Sept 28th,'08 - 6 innings:
Empty Pitchers 17, Churchills Bubbles n Squeek 16

Up comfortably in the 5th inning 14-7, the softball gods shook the earth every time an EP player reached for the ball. Had the Empty Pitchers not pleased enough the softball gods last week by beating the Devils? Was the margin of victory too small?

Up until the 5th, EP played its usual steady defense, getting outs when there were opportunities and preventing baserunners from advancing by holding throws, sometimes too cautiously when Jamie is relaying at SS for an inning - he gets a little overwhelmed with the catching and the spinning and the noises and the bright colors.

The gods did bless a new stick. Jami's Miken Nemesis arrived at the park without a scratch (read the lab report here). Would only 20 practice pop-ups break it in? Or would the offense be diminished by using it too soon?

Jamie, afraid to hit anywhere near the rightfielder who snared Scott's rocket, zoned in on a CF gap and sent a laser for a first-pitch single. Four batters later with the second ever swing, Keith absolutely crushed a homer down the RF line. After Keith crossed homeplate, Jami picked up the Nemesis and collected her first hit with it. The bat went 7-9 this night.

Next time we face them, we'll need to remember: #88, their catcher loves to grab and hand us our bats because the team has little faith throwing to her and it's her only action; their female at 3B is their best infielder; their pitcher is decent; they got only one ball past our OF; their SS has good range but a wild arm; overall this team has potential but they seem to doom themselves.

Back to the recap: A seven-run 2nd inning, mostly with 2 outs, gave us a nice cushion to absorb their seven-run gift in the 5th. In extra innings with a runner starting at 2B, EP held them to two runs. Scott started the bottom of the 6th driving in Theresa from 2B. After Jessica was robbed of a hit, Andrew (now the winning run) reached 3B. Courtney perfectly put the ball on the ground towards 2B and Andrew made it in. Stormy Waters wrote on the back of his dog discipline certifiate the words "game over".

Notables: Scott pitched on no-sleep and 12 hrs of driving; Courtney got her 1st catch of the season; Theresa made a great catch in foul territory; the 1-6-3 inning-ending out in the 4th; Andrew didn't reach base for the first time this season; Jamie has reached base 13 straight at-bats; Courtney has 6 straight hits; Ryan continues to steadily get basehits; Jessica made her first OF appearances in RF and LF; Casie has played with the most gloves in EP history.

Gone/Subs: Ruthie (Theresa); Sarah (Casie)

Oct 5th,'08 - 7 innings:
Empty Pitchers 15, Massage Envy 1

Not often can a team play three subs and hold an opponent under 10 runs. Kyle and Annette made their EP debuts and kept every ball in front of them. As a whole, the team made smart relays and controlled throws to prevent extra bases. Subbing at catcher, Casie made two great catches in foul territory on ~175 foot popups.

Massage Envy couldn't work the knots out of their offense. Their men batted both sides of the OF but lacked the power to dangerously pound the ball. Most of their girls lacked smooth swings, allowing the left side of the infield to play in and Scott to scramble under several short popups. The result: more stress on their defense.

The Empty Pitchers showed their best patience at the plate this season, often taking a first pitch. Courtney couldn't get a good pitch and hence set a team record with 3 walks. Aside from Scott's losing battle to Envy's 2B, the team swung the bat well. Andrew nearly had a 2nd homerun (great headfirst dive back to third to dodge the rundown) and Jamie extended his on-base streak to 17 at-bats - JINX!

Massage Envy won't ever rub the opponent the wrong way, as they continue to tilt the league balance of team personalities towards "fun and friendly" and worth looking forward to playing again. Their two pitchers toss vanilla pitches, their outfield is capable of hauling in long balls while the leftside of their infield can be rated as good for future reference. Questions regarding 2B should be directed towards Scott.

