Traitors Whup Nomads, Clinch Tourney's Top Seed

There's your highlight reel.

The Traitors beat the Nomads on Friday, 15-7. After the top of the 3rd inning, the score was Nomads 6, Traitors 5. But the rest of the game was all Orange, all the time.

The win, when combined with their defeat of the Sluggos later in the day, gives the undefeated Traitors (8-0) the Long Division title and the #1 seed for the tournament. The Nomads are a half-game up on the Eagles for the lead in the Division of Labor, with the top team there taking the #2 seed.

I had planned on posting a whole mess of pics and video highlights from this game, but deleting rude messages took too much time. I will not reward those who cannot win with class, and I will not allow anyone to destroy with negativity and divisiveness what we've worked hard to build. Talk to your captain, Traitors.

End of post.

UPDATE:

From Kevin Rowlson, Captain of the Traitors:

I would like to take this time to publicly apologize to my teammates and everyone else for the comments I made. (Mude has already deleted the post.)

Sometimes I act without thinking of what the consequences will be as long as it makes me feel better at the time, and I am sorry for that. I sincerely hope that if anyone who saw the post and took any offence to it can find it in their hearts to forgive me.

SO: We'll have SlogsCenter highlights and some of Melissa Manning's excellent game pics later today some day soon. -Mude

Don’t mess with the bull, young lady. You’ll get the jalapenos.

This wasn’t the game anyone thought it would be. After an inning-and-a-half, the score was tied at one. One Traitor was then heard saying, “We’ve got ourselves a game.” But another Traitor dug deep into the Rules of Softball and discovered that the object of the game is to score runs while preventing the other team from doing the same.

Close game early: Ali Lejlic nails Ash Samawi at home.

And so an eight-run 2nd inning, followed by six in the 3rd (with nothing much in between for the Sluggos) was pretty much all it took for the Traitors to snap up an unexpectedly easy win. With it, the Gatorades took early control of the Long Division.

Swing-and-a-miss: Orrince's hat is cool.

Oh yeah, the call. Prior to the game, the ump (Note: ‘twas I) gave pre-game instructions to the pitchers and captains of both teams. He told them to yell and scream all they wanted, to ridicule the ump as they saw fit, and not to hold back their emotions. The only line in the sand was to not interfere with calls made by the umps. Just don’t make calls, not from the dugout, defense or base coaches. Those calls will be overturned and will go against you for interfering.

Wouldn’t you know, in the bottom of the 4th, your Uncle Mude found himself leaning against Dante’s Furnace. Brooke Sartawi (Note: my wife) failed to get back to first in time and was doubled up on a fly ball. That should have been the third out of the inning, but someone (I’m not saying it was Orrince) yelled “Out!” from the Sluggos dugout before the base ump could make the call.

Not even close: Brooke Sartawi would have been out at first.

Why me? Anyway, the inning went on. (But it would’ve been nice had the Traitors been good sports and just given up an easy out.) The three runs the Traitors put up in that inning had no effect on the game, as the Sluggos themselves stated. Later that night, however, I could hear a bunch of guys at a poker game insulting every member of my family, in vivid detail, from clear across town. Guys, leave my maternal great-great-uncle out of this, eh? The only thing he associated with “soft ball” was labaneh.

After the game, but before the Mude Haters Poker Club convened, I witnessed an event that changed me forever. Sluggo Orrince fed his baby daughter a jalapeno. She cried and cried. He laughed and laughed. Why would he do this to his own adorable baby? Because he can. I will never cross him again.

On a lighter note, here's Kevin Rowlson, taking his punishment like a, um...man...sorta:

Of all these friends and lovers: Sluggos @ Traitors

Noon (88F/31C)
Umps: Mude & Gary

When the Sluggos look at the Traitors’ Gatorade-inspired uniforms, all they see are the miniscule green details. If you’re new to the league, here’s a history lesson:

In the Winter 2007 Amman Softball League season, there were the Green Monsters and then there were all the other teams. The Monsters steamrolled through the regular season and, after a first-round playoff win against the Beats, into the championship game. Through those nine games, the juggernaut never trailed after a full inning of play. Scores like 29-4, 28-3, 43-5 were as prevalent as the odor of diesel in Abdali.

All smiles before the championship game.

But then came the Sluggos. As the #3 seed, they quickly dispatched the Slackers to set up a showdown with the Monsters, wanting desperately to avenge their two regular-season losses. It looked like the same old story when the undefeated Greenies took a 10-2 lead into the 5th inning. Six more outs, and they could celebrate what had by then seemed to be their birthright.

The Sluggos were having none of it. In the top of the 5th, they scored eight runs, most of them with two outs, fueled by Lori Doutrich and Chris Hattayer’s clutch hitting. Suddenly, the game was tied. The Monsters’ dugout was tense, not having experienced such a feeling since the infamous Miracle On Sand (Part I) game the previous summer. Sluggos co-captain Orrince called it the “Pucker Factor.”

“Let’s put up ten runs and put these guys to bed,” urged someone (or was it everyone?) from the Green Monsters, referring to their turn to bat in the bottom of the 5th. The Sluggos, however, had other ideas, holding ASL’s highest-ever scoring team to just three more runs, and an improbably few 13 through five innings. On average, that total is what the Monsters had scored every five outs. The Sluggos' stifling of their rivals was due to pitcher Bill Steinkampf’s uncanny placement and the prescient positioning of his solid defense.

