May 6 2007

Whalley Park. 1:30pm. Surrey Indians vs Aldergrove Giants.

There's been a lot of talk about this game. Maybe too much talk. This is not a rebel game. This is Sunday baseball Sunday.

Players began arriving at 12pm, half an hour earlier than usual, to get some extra BP time in the batting cages. Maybe it paid off, considering we tied our season high of six runs scored despite batting in just 8 of the 9 innings.

18 runs in 4 games isn't too great, but after Sunday's 6-2 victory we now have a 3-1 record, so we ain't complaining. Besides, one can't complain about one's own doing, can one? No, one can't. For the stat fiends among you, we are averaging 4.5 runs scored per game, which is last in our division and third last overall.

The not-so-secret secret to our success thus far is our ability to keep opponents from crossing homeplate. 12 runs against in 4 games equals a runs against average of 3 runs against per game, tops in our division and second only to the stingy Richmond Black Sox who are allowing an average of 2.5 runs per game.

We will now critique every aspect of this game. This will take a few hours. Get comfy. We took the field after a rousing pregame cheer of "white noise, low growl" and in a bizarre start to the game there...

We interrupt this post with a breaking news update: "It's not fungus, it's bacteria." - Brad. We now take you back to regularly scheduled posting.

... and while some Giants players and personnel had taken exception to Kelly's hard slide into second, the coaches eventually cooled off and made nice. And that, our friends, concludes our extremely extensive post-game coverage. Thanks for reading. We hope this post garners us a Pulitzer Prize in the category of Commentary. We would also accept a Pulitzer Prize in the category of Criticism.

Today's iPod.
The Giants were batting in the top of the fifth and we were protecting a 4-1 lead. The Giants had a runner on first with less than 2 outs. A sharp grounder was hit up the middle. Second baseman Kelly broke to his right, took a couple of quick steps, dove, and had the ball come to a stop in the webbing of his mitt. Kelly got to his knees, shoveled the ball to the shortstop standing on second, and the force out was made. Kudos.