Andrew pointed out with this win and losses by AZ Devils and FinalRound RamRod, we are assured at least a 3rd place finish since we own tiebreakers against both teams via head-to-head wins. Unless the illegal-batless-Bombers stumble vs FR RamRod this weekend, they'll have 1st place wrapped up with their regular season finale vs Massage Envy .

Notables: Andrew, nursing a sore shoulder played 5 innings in LC; both he and Keith had nice grabs in the OF; Jamie has scored on 6 of his last 7 at-bats without a triple or HR - all attributable to uber-consistent middle-of-the-order batting from Jami, Keith, Melissa, Ryan and Ted; Jami's Nemesis had an impressive sophmore game; EP played it's first 7-inning game.

Gone/Subs: Sarah (Casie); Ted (Kyle); Melissa (Annette)

Oct 12th,'08 - 6 innings:
Plan B 11, Empty Pitchers 9

For the second consecutive week, the team was short at least 3 of its regulars but this time the juice ran out even though the dugout was stocked with CapriSuns. One rough inning in the field by the Empty Pitchers was the difference as both teams otherwise played nearly error free ball.

With the lack of errors, neither team could put together a big inning on offense. Power outage isn't completely correct: Jessica's and Courtney's bats perhaps had too much power as they crushed a number of pitches into the OF but Plan B came up with nifty nabs. Scott and Andrew batted well but Jamie's on-base streak ended at 18 at-bats, going 1-4 at the plate.

Defensively, Amy made two 2-3 putouts from homeplate while Casie and Courtney hauled in some nice flies to the OF. Nothing flew too far in the OF, part of that may have been the absence of Isaac who just had his second son (congrats Nicole!). It was the drops by Jamie and Scott that contributed to Plan B's one big inning. As punishment, both Scott and Jamie performed 200 pushups each after the game. Check out their pecs at the upcoming game.

What's it's really about - comraderie! After the game both teams headed to The Tilted Kilt for refreshing drinks and food. Check out the pics below and double points if you can find Ryan in the pics.

Notables: Ted landed some recording studio time at the last minute - a worthy reason to miss a game since EP wholeheartedly supports the arts; the vast majority of the team are architects, Isaac being an exception: a civil engineer; Ashley is the last original female Plan B player, but don't be surprised to see others reemerge.

Gone/Subs: Sarah (Casie); Jami (none); Ruthie (Amy), Ted (none)

Oct 19th,'08 - 5 innings:
Band-Aids 17, Empty Pitchers 11

The Band-Aids continued their ownage of The Empty Pitchers. While all empires fall, the era of The Band-Aids continues. The game was tied 11-11 heading into the bottom of the 5th even though it was not one of our best games and they had played error-free ball. Random notes as follows:

• In the future, we'll need to play Noel all the way at the fence. Lauren was the only female capable of hitting the outfield line. The guy with the pants and socks lands all his shots between the infield and OF line. Noel continues to lick his palms before every at-bat, something our sub Amy made note of.
• Great play continues at C in the absence of Sarah as Amy makes a nice catch.
• Jessica continues to display awesome power - it's just those damn OF's and 3B's leaping into crazy positions. All bets are she'll break loose in the playoffs.
• Jami appears to be playing painfree and great at the plate and at 1B but truth be told, her thumb is barely hanging on by a few stretches of skin.
• Lisa made her EP debut. Even though she was bummed by her plate appearances, we can tell she has solid skills to add.
• Connie made her EP debut and twice was baptised in LF by Noel's thunderous shots to the wall. She has one heck of a cannon getting that ball to the cutoff.
• Correctable errors may have doomed us. Three baserunning errors caused unnecessary outs, including Jamie continuing to run when the runner ahead of him had stopped; missing cutoffs; not holding runners on bases to maintain forceouts - all easy to amend.
• Ryan suffered an injury to his knee running to 1B. Hopefully it's just a strain fully healed for the upcoming game.
• The first inter-team trophy was awarded to The Band-Aids. The winner of each future matchup will take and drink from the trophy until the next matchup.
• How does Ruthie miss games and pick up where she left off collecting hits?
• Amy showed excellent discipline at the plate reaching base all 3 at-bats. Both she and Jamie had 2 walks as Amanda (T-Rex) had an off-night pitching.

