Game Notes
See subject line above. I have nothing to add.

Etc.
Looks like Rocco gets the Rusty Razor for 2000. I suspect we'll need a few razors to complete the neck-down shaving on opening day of the new millenium (which begins 2001)....Matt S. jacked his knee pretty bad last night. As a knee injury recoveree my self, I really feel for him. I'll try to find out how he's doing and post his status on this page.....Thanks LaRue for running the team this season. As usual you did a great job. On behalf of the entire team I apologize for last night's debacle. You deserved a better showing than that.....This site was going to go black for a few days, but I changed my mind. I'm trying to push last night out of my mind, and the blackness would not help.....I'll be winterizing the site within a week or two. Typically in the winter I still post updates to this page 2 or 3 times per month, so check in from time to time. We'll have Winter Meetings updates, personnel news, and whatever else I feel like posting. And I'll probably make a number of improvements to the site.....Ok, it's time for my 4th shower since last night's games; anyone else having trouble getting rid of the stench?

6:30 diamond 4, vs. Q-3 Allmand. Then a 9:00PM position round game. LaRue was told we have a game in hand over everyone else, so that's why we have an hour off between games. If we lose the 2nd game, and Q-3 beats us and their 2nd game opponents, we will have a 3rd championship game. At least that's the way it kind of sounded to me when I talked to LaRue. We figured if we beat Q-3 in the first game, we'd probably lock up first place. But you never know what Softball City has in mind until you get there.

Game Notes
The first game against Ruff Riders was a forfeit win for us. They only had 7 players show up. The 2nd game vs. All-Stars was strange. They claimed they had only lost one game to that point, so we were looking at this game as being real important. Anyway, I Struck out 6 batters in 5 innings, and held them to 4 hits in a 17-2 victory. Nearly everyone from their team during the hand shake was congratuating me, which was nice. The 3rd Game vs. Highpointe was a tight 15-12 victory. We trailed in the 5th inning by a few runs, got them all back plus a few, then held them to only one run in the remaining 2 innings.

We got many noteworthly performances last night. Mark W. was strong at 1st, and walk 4 times in the Hightpointe game. Gerry N. got a number of clutch hits with 2 outs. Rocco went 7 for 8. LaRue went 5 for 5, and made an amazing over the shoulder catch in the 2nd game. I had one of my best outings of the year pitching.

League Notes
We're 8-1 with one week left to play. Nobody knows for sure what the standings are, but we're pretty sure we're in first place alone. I figure that puts our magic number at 1....possibly 2, depending on the schedule for next week. We won't have the specifics on next week until Sunday evening (we do know it will probably be a 6:30 start). I'll post the details here as soon as I get them, and email everyone as well.

Etc.
Next week should decide whether Malloy or Rocco get the neck-down shaving next year, since Paul is no longer on the team (sucks to be him this half :)).

LaRue talked to some flunky at Softball City, and he couldn't tell him if the rained out games would be rescheduled. But he did tell him that we weren't going to make them up this week. My guess, and it's only a guess, would be we'll play 2 or three games on the final night of the 19th.

So far it looks like we'll be okay personnel-wise for this week, though Mark S. will not be there.

Let's just hope they don't schedule the makeups for next week....If there are in fact any makeups to to played. In any event, I'll post whatever scheduling updates here as soon as I get it, and I'll send out a team email.

Enjoy your evening off. At least we get to watch the Redwings season opener.

Game Notes
We were lucky to win one game last night. Our fielding was somewhat poor, our throws were quite poor. Our hitting was lackluster. It took two two-out home runs in the top of the 7th to beat the Sluggers, who recruited about 4 illegal subs. The game against Q-3 Allmand went a bit worse than that. The Sluggers hit a swinging bunt that rolled a foot foul and sat still one foot in foul territory....and the umpire, staring at the ball sitting motionless in foul territory, called it fair. Amazing. Malloy got called out for yelling while running the bases....only it was the other team yelling. Then he got kicked out for complaining. That's the kind of night it was.

Etc. (Update 3:20PM)
At some point this weekend I'll be installing an updated Java Scoresheet applet and related CGI scripts. This will bring a few things down for a while. I expect the downtime to be under an hour......The team roster has been updated with info from the sheet passed around last night.....LaRue's homerun's were dedicated to Jenn. I hope that's with a "J", I don't remember....Gerry's prediction for Sunday Lions20, Vikings 14.

Game Notes
Neither game featured particularly stellar hitting performances, but we did manage to get comfortable leads in each game. Sticks were never much of a threat. Q-3 Allmand had a number of decent hitters, but they really didn't do much. Their infield was pretty solid. But our infield once again had a real good night. We were very tight up the middle, thanks to the play of Eric B. and Dale G.. Eric got tossed in the 7th inning of the Q-3 game for giving the ump what he deserved for a lousy call at 3rd.

League Notes
The schedule has been released and is now online. Notice that there's a team named BGW that we have not been scheduled to play. Also notice the triple header on October 12th.

Personnel Notes
We hear that Jeff G. tore up his rotator cuff once again and he's going to need surgery. That sucks hard.....We had 13 guys show up last night. We're going to need a turnout like that when Oct. 12th rolls around.

Etc.
The new uniforms have been put off until next year. LaRue says we will have two sponsors footing the bill; Creative Impressions and Harry and Freddy......Since we have seen no cash flow as yet, LaRue is collecting 8 bucks per player to cover umpire fees. Pay him next game if you haven't already.

Our games have been cancelled, or at least postponed until next week, due to rain. Next week's games will be 6:30 and 7:45 on diamonds 9 and 4.

