{"id":741,"date":"2014-07-15T23:46:26","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T03:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/?p=741"},"modified":"2014-07-16T00:01:59","modified_gmt":"2014-07-16T04:01:59","slug":"hopefully-he-hits-a-tree-and-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/15\/hopefully-he-hits-a-tree-and-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"“Hopefully He Hits A Tree And Dies”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIF We Had Sex, She Raped Me\u201d<\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It seems like it was only three weeks ago that we hit the midseason point of our season on a 6 game losing streak, with high hopes of turning the season around on the other side. Well it was indeed nineteen days ago we started the second half of our season with 5 games in 11 days, but we forgot the part where we turn things around. Our losing streak is now at 11 games, which ties the modern day winless streak set in 2001, and we have a date with 1-A & the 2015 Tier 1 Cornwall River Rats this Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Unlike other teams that only post Tweets, Facebook status\u2019, or web updates when things are going well, I (Shaun Keay), a national pizzeria chain owner, Samsung founder, Chinatown masseuse, and very part-time webmaster, am still here to break everything down during this unfortunate stretch in SweatSox history.<\/p>\n

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This story begins back on June 27, when we faced the Expos in the first game of a home & home series starting at Kinsmen, which is clearly our home field since all the SweatSox big shots live a hop, skip and a jump away. The fans in attendance were in for a treat, as it was a pitching matchup between a pair of past NCBL Pitchers of the Year, with lefty\u2019s Martin Trepanier (SweatSox) and David Barnes (Expos) taking the stage.<\/p>\n

The matchup lived up to the hype, as both pitchers COMBINED to give up 0ER and 6 hits through 7 innings of a 1-1 tie, but unfortunately for the SweatSox there was lots of time left to play an extra inning, where things just fell apart. SweatSox lose 4-2, #L7.<\/p>\n

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The winner of the 2004 A&W Kamloops International Baseball Game MVP Award is: Martin Trepanier. The Wizard threw 8 innings of 2ER ball; giving up just 4 hits (2 in the 8th) with 9 strikeouts in the loss. Honourable mention goes to Denver Hunt, who picked up his 1st hit of the season on a questionable dribbler down the 3rd base line. The winner of the anti-award Odlid is: Mark Bond, who smashed his bat after striking out in his only 2 at bats.<\/p>\n

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The Apr\u00e8s Baseball Hyjinx was\u00a0co-hosted by the Shostappa and GLE, who had triple digits on the mind (and in the cooler).\u00a0 It\u00a0took place alongside the still-closed Kanata Canada Day Fair – with\u00a0the over\/under set at 1:30am before someone went \u201cexploring\u201d. Those in attendance were also in for a treat, as the Cody Simpson of the SweatSox, Mark Dorrington, performed for the first time since his LFO \u201cSummer Girls\u201d concert in 2006.<\/p>\n

As the beer began to flow, it was only a matter of time before a ShotGunOff. But first, the rookies had to take Chris Lidstone\u2019s course on Shotguns:<\/p>\n

\"2014game14pic1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Speaking of rookies, it was finally time for The Wizard to pay his dues, in the form of a hot dog share with the Shostappa:<\/p>\n

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Those who had the over in the late night ride prop bet won, as it was at about 3:30am we caught someone walking the bridge, after climbing a ladder, after getting out of a ditch, after falling off a fence that could\u2019ve easily been walked around or through.<\/p>\n

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After a long night of Super\u2019ish Hyjinxing, it was time to go home. The SweatSox always know when we\u2019ve had a little too much, so we called a cab. But the SweatSox don\u2019t walk to the cab, the cab comes to us.<\/p>\n

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We then had an approximate 30 hours break until our next game with the Expos at the Sportsplex.<\/p>\n

LIDIOT<\/b><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It was a hot, steamy, Sunday afternoon at Hamilton Yards, as the SweatSox faced the Expos for the 2nd time in 3 days. With a skeleton roster on hand, we decided it was in our best interest to make our first midseason roster addition since adding OMV early in the 2012 season, by signing Mrs. Hyjinx 2013 Mindy Ruffo to the team. It should be noted Chris Lidstone volunteered to be the one to drop her when the time was right, which was almost right then and there when she didn\u2019t even show up to make her debut.<\/p>\n

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Since half the team was missing, we live tweeted the game so they could see just what they were missing. Josh \u201cBig White Ichiro\u201d Ramage started for the Sox, facing Corey Valois of the Expos. Our Tweets didn\u2019t get off to a very good start – it was actually 2-1 Expos after 1. Must have been the Heat.<\/p>\n