Notables: Congrats to Courtney for running her half-marathon in 2:24; only once this season have The Empty Pitchers been held under 10 runs... not bad from where we've come from; to mention everyone player this game, Ted contributed his typical solid bat and nicely backed up Connie and Keith in the OF; Ted did not sing for any of ths fans;

Gone/Subs: Sarah (Connie); Courtney (Amy); Melissa (Lisa)

Oct 26th,'08 - 5 innings:
Empty Pitchers 14, Churchills 4

With the amount of dirt Jason collected between pitches, he found 4 precious rocks and a gas pipeline. Ted made the catch of the season in LC with a running shoelace scoop. The catch of the season lasted just one inning. Andrew made the same catch while slipping on a slimy patch of reclamated water.

Jason, Amy's husband and pitcher for Courtney's and Keith's Friday night team, made his Empty Pitcher debut in grand fashion. When Scott came down with non-hangover-like symptoms, Jamie called the backup pitcher on the playoff roster who offered to come even if he wouldn't pitch. Scott showed and coached but the softball gods denied him the power to play.

Jason pitched out of numerous 3-1 counts, made several nice defensive plays and adequately filled Scott's spot at the top of the lineup with 4 hits and 3 runs. But it wasn't Jason, Andrew and Ted carrying the team. Melissa perfectly worked both C and 3B for an absent Sarah and recovering Ryan. Courtney ripped shots over the IF in all her at-bats and caught the only ball hit to LF. Jessica nearly turned a double play at 2B while she, Ruthie and Jami all easily swatted shots over the infield.

Churchills led 2-1 after two innings and EP was staring at two outs in the 3rd when the rally started. Five batters scored and the next inning EP added 6 more. Churchills couldn't answer until Jamie took over at SS, but their two runs weren't enough. Jason's pitching and Andrew's catch stunted their rally and before EP could score their third run in the bottom of the 5th the game was called due to time.

The team goal of holding the opponent under 9 runs was achieved. Aside from a couple bad throws to 1B, Churchills had little charitable momentum to build on. Meanwhile, our bats were too hot to handle when balls were placed on the ground after a record 8 pop-ups in the first three innings. Even though his second popup dropped safely in a vacant RC (Churchills played with only 9), Keith noticed Jamie was dropping his back shoulder - a primary cause of popups.

Most batters didn't take the first pitch but it was hard to do when so many first pitches were good-looking strikes. Our baserunning errors continued only at 3B when we'd attempt to score with zero or one outs rather than letting the upcoming batter knock in an extra RBI. A number of basecoaches/runners have made that easy, adrenaline-induced error. We'll have it fixed by next week!

Notables: EP's winning % increases with the number of dogs in the dugout; Churchill's OF made two great throws to home plate for outs, while their pitcher delivered low, consistent strikes; Churchills officially joins the list of EP's "fun, smilin' friendlies" after two games even though our favorite catcher missed the game; Jason pitched his best innings (the 3rd and 4th) when Ryan was catching, not a pretty female.

Gone/Subs: Sarah (none); Scott (Jason)

Nov 2nd,'08 - 6 innings:
GT Bombers 11, Empty Pitchers 9

Not much of a recap here as this is written 3 months after the game with little memory of what happened. In the first game, the Band-Aids ran up the score over Plan B. The field had no more offense to share with either the Empty Pitchers or GT Bombers for the first few innings.

Empty Pitchers built a decent lead heading into the bottom inning and that's when the GT Bombers started dropping hits in every conceiveable gap. Game over. They continued the hitting in the game afterwards to beat the Band-Aids for the championship.