Scottsdale Softball Friday Night C-League juggernaut NO DRAMA won its third consecutive league championship last night! The second of which I've been a part! YEAH, THAT CHAMPION FEELING.
We futzed around in the regular season, sweeping two teams 2-0 and splitting with the rest to give us a 9-5 record, good for the third seed. The tournament was standard issue, 8 team single elimination, and we drew the 6th seed to start the day. We came out mashing, winning that opening game 19-4 on a run-rule. I got to play all kinds of different positions - 3rd base, SS, left-center, right-center - and fielded well (except for one ball that i pulled up on so as to not run over our RF; ended up missing that one as a result). I also came out mashing - big line drives to left and right field, and in my third bat one-hopped the wall with a line drive. So i was feeling pretty good, and some of my spotty hitting struggles of late seemed non-existent.
Unfortunately, there are only two fields for the playoffs, so the 3-6 and 4-5 games happen at 6:20, and the 1-8 and 2-7 games happen at 7:15. We had to wait an hour before our next game. This being softball, several of our team members went to various fast food establishments to get things like Baconators and five dollar footlongs. Oh, dear. I stayed put to watch the 2-7 game as the winner would be our semi-final opponent. The 7 team only brought 8 people, so that laugher ended quickly with the 2 seed - our arch nemesis and team o' jerks Beer Goggles - winning 20-something to 1.
So this team has historically been gripey with us and with the umps - they're good, can hit and field and all that, but really are just not pleasant to play against. There's been something of a long standing rivalry between this team and mine, NO DRAMA, since well before I came to the team, no love lost, the whole thing. The only real connection i have to the beer goggles, aside from the couple of times I've experienced their gripey attitude, is that one of their players named D_____ is a cantankerous Ultimate player who has stormed off the field on occasion. Not a fun person, one of the people I cross off on my draft lists. So we were hyped for a second round matchup.
OH SNAP - I don't know, I can't explain, have no idea what happened, but we came out STROKING. Were up 4-0 after one and got them out 1-2-3, then came the inning that would not stop. We batted around twice - with 12 batters - and after the mayhem, it was 21-0. They were the hometeam and scored 4 to avoid the 2nd inning run rule, but we tacked on 6 more in the top of the third to go up 27-4 and then shut them down in the last inning to walk away with an embarrassing, ass-kicking run rule win in the SEMIS! Unsurprisingly, as they fell behind by a ton, they got gripier and gripier with one another, at us, at the umps, at everybody. Eric slid into second, accidentally bumped their secondbasewoman, and immediately came up apologizing, but that didn't stop their pitcher from cussing at Eric. Ed took a walk late in the game - on four terrible pitches - and their SS griped about Ed being a "big pussy" - this after their team took multiple walks in their game against eight people. Ha, ha, ha is all I have to say. Their pitcher quick pitched me - he threw a pitch when i only had one foot in the batter's box, which isn't really the biggest thing in the world (or necessarily illegal), just discourteous. I responded by smashing a double to left on the next pitch. I hit well - we all hit RIDICULOUSLY well in this game, just screaming liner after screaming liner. Anyways, to wrap up the semis account, it was a total humiliating laugher, and here's the quote from one of the umps:
"I know we're not supposed to root for or against teams, but I loved watching Beer Goggles getting it handed to them."
Ha! Personal triumph and schaudenfreude wrapped up in one!
On to the finals against the cleverly named "Master Batters." Not a whole lot to report - they had a tall pitcher with a weird hitch delivery who threw knuckle balls. He gave us a touch of trouble at the start, but we figured him out well enough after an inning or two. They were good and nice - lots of joking around on the field, and good competitive play. We fielded GREAT - Brock in particular played out of his head at SS - and came up with some huge clutch hits. An 8-4 victory with Ed running down the last flare to right field - NO DRAMA CHAMPS!!!
Great night of softball. I hit just fine, and didn't really have to make very many plays in the outfield - the better teams tend to not hit it in the air as much, so I think I only had one or two plays out there all night. NEhoo, fun times, and I think we're officially on the books as a dynasty. Do I smell a B league in our future? (Hopefully NO!).
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