs for this season. Since we were first in our conference, we were matched against the last-place team in the other conference, Cobra Kai. Even though they had not won a game all season, rumor had it that they are a much tougher team than their record reflected. This time, the rumors were true. While we did not play bad, we did not play good either. In the end we did just enough to secure a 5-0 victory, moving on to face O! in the second round next Monday and what should be a double-header for us.

Neglect

Yes, it has been well over a month since my last post. Have I been too busy? Kind of, but not that busy. Have I been too lazy? Probably more so than I will ever admit. That being said, stay tuned for some much needed fresh posts.

GFC Winter '09: Week 4

This week we drew yet another new team that has not won a game this season. Should be another easy win, right? The full moon should have been a sign of things to come. They started off the 1st inning with a couple of runs by capitalizing on a couple defensive errors. Then the popups started. We did manage to push through a run in the 3rd, but entered the 5th inning down a run with our 14-game regular season winning streak on the line. Thanks to some timely kicking (and a sweet bunt by myself) we tied the game, but could not take the lead. With the specter of having the field lights turned off at any moment, we got three quick outs to eek out a tie, keeping our streak alive. Next week we play one of our arch rivals, Uno Mas.

GFC Winter '09: Week 3

We played a brand new team this week. The results were not surprising. Even though we won 5-0, it could have (and probably should have) been much worse, considering we left about 800 people on base. They dropped a lot of fly balls and we did not take advantage. I think they may have advanced a runner to third in one inning, but to quite honest I don't remember; I don't think they had multiple runners on more than once. Next week we play yet another brand new team. There is a good chance we will win. Not like we've won 14 straight regular season games or anything.

GFC Winter '09: Week 2

After two weeks worth of delays thanks to President's Day and some untimely rain, it was time to get back to playing some kickball. Week 2 brought a rematch of our Summer '08 quarterfinal playoff game against Feets Of Fury. The first inning saw us fall behind 2-0, but the fireworks were just starting. As the second inning began and we started to acquire baserunners, the Feets pitcher and catcher collided in one of the most violent collisions I have seen in quite some time. After taking a few minutes to let them get straightened out (the catcher was fine, the pitcher needed stitches), play resumed and we busted open the proverbial flood gates for ten runs over the remainder of the game. With the final score of 10-4, we seem to have found a way to generate offense unlike before. And with our next opponent being a brand new team, it would stand to reason that the runs will continue to pile up for us.

New Soccer Jersey

Over the last year or so I have been on a soccer jersey kick for some strange reason. Given that I am a fairly large individual, and that most jerseys follow European sizing standards (which means they are at least a size smaller than they say), tracking one down that fits has been a bit of a hassle. More to the point, trying to find a Germany home jersey has been a nightmare. Why Germany, you ask? Because 1) that is where my family originally immigrated from (I don't care if was over 200 years ago, Joe; that's still my heritage) and 2) their home kits look pretty awesome. After searching for a good eight months, I managed to track down a home jersey that not only fit, but also has a number kit for Bastian Schweinsteiger already imprinted.



To be quite honest, I do not know a whole lot about this fellow. However, he had some bad ass goals in Euro 2008, he has a ridiculously hot girlfriend, and he looks like Dangle's character in Balls Of Fury. Based on those facts, he's cool in my book.

GFC Winter '09: Week 2: Technical Difficulties

Thanks to more weather over the weekend than SoCal usually sees in a couple of years, all games for this evening were canceled/postponed. And since next Monday is President's Day, the park will be closed no matter what. That means we will have two consecutive weeks without games, on top of the interruption later in the season thanks to Caesar Chavez Day (only in California). In that same two weeks, I will have played kickball in another state (Arizona) and another division (Pasadena). Hopefully we don't have a repeat of 2006 when we had four consecutive Mondays of rain and postponed games.