Absolutely Battered

Well this double header was pretty unforgettable! With unrelenting winter weather we set up camp in the dugout and started our first game against the Longballers with great momentum. With Patrick’s defense tracking and some incredible hits and fielding from everyone on the team we had achieved a significant lead heading into the final innings. I’m not sure if it was the wind, the sleet, or the hot chocolate but the last inning had us in a fielding sinkhole and the Longballers trampled our lead with 16 runs in the ninth. A break to dethaw and we were off with a fresh start and renewed optimism against the Screwballs. Another fun game, and again holding a comfortable lead until close to the end of the game, but slipped away with a mercy in the eighth and were unable to get it back.

Congrats to Brent for scoring two home runs, Corina for her first official #Abat runs, and memorable mentions to Colin for demonstrating a crawling-to-base ‘out’ and Chris for our first ever garbage can pop fly. The entire team contributed everything they had and it really showed – outside of the final innings the team showed off some top notch skills.

This week’s games will most certainly go down as our worst weather games, and I’m incredibly proud of everyone’s commitment to the team. A few years ago we may have only had three or four willing to play on a day like that, and after a clobbering in the ninth would have given up. I’m sure that if we can play that well in the wind, sleet and snow we’ve got some wins up our sleeve in the near future.

Baseball Season in Canada

It’s times like these that it’s worth looking at where we’ve come, and consider the footsteps we follow down our path to greatness. The Abats have made huge progress through the season and now strike fear into the hearts of our opponents. We can look back on a season of strong growth, confidence and constantly improving play.

The tournament day was a long one with not shortage of highlights and low lights. The cool soggy start got to us and we got behind and stayed behind against the Longballers. Our next game against the Connectors was a bit better for us, now warmed up and ready to go. In both of these challenges we played a balanced game with adequate defense and strong offense flirting with double digit runs scored. Our third game after our team pitcher, wings and pizza was less enthusiastic. Triple X is a team the Abats can beat, but their ringer really sucked a lot of life out of us. We played OK, but of the 3 games this was by far the least enthusiastic and by consequence the worst.

Specific details are foggy (I blame the team pitcher) but memorable aspects of the day include a few spectacular catches in the outfield by Mike – who failed all season to be appropriately dressed, this day wearing the wrong shoes. Jen made some (more) standout defensive plays possibly closing a whole inning with rifle throws for outs at first. Brent and Mike also deserve kudos for their in the park home runs, great to make that kind of magic happen on tournament day. A highlight that deserves some attention was Colin’s beard which frankly defies explanation, but was very distracting and I’m sure our opponents thought they might be playing against baseball Jesus.

It was a good season for many of us individually and all of us as a team. Huge thanks goes to Julia whose passion for Abat baseball is no where near appreciated and the stresses of managing a Sunday afternoon team are borne without complaint – other than the odd strongly worded e-mail.

Enjoy the off season team! And remember, it was Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own who reminds us that “There’s no crying in baseball!”. Well, baseball is over, so have a good cry.

Baseball has ended
Has a dynasty begun
For now we rest

Is it too soon to declare a dynasty? This is the baseball we’ve known we could play for at least a season. Sure there were mistakes and missed opportunities but never did we let them get to us. Never did we worry about the score and when it was all said and done we had won our third consecutive game with a balanced effort across the whole team.

It’s hard not to emphasize how clear our heads were in this game and how focused we were on playing good baseball. Even after a ‘typical’ start of weak defense and poor offense we stayed in it and worked hard. The hard work paid off and Brent didn’t even believe it when the game was over and we had another win under our belt – without having to defend it in the bottom of the 9th (again).

The standout offensive player of the game is absolutely Mike who in the 4th inning managed a 3 run homer which was followed up by James’ aggressive base running taking him to 3rd. Jesse batted a perfect game and I’m sure we all have something to be proud of.

Clearly the defensive play of the game goes to coach Julia who becomes a mess with nerves in these triumphant moments and near nail biter finishes when she caught a pop-fly to end the game – I’m pretty sure that ball is still firmly locked in her glove. Of course there were a number of other great catches including those by Jamie and Jesse, ball blocking by Jen, and great fielding by the whole team.

Truly a balanced effort all around; solid, unapologetic, winning, baseball.

Three wins in a row
Surprising ourselves each week
One game left to win

Even Thing #1 is proud of our recent efforts!