Both I and Lefty Malo Elbo play in an S.F. Bay Area men's baseball league, which provides us with a limitless font of funny stories (the center fielder who dropped trou and pissed against the outfield fence during a pitching break; the woman who likes to sunbathe topless in her backyard beyond the right field wall at Terra Linda High School) and nagging injuries (don't get me started).
Yesterday the league ended its regular season; my team, the 28-and-over White Sox, beat the Angels to advance to the playoffs. The final was something like 15 - 8, but I lost track after the 6th inning when the Angels, already known around the league for their, shall we say, lack of refinement, pulled a ridiculous number akin to Derek Bell's infamous "Operation Shutdown" tantrum.
We were down 6 - 2 (thanks in large part to my ineffective pitching) going into the 5th, with the Angels' top pitcher on the mound. The same guy K'ed us 13 times though 8 or 9 innings about a month ago; he can be nasty. But thanks to a couple walks, an error or two and a big triple, we tied it at 6. The next inning: more of the same, and after his shortstop booted an easy grounder, the pitcher did something I've never seen before: he intentionally threw the ball over his catcher's head to the backstop. I was the 3rd base coach at the time, and I thought he was trying to intentionally walk our hitter with a soft lob. Our team captain, who was on 3rd base, said he thought the guy's shoulder was fried. He lobbed another one, this time catchable but high and outside, then tried to throw a regular fastball for a strike. He ended up walking our hitter, plus a few more. Then he walked off the mound. We were up at that point by 5 or 6. In our league, that's not a huge deficit. But the game was effectively over for the Angels.
In their final at bat, down by 6 or 7, the first two batters didn't even run to first after hitting infield grounders. The ump, to show his disgust at the disrespect of the batter not running out his grounder, gave an emphatic Out! call when the throw arrived at first base; the batter from the dugout delivered a few choice Fuck Yous and other bon mots and got the heave-ho, the first ejection I've ever seen in our league.
It was a total meltdown, the Chernobyl of amateur baseball, even worse than our game a couple months ago when, as our pitcher was taking his warmup tosses in the top of the 1st, one of the Rockies sucker-punched his teammate in the on-deck circle.
But that's another story.
