New Lines! 2 Week's Worth!

I again apologize for the lack of posts.  On vacay with the fam-dam for a while, so the entries have been nonexistent.  Here we go:

Jesse Litsch Tells It Like It Is

Nothing much happened on the week before I took a hiatus.  Dix N Chix lost again miserably.  Awful start, clawed back late.  Way late.  By the time we were ready to play, the opposition were already packing their equipment, enjoying their easy win.

The heat was kind of an issue with all of us.  We were kind of listless when we took the field.  It was tough to care when one:  you team is losing, very badly.  and two:  when it's hot as fuck, and all you're doing when you move, is breathe fire in and out of your lungs.  Anyway, it was a bad scene.

I went 0 for 3 at the plate.  All horrible, lazy hits.

The umpire at the game looked exactly like Jesse Litsch, that fat dickskin that used to pitch for the Blue Jays.  After the game, he mentioned to me that I was reaching for every ball that I swung at.  Everything out of the strike zone.  I thought about it long after the game was over, and then I said, 'fuck that fat piece of shit Jesse-Litsch-lookalike!  I'll swing at whatever I want!'

I think maybe next time though, I'll swing the bat with my eyes open.

The Week After:  The Tie!

This week's edition of Dix N Chix were a completely different team.  We were loud, confident, and had flashes of being fundamentally sound.  I found myself growling from the outfield, and I could feel the opposition, unfortunately named The Poisonous BeeYotches, shitting their pants a little.

I hit a leadoff home run to start the game, the first of my three hits of the game.  A couple of things led to a change in my productivity at the plate:  first, during my vacation time with the family, I snuck out to the batting cages and refined a couple of things to transition me into a pull hitter.  I came into the game confident of pulling anything, including my nuts.  Second, our regular home run hitter brought in a new bat to break in.  I love using new things.  His bat had an odd weight distribution to it, where it was heavy on the end, and was hard to get the body used to it.  The bat was tailored for my swing, which was slow and lumbering.

I ripped the ball down the third base line for a triple on my second at bat.  I am now a pull hitter.

The team were showing improvement on the defensive side.  We were communicating well, defending, and even backing each other up, which I never thought would catch on.  We were pretty good on the basepaths as well, showing a lot of hustle, making the BeeYotches look like the real deal, making error after error on their throws.

My last at bat.  Bottom of the last inning, the 7th or whatever it was.  Two out.  Game tied.  Runners in scoring position.  I loved that situation.  Put me in that place every time and I'll always come through.  Not this time, though, as I hit into a fielder's choice, and I'm growling and freaking out, wanting to do it over again.

We are getting close.

Last Night's Line: No-Win Situation

Yup.  Dix N Chix are still looking for that elusive win.  Of course, I'd love for my baseball games to be as lush and crisp and green as the picture above, but alas, it's never like the pictures.  In reality, we play on a handful of fields that are poorly maintained, at best.  At least the field last night had benches and bleachers to plop our asses down on.

The picture above is how I envision myself when I'm out there, in a romantical(it's my new word) way.  Hell, we both possess the same number.

Again, there is this thing with this team.  We have the potential to be good.  But we don't tend to wake up until the late innings, when the game's already out of hand.  I think last night's score was a very competitive 14-7, but that alone is deceiving.  At one point, we were on the losing side of 7-0, then compounded to a 14-2, before we realized that we were in a ballgame.

I went 2 for 3, with some cheap singles.  The only ball I hit with authority was a lazy fly to left.  The swing is under construction.  I took some hacks at the fastball cages last week and made some adjustments.  The big home run hitter on our team referred to a dude on Youtube, maybe 5 foot-fuck-all, hitting home runs with consistency.

"All about swing mechanics," he says.

Before the change in my swing, I was asking him what he was doing while he was in the batters box before clobbering the ball.

"I'm thinking about everything.  My wrists, my grip, where my feet are, where the bat head is placed.  Everything."

And you wonder why my swing got messed up?  Talking to team's slugger butt fucked everything.

The fielding was relatively okay.  We held the opposition a few times.  We played some fundamentally sound baseball for a few innings, but the errors through the overthrows, getting burned in the outfield, and just good hitting from the opposition did us in.

I made one out on a liner to shallow left.  I also took an awful route to a grounder to the outfield, and the ball squibbed through my legs.  The picture below illustrates.

Next week we'll be better.  Unless we're not.

NOTES:
- If anyone knows that YouTube guy's name, please scroll to the right and email me.  God knows I could use the direction.
- Just finished The Art Of Fielding by Chad Harbach.  Got through it in a day and a half.  As I keep telling my wife, "I don't read anything except baseball books and vintage porn."  I don't count gay erotica as porn though, so sorry Chad Harbach, you only met 1 out of my 2 requirements.  Good try.