The Sluggos scored two runs in the top of the 6th and final inning. There was one out, and co-captain YAM stood at third, representing the tying run. Monsters’ pitcher Kevin Rowlson looked to his dugout, holding up one finger, an inquisitive look on his strained face. He wanted to know if they still had the lead, and if it was one run. He looked confident as he delivered the next pitch. Deep fly ball, caught, the tag-up, the throw—not in time. Safe at home! The game was tied.

13-13, bottom of the 6th inning, with the Monsters batting from the top of their order. Kevin Vienneau, normally an on-base machine, popped out to shallow center. The Sluggos were bursting with confidence, and rightly so. Brooke Sartawi (disclosure: my wife; I was the co-captain/coach) patiently drew the one-out walk. Mike Moore, a home run machine, worked a full count and smacked the next pitch to left-center for a double. Brooke, representing the winning run, was held up at third. There was no need to panic, because Bruce Neese, arguably the greatest hitter in ASL’s brief history, was due up.

This was a no-brainer. With first base open, Bill intentionally walked Bruce to set up the double-play—and extra innings. Jeff Coupe, who wore “8” on the back of his jersey to honor Carl Yastrzemski, walked to the plate. Was Yaz’s 1967 Triple Crown season going through his head as he dug in for his turn to be the hero?

Bill’s 2-1 pitch was well short of the plate, but Jeff did not want to even come close to forcing in the championship-winning run on a walk. That’s not how sluggers do it. That’s not how Yaz would have done it, at least not in a baseball fan’s boyhood dreams. So Jeff lunged forward and down for the ball, hitting it off the end of his bat, over the pitcher’s head, out of reach of the second-baseman and towards YAM, in short center.

It was too high for her to reach, too. The ball landed in shallow center field. Brooke jogged home and kept her foot on the plate for an extra second or two, feeling bittersweet that it was all over. Ballgame. Championship. Season.

Kevin, Jeff, Brooke and Eiad Zoubi are former Green Monsters who now wear the white and orange of the Traitors. You may barely notice the green on those jerseys, but the Sluggos know it’s there.

Jeff Coupe and Bruce Neese, with the trophy.

I’ve got blisters on my fingers: Nomads @ Bling Bling

1:30 PM (90F/32C)
Umps: Traitors

Now that my calluses have disintegrated into my keyboard, we get to the final game of the day. Nomads’ captain Omar Massarweh remained strong and silent about the game, while Neal Zureikat was cordial and sportsmanlike on behalf of his Bling.

Yawn.

At least we have the unveiling of Schwa & Ziggy's picks, exclusively for this game:


Ziggy's Pick: Bling Bling

"Ooh, Bling. I can has shiny stuff, pls?"






Schwa's Pick: Nomads

"They're all red. Are they meat? Can I snack on them?"





Aside from the excitement of our cats' picks, there was some breakin' news involving the Nomads that needed fixin' right quick.

When Traitor Kevin Rowlson, the George Steinbrenner of Amman Softball League, expressed interest in acquiring the services of his former teammate, perennial basher and current Nomad Shukri Saleh, the League had to get to the bottom of these nefarious trickerations.

“I shot that birdie down,” replied Omar Massarweh within seconds. “My #10 is staying put.”

Kevin was too busy backpedaling to the shores of his Evil Emirate to comment. He was last seen trying to steal insulin from diabetics so he could trade it in for this darling orange bracelet that would just totally go with his outfit—er, uniform.

NEWS FLASH: We hear from reliable sources that Kevin is asking female members of his team how long they think it would take for his hair to grow out enough for him to wear a scrunchy on the field. UPDATE: We have been able to confirm that the scrunchy in question is more of a “bow thingy,” and that it is, in fact, orange:

And that’s what you get for trying to steal other teams’ players.

On a happy note for the Bling-It-Ons (Oh, it’s been bloughten), they have been bailed out of umpiring duties. Replied an ecstatic Neal, “[We] appreciate not having to ump. We took a lot of heat last game, literally.”

I hadn’t noticed, but then again, I never do.

Umm…Somebody wanna go get that ball?

In his first game back with the Beats, Javier “Gunny” Diaz went Quadrangular. And it wasn’t one of those cheap, single-and-advance-to-home-on-errors home runs, either.

No, it was a Roy Hobbsian light-buster that forced ASL to tear away a bunch of old ladies from their sewing machines. They kindly laid out all of their tape measures end to end to give us a distance of 330 feet. That’s the longest in ASL history.

Ball Go Far

Eiad Zoubi, outfielder for the Traitors, didn’t even bother putting out his cigarette* to give chase.

Your footnote: Kevin “Orange Shoelius” Rowlson, victimized pitcher. At least his team won the game. Traitors 21, Beats 12.

* With Eiad as our inspiration, we proudly announce Argilahs in the Outfield Café. If you’d like some coffee, tea or ice-cold beverage to go with your smokes while playing the outfield, just give us a holler. And of course, argilahs come in a variety of flavors. Note: An argilah is a shishah, or hubbly bubbly, or (tobacco) hookah.