First place was far too temporary

 The day opened with another stellar day of weather. The high actually reached 91 and I reflected on things back at my home where my three dachshunds are indoors and it's snowy and in the mid 20s. But I didn't think about it for long, I had baseball to get too.

When I arrived at the complex the playoff seedings were not completed. There was still one game which needed to be completed before those positions were finalized. Once that was done we found that we would be taking on the #8 seeded team at 2:00. We actually played a "scrimmage" game in the morning which had no bearing on the standings. We won that 2-1 with the coaches actually doing the pitching for their respective teams. I went 0-for-2 against Eric Hillman during the game. But the real game was set for just after lunch was completed.

I got a large number of compliments from players who enjoyed my suit last evening at the Casino Night event. The suit, I explained, is 217% polyester non-blend. If left out in clear daylight it will either melt or explode within 32 minutes of exposure. But it is the result of what happened on Amazon.com during the height of cover-19 at 2am central time. 

All-Time Crashers were our opponents. They are coached by Lenny "All-Time" Harris and Rodney "Crash" McCray.  Lenny got his nickname from being known as the most prolific pinch hitter in the history of the game. So he's the "all time" leader in pinch hits. Rodney got his nickname from an event which took place in May 1991. In Portland, Oregon he chased after a fly ball. He initially caught the ball but immediately turned to run right through a plywood fence which caused him to drop the ball. The play is legendary and can be seen on many sports video outlets and on YouTube. 

Being the #1 seed has never always been a precursor for a MFC team to win a championship. My 2014 championship team was the top seed and we ended up going 7-0 for the week. But there was a week a few years ago where the four teams in the finals were between seeds 4 and 8. So there's not formula for success. 

We started off by giving up two runs to our opponents in the first inning. We scored four runs in the bottom of the frame so we felt that no matter how many runs we might give up, we'd have the firepower to outscore the other team. We were mistaken. Because that was as close as we got for the remainder of the contest. There were some impressive hits made in the game. Our own Seth Carini continued his ability to crush a baseball a couple of times. But two of the most impressive drives were by my friend and fellow University of Tampa alum Ross Bruno who hit a ground rule double over the left field wall. But just one batter before that Jeff Ahn, another great guy, "scalded" a pitch to left. The ball struck squarely on the top of the wall and came back to the left fielder who returned the ball to the infield. It immediately reminded me of Dave Augustine of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1973. Augustine hit a drive at Shea Stadium which struck the top of the fence in the identical manner. But that moment was followed by a flawless relay from Cleon Jones to Wayne Garrett to Ron Hodges which snuffed out the final out of the inning in a critical game in the pennant race that year. I actually said that the event reminded me of Dave Augustine. There may have been 1-2 other people who might know who that is. 

So with any chance of winning a championship now behind us, we looked forward to tonight's Kangaroo Court event. I was the second person who had to stand before judges Wine and Flynn. I told the court that I had indeed forgotten my cleats at the clubhouse when we traveled to Indian River State College to play on Monday morning. The pictures of the shoe switch were shown to the audience and I handed over $20 for my faux pas.  

The reminder of the Court proceedings were laugh-filled, especially when camper and full-time stand-up comedian Jim Breuer went up to the judges. He did about 15 minutes of time on the coaches and it was phenomenal. 

Our charity once again for this event was Hope for the Warriors. They had one of their people who had benefitted from our donations speak to the group. Former Met manager Terry Collins also stopped by to say hello. We found out tonight that Terry lost his granddaughter at age 13 just two weeks ago. We gave Terry a standing ovation and then a bunch of us donated to the Warriors in her name.

Tomorrow for Rusch Hour brings two games which will close out the week. We hope to end on a high note. Because this is a really good team and we just set ourselves in the collective foot today. 

Today's second game reminds me of a quote from the late great Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn who said, "We know we are better than this, but we can't prove it."


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