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I stole 2nd in the 2nd, then the Expos scored 3 more.<\/p>\n

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BWI retired the first two batters in the 3rd, but then gave up a triple, double, and walk before being replaced on the mound by GLE, who recorded the 3rd out 2 pitches later.<\/p>\n

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The SweatSox were retired in order in the top of the 4th, while Ross Hughes pitched the entire bottom of the inning, giving up only 3 runs!<\/p>\n

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The game ended after once again, the SweatSox were retired in order.<\/p>\n

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At least we\u00a0only lost by 10 runs that day…<\/p>\n

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The winner of the 2004 A&W Kamloops International Baseball Game MVP Award was: Ross Hughes. The Merchandise threw 1 mediocre inning while going 1\/1 at the plate \u2013 which was way more than anyone else did. The winner of the anti-award Odlid was also: Ross Hughes, who embarrassed himself, his manager, and the team by falling down on the mound after throwing a warm-up pitch.<\/p>\n

If there was one takeaway from this game, it was that Lidstone does indeed have \u201cheart\u201d. During the Hyjinx though, he was being \u201canti-social and dehydrated\u201d, so he took a dip in the cooler.<\/p>\n

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A few hours later, OMG showed up thinking the game was at 6:00pm, when it was actually at 1:00pm.<\/p>\n

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We ordered pizza during the Hyjinx, but it arrived 45 minutes after the 45-minute guarantee time, so we sent our ambassadors of goodwill to politely express our displeasure to the delivery guy.<\/p>\n

\"2014game15pic1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While he didn\u2019t pitch his best, Josh Ramage was glowing with pride during the Hyjinx for his 3rd inning stolen base; which for the record was on the back end of a double steal. Nobody loves watching a perfectly executed double steal more than Denver Hunt, so we asked the Shostappa which he enjoyed watching more, the double steal or kids in a park? I think his kid in the park narrowly won out. This all led to a heated debate about who had more career stolen bases: Josh, or Ross. We crunched the numbers on some of the all-time worst:<\/p>\n

\"2014game14sb\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As the SweatSox made their way to East Sides to \u201cdine\u201d, Mark Stinson took a moment to join Team Pop. The Fisherman (Sprite) joins Armando Navarro (Ginger Ale) and Cory (Pepsi\/Coke) in this most exclusive of clubs. Not pictured here is his phone case, which we\u2019ve learned was purchased by his fish \u201coffline\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Next up for the SweatSox was 2 days of rest to prepare for the 2nd place Braves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI Forgot To Tell You, Denver Hates Salsa\u201d<\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Only July 2nd, the SweatSox faced the Braves at Southgate, with high winds, thunderstorms, and probably tornados all in the forecast. After the last Hyjinx, GLE finally caved and agreed to start our next game, but when we saw the lineup, John Groves was listed as the starter. We couldn\u2019t understand why Cory bailed yet again. Everyone wanted him to pitch, we begged him, the team called his parents pleading, telling them that it was a sin for him to waste his god given talent. But Cory answered us in the same way he always answers us: \u201cI choose not to pitch\u201d.<\/p>\n

We lost 12-1.<\/p>\n

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The winner of the 2004 A&W Kamloops International Baseball Game MVP Award is: Kent Johnston. The Director had the only extra base hit for the SweatSox, a ground rule double, which at least one member of the KJ family believes may have been a HR. Blanka also hit into a 5-2-3 double play with the bases loaded and nobody out in the 2nd, but we don\u2019t need to remind people about that. Honourable mention to Chris Lidstone, who threw a scoreless 5th inning in his first ever appearance on the mound thanks in part to some slow footed Braves who wanted to speed the game up just a bit.<\/p>\n

The winner of the anti-award Odlid was: Denver Hunt. The Shostappa earned the Odlid for throwing just 1 warm-up before declaring he was good to go. He was not good to go.<\/p>\n

Normally, the Apr\u00e8s Baseball Hyjinx follows a traditional parking lot-to-bar format. We decided to mix things up after the Braves game and go with a #reversehyjinx, starting at the bar then returning to the field afterwards. It didn\u2019t seem like a best of ideas when we got the Royal Oak and it was \u201cChill Your Own Beer\u201d day.<\/p>\n

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We went back to the field as planned to scout some of our 2015 Tier 3 opponents, and spent a bit of time with the Brave who shall go nameless that won the 2012 Rodney Walsh Sportsmanship and Ability Award over me (Shaun Keay). In a true gesture of sportsmanship, we shared our beer (but not the pizza).<\/p>\n

