MCSN: June 8, 2013

Ring In The New!

Week 1 Recap

By Bill Van Tuinen

Wed, Jun 12, 2013

The sun was out for opening day The 2013 version of the Moody Church Softball League opened up on a perfect day for softball. The eponymous Bryan Beeh of the Killer Beehs was so impressed they decided to play two.

In the opener, Beeh's Beehs gave the Roosters a wake-up call by scoring early and often. Roosters first baseman Isac Malmgren is credited with the first pun of the season by warning his Roosters not to get too cocky--although his timing left something to be desired given the Roosters' large deficit at the time of his quip.

While Isac struck first, this writer will try to ensure that the pun stays mightier than the sword, or bat, as the case may be.

The velvet glove of Roosters outfielder Les Carter was on full display, robbing Beehs pitcher Nick Ploegstra of an extra-base hit. But the Roosters just didn't make enough plays to stop the Beehs' offensive buzz-saw, which saw the first six hitters in their lineup have perfect outings.

The Roosters faced some pre-season roster turnover, but thankfully a number of Juan Cruz's relatives stepped to the plate (so to speak) to fill out their team. Sadly, their names are not Cruz, which would have created an almost unlimited supply of puns for the year (e.g. cruzin' to victory, cruz control) and access to almost every Tom Cruz vehicle of the last two decades. In somewhat of a consolation, the Castro surname will provide the opportunity for not-so-veiled references to New-World Marxists, although we would prefer to stay off of the NSA's radar.

In the morning's second game, the Beehs took on Orange Crush. In a tightly contested match, the Beehs had a little more pop in their bats and squeezed out a 12-10 victory.

The Beehs got strong contributions from league newcomers Nathan Maddela and Chris Thomas to go with 3-for-3 campaigns from veterans Juan Cruz and Patrick Halpin. The younger Halpin seems to be inspired by his older brother Anthony's (a.k.a. Antoni) return to the league and finished the day with 8 RBIs over the two games. Both managers were unavailable for comment.

The day's third game once again featured Orange Crush, but in a match-up against 3:16 Mafia.

The mafioso jumped out to an early 6-0 lead behind the hot bat of league newcomer David Fowler who had a home run and triple with four RBIs in his first two at-bats. But the Crush would not crumple so easily and they fought back for an 8-6 lead behind a steady onslaught in the middle innings.

League strongman David Zuperku Crushed a ball in the early innings that had home-run written all over it, but it was knocked down by the trees and he settled for a ground-rule double.

3:16 tied the game in the fifth as another newcomer, Jimmy Jimenez, just beat a throw home with what seemed like his fifth headfirst slide of the day. After stopping the Crush in the top of the sixth thanks to some fine pitching by Dan Coughlin, Mafia member and league veteran Giovanni Medina, having recently arrived in the fourth inning, led off with a single and scored on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly from Eric Bartl.

“Let's not get too cocky.”

- Roosters' Isac Malmgren, with the first pun of the season.

The day concluded with Witness meeting Cross the Bases. The game was close early, but Witness eventually overwhelmed the short-handed Bases 13-2.

Bases' SS Michael Schneider's defense helped keep the game close at 4-1 through four innings, but the Witness bats could not be quieted for the entire game. Another league newcomer, Mike Laureto, showed signs of promise and Bases manager Lockwood expects big things from him going forward.

Rob Tong, league commish and Witness manager (and news editor) was quite pleased after opening day: "I'd never seen 9 of the 10 players
(who came to the game) play before this year, so I could've called my team "Box Of Chocolates" since I didn't know what to expect. Much to my
pleasant surprise, we fared pretty well against arguably the toughest pitcher in the league. Our rookie pitcher, Scott Whitaker, did well in his debut,
as did our rookie relief pitcher, James Mitra, in matching up against their wily veteran counterpart."

Lockwood remains confident that with a full team, they will get'em next time.

The league will be off on June 15th, but action resumes on June 22nd.

The week's lone matchup of unbeatens will pit 3:16 Mafia against the Killer Beehs. Despite their 2-0 start, Mafia manager Bill Van Tuinen isn't willing to concede that Beeh's Beehs are the bee's knees just yet.

"I would characterize them more as the 'Difficult Beehs'or the 'Assault with intent to do bodily harm Beehs' right now," said Van Tuinen. "It's just too early to say they are Killer".

All the league's winless teams will be facing off against each other in the days first two games providing each team an opportunity to bounce back from Week 1's loss.

Tong offered the following pun-tification about their matchup with the Roosters: "Since we play them in the last game of the morning when the heat is on, rather than at the crack of dawn when they are most alert, we hope we can cook them up real good. If we don't, they'll have a lot to crow about."