Depleted AAA painfully put out of its' misery

Testes Takers break week-old record

FREMONT -- Hall-of-Famer John Madden once said “You can’t be a great player if you’re not playing.” While most people’s knee-jerk response would be, “No shit!”, it’s a simple truth that was never more truer than on Sun Mar 19, 2006. For the previous two games, Alvin Trinh’s AAA squad was seriously depleted—including a forfeit—and today’s game would be no different as (arguably) the team’s best four players—B-Rid, Ed DaRosa, Nick Collins, and Trinh himself—were present only in spirit.

While the U.S. and Dominican Republic recently proved that having all your stars in the lineup doesn’t guarantee victory, it certainly doesn’t help to not have them.

Shifting gears, the near-fully intact Torance (Matsui)’s Testes Takers would charitably offer their foes a 1B to avoid pitcher’s hand rules—and for the chance to put this cursed, two-part series away once and for all. On a sunny, breezy day at Fremont’s Irvington High, the fifteen BAD ASSes took the field (once the kite-fliers and dog-walkers took the subtle hints and kindly stepped aside).

Testes Takers win series 4-0

This game was over before it started. Not unlike last week, when TTT took full advantage of AAA lacking a catcher en route to a record-setting 20-run 2nd inning, TTT obliterated that number with a 25—twenty-five—spot in the bottom of the first! AAA LF Simas struggled mightily with the sun as fly ball after fly ball soared over his head. Matsui cracked two ITPHR, and Ledee blasted two conventional dingers in the onslaught.

As the game went on, TTT went on cruise control--the only suspense really being whether or not they could shut out AAA (those plans ended in the third though AAA was held scoreless in six of eight competitive innings…more on that later) and whether or not they could set two more new records--total runs and margin-of-victory (both held by the 2004 ABA team, the same team whose 1-inning run output record was broken by TTT last week).

Though ultimately TTT fell 9 runs short of each of those records, it was still a clobbering to be remembered—if it’s possible for a team to win 47-10 and not even have it be that close, this was it. The game got so out of hand that in the ninth, the TTT’s entire defense played way out of position, including CF Minor at 1B and C Davis in CF! While Game Three was a laugher in terms of fun only—Game Four was a laugher in every sense, start to finish.

Props must be given to the AAA members who showed up. To a man they all played hard, didn’t sulk even when their brains were getting bashed in, didn’t cry or feel sorry for themselves. Hell, TTT probably whined more about the lopsidedness than AAA did. It was unfortunate that what could have been a very enjoyable, competitive series was reduced to this, especially in a do-or-die game, but it was what it was, and Simas, Stauffer, Bernal, Hamilton and Bush certainly deserve credit for giving their all in a game they had no chance to win.

So came to an end the TTT/AAA series in a 4-0 sweep. After the league flirted with the idea of playing two—which didn’t happen—captains were selected for next series in the form of Flores and Al Padron. One can only hope balanced drafting, attendance and all-round competition will the theme.

GAME NOTES:

• The field at Irvington High was far from perfect—dugouts were locked, the outfield was sloped and muddy, and most notably a fence extending from a nearby baseball diamond cut into RF about halfway between the infield and the BAB fence! But BAB was simply satisfied to play somewhere with NO risk of property damage.

• The league ruled that any balls off that fence would be in play. With Padron absent and Kuzmiak hitting righty all day, it only affected defenses when Stauffer batted. Minor did drop a Stauffer fly ball in the fences’ vicinity, but it’s unclear if the fence played a role.

• With the seemingly endless string of scoring, several times the scoreboard and/or stat sheet had to be corrected, including one memorable moment in the first when TTT mistakenly put “25” instead of the correct “24” on the scoreboard. “Leave it, Ryan’s batting,” said Minor. Ledee promptly went deep.

• Davis, playing with sore ribs, had his most trying game of 2006 in today’s blowout. In the first, Bernal popped up near home not once, not twice, but three separate times! Davis, who’s usually sure-handed at C, fumbled the first two before the third one fell for a K—luckily, the no-catcher-popouts rule was in effect. Davis later whiffed, got doubled off first base (nicely done by SS Stauffer), thrown out at third base, and fell down twice in CF chasing flies by Simas and Bernal. He did avoid a K by taking a poor 6th pitch and raking it down the line for a double in the 1st.

• In addition to Bernal and Davis, Hamilton K’d in both the 5th and 7th, while Stauffer whiffed in the 9th.

• With the exceptions of his two K’s—especially the second one—and being doubled off first in the 1st, Hamilton played a pretty good offensive game, hitting the ball hard a few times and finishing 5-for-8 with an RBI and 3 runs after missing the last few weeks.

• Matsui added another ITPHR late and finished with 8 RBI. Yow and Manning drove in 7 each. Flores finished a hard 7-for-8 with 3 RBI and 6 runs. Lynas was not happy that his 6-for-8 resulted in just one RBI.

• Trinh’s absence meant consecutive Small Penis #4 (and likely saved Davis from that fate). The entire TTT team earned the MVP—and deservedly so—while no Gold Glove was named.

• In addition to the previously mentioned quintet, AAA was minus IF Rick Flores and C Soonam Chowdhury. TTT played without the same trio from last week—BS Jason LaRose, OF Dave Del Real, and IF/OF Nick English. JD

* Players of the Week *

BAD ASS of the Day

Torance's Testes Takers

Dominant 4-game sweep

Gold Glove

None

Small Penis

Alvin Trinh, AAA

Absent yet again