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Next up was our second matchup of the season with the Winchester Sox, in our first game at the Stadium in nearly two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo Not Open, Alarm Will Sound\u201d<\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It was a Winchester game in Ottawa at the Stadium, so all signs pointed to a Josh Ramage Mr. Winchester start, but his late arrival forced both GLE and THC into the bullpen to see who was more ready to go. It was a close call, but the ball was given to Wally.<\/p>\n

It was yet another rocky start for the SweatSox, who gave up a 2 runs in the first inning. It was the 6th straight game where we gave up at least 1 run in the opening frame. Some teams have closers; we really need an \u201copener\u201d.<\/p>\n

When the SweatSox picked up the bats in the bottom of the 7th, we were down 4-0. The question wasn\u2019t whether we could score 4 runs to tie or 5 runs to win; it was whether we could score 1. Marc Lett entered the game as a pinch hitter and led the inning off with a single, and would later score on a Kent Johnston fielder\u2019s choice to give us a total of 8 runs in our last 9 games.<\/p>\n

\"2014game16tweet1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The winner of the 2004 A&W Kamloops International Baseball Game MVP Award was: Cory Bond. GLE got on base a team high twice after hitting the first SweatSox triple in over 2 years, then getting HBP. He was also the diving 3 in 3-4-1 putout. Honourable mention goes to Wally for his complete game performance.<\/p>\n

The winner of the anti-award Odlid was: Mark Bond. Just because.<\/p>\n

\u201cWolverine\u201d<\/strong><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Our final game before the Brewer Tournament break came a day later on July 7th against the River Hawks, who have given up a total of 0\u00a0runs against us in 2 previous match-ups this season. As usual, we gave up a few runs in the 1st inning, and just to show we\u2019re equal opportunity run providers, we gave up runs in the 2nd and 3rd innings too. Down 4-0, we knew it would take something special to score our first ever run against the River Hawks, and it just so happens an HBP-SB-SB-balk combination was the answer to the problem. The next hurdle was: \u201cCould we score 2 runs?\u201d In the 7th, Armando Navarro entered the game as a pinch runner for Denver Hunt(?!?) and would later score on a Kent Johnston groundout. Next, we wondered if we could score 3 runs though? Nope. SweatSox lose 4-2.<\/p>\n

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The winner of the 2004 A&W Kamloops International Baseball Game MVP Award was: Eric White. Wally had 1 of the 2 SweatSox hits, popped the cherry on the River Hawks shutout streak against us, and had an incredible diving catch in CF, doubling off the runner who thought it was a certain gapper.<\/p>\n

The winner of the anti-award Odlid was: Mark Bond. Just because.<\/p>\n

Martin “The Terminator” Trepanier is known for many things in the NCBL, one of which is literally terminating the\u00a0teams he plays for.\u00a0 Once upon a time you may remember having playing the Dragons, Diamondbacks, Cyclones, Pirates, and Gryphons (and probably more we’ve never even heard of).\u00a0 Guess who played on those teams before their demise?\u00a0 The SweatSox have hit many rock bottoms this year: multiple injuries, losing 11 in a row, scoring 10 runs in 10 games, but what happened after the River Hawks game\u00a0was in itself almost fold-worthy. You see, earlier in the year, there was a 5-way beer day trade, that just happened to include Trep, with this game being one of the days. The problem was, nobody knew who had today until it was too late.\u00a0 Damn you Mr. Wizard! \u00a0CODE: ORANGE<\/strong><\/span>!\u00a0 Where are the backups?\u00a0 Where are the backups to the backups?\u00a0 Could we survive this lowest of lows?<\/p>\n

We had no choice but to make our way directly to the bar, where thankfully there was a sale on pitchers and wings. There was also a \u201cWalkoff Special\u201d, where anyone who has hit a walkoff grand slam to win a championship gets to eat and drink for free. That\u2019s good news for Marc Lett! The waitress was impressed, having only heard of 2 other individuals that cashed in on this promotion. She had a tough time remembering their names, but I think she said something like Patrick Lion and Andy Hazerd.<\/p>\n

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That catches us up on our regular season schedule, stay tuned for our #brewtourn15 recap.<\/p>\n

#LOSTALLGAMES<\/strong><\/span>
\n#WONTHEHYJINX<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cIF We Had Sex, She Raped Me\u201d It seems like it was only three weeks ago that we hit the midseason point of our season on a 6 game losing streak, with high hopes of turning the season around on the other side. Well it was indeed nineteen days ago we started the second half…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hyjinx","category-recap","category-statistics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/2014game14pic2.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p41pWP-bX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":784,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions\/784"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sweatsoxbaseball.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}