Game Notes (Updated 12:53PM)
The hitting for Mike Mcleod was not very impressive. Not that our hitting was much better, but then again it didn't need to be. We got a notable fielding performance by Eric at short stop who looked like a vacume cleaner for most of the night. The 2nd game vs. High Pointe started a good 40 minutes late, but ended early thanks to their pitcher physically threatening the umpire, who called the game in the bottom of the 4th. High Pointe's fielding was very poor and we would have beat them had the game gone the distance.

12:53PM Update: The scoresheets have been entered. Later this weekend I'll add a hotlink to the current season stats page. For now, use the main menu to the left to construct it yourself.

Personnel Notes
Wow, we had 14 players turn out last night. Paul's replacement Don P. tried out and made the team by approximately the 3rd inning......Former PMP era player Pat B. also made his comeback last night. We finally have a left handed batter back in the order :).....Prestley Y. signed the roster but did not play......There was no sign of Jeff G. last night.

Etc.
No sign of Harry, Freddy, or our uniforms yet. No one's shown us any sponsorship money as yet either. LaRue served notice that we'll soon be asked to chip in funds if we don't see some cash flow in a week or two.....Looks like the Sluggers are in our league again, while Twilight Zone has moved up a league......We didn't see any team out there last night who appeared to be in our league that we couldn't beat.....FYI Dally In the Alley is this weekend. I'm probably going during the day (Saturday) this year, but that could change if the Mrs. decides she's not going.

This team email went out this evening:
Game times for Thursday September 7th are 9:00PM and 10:15PM, both on diamond 8.

Some of you have no doubt noticed that the team stats have been changing a little bit. I've started entering the scoresheets using the java applet, and what I've warned might happen has indeed begun to happen. I'm entering them slowly and carefully to avoid errors, and I think when I'm done the stats will be more accurate than before. Again the "gotchas" are when I get to an ambiguous and/or illegible at-bat on the original. The first time I entered them was of course the day after the game, when the mystery at-bat was way more likely to be fresh in my mind. Weeks later, things get a little blury.

So after I'm done entering these, I'm going to recheck them one by one again just to make sure. Then I'll pass the scoresheets off to anyone who wants to do the same should they suspect I've made a mistake. I figure I'll probably be done sometime this weekend.

Malloy, I got your message offering help. And I accepted by email but didn't hear back from you. I think we may indeed have some email transport problems between us. But as it turns out I can enter these sheets pretty quickly myself, though I would like to turn them over to you to double check and correct my work when I'm done, if that's cool with you.

Except for a few finishing touches here and there, the java-based scoresheet applet is ready. You will find it on the left-hand side main site index as "Scoresheets". I've only entered 4 scoresheets and I'm not sure if I'll go back and enter more. So for now, when you select a scoresheet using that link you will get the old version if the game date is before August 10th, and the new version for August 10th or newer.

I've put a number of security features in, so hopefully no unauthorized persons will be able to revise them. I will be making a number of cosmetic changes over the coming months. This winter I'll probably write some new reports as well.

Please note that if I do find time to enter the rest of our scoresheets from the Spring half, you may see your stats change slightly. This is mainly due to my interpretation of the original scoresheet. They can be hard to read sometimes. If anyone wants to volunteer to help enter some of these sheets, you know how to reach me.

Game Notes
As we found out after our games, the first game loss against Team Drunk probably cost us 2nd place. Both teams displayed lame hitting and good fielding. 4 runs scored was the worst hitting performance all season for us. In the Mc-Parkers game, we found our hitting game, and had a comfortable 16-6 lead going into the 5th inning. But MC-Parkers rallied for 5 runs, was gifted a horrible call by the umpire, good for another 3 runs, and thus pulled to within 2 runs. They got one more run in the 6th making the score 16-15, but we shut them down in a close finish. We scored 16 runs in the first 4 innings , and no runs in our remaining 2 at bats.

League Notes
We finished the Spring season in 3rd place in both divisions. Twilight Zone took first in at least one of the divisions, and MIC finished 2nd in one of the leagues. MIC might have taken first in one of the divisions, I'm not sure. Also MC-Parkers finished with some hardware, maybe even first place. Their only losses were to us. I believe we beat them in 3 out of 4 meetings this year.

Fall Season Update
We are signed up for fall season at Softball City. Just too many bad things were heard about Rotunda for us to chance playing out there this season......Freddy and Harry have officially commited to sponsoring us, complete with head-to-ankle uniforms. I believe the new team colors will be blue and yellow. They are undecided on what the team name will be, but we know it will not be a company name.

Etc.
I corrected an error on last week's stats for Malloy, but after entering last night's stats it looks like Paul took the hitting title for the first season. Too bad he's leaving the team effective immediately. On the bright side, he will likely be replaced by returning 1996 season player Pat B.. And we should have Jeff G. back for Fall as well.....It's time to get used to friday site updates being completed at a much later time from now on, since I start my new assignment on monday. I'll try and do it on my lunch hour......Anyone interested in attending the Dream Cruise this weekend, let me know. I live 3 blocks off Woodward, and a couple of players are planning on coming by......Check back later today for more updates if I think of something I forgot.

According to this Detroit News Story, the race track at the Fair Grounds has been cancelled. And the softball players all rejoiced. I added that last part

I've passed another couple of major milestones towards the completion of my Java Scoresheet. The applet now retrieves data from and updates data to a database on the server. Try it. Wait a 5 or 10 seconds after pressing Transmit, and reload the page, and see your edits re-appear.

There's two major milestones to complete before it can be truly useful. First, I have to adapt it so more than one person can appear on a line, for player substitutions. That's gonna be a little time consuming. Second, I have to decide how to initialize a blank scoresheet with a lineup. The lineup creation will either be coded directly into the applet, or it will be built prior to running the applet via a cgi form. Once complete, it will be password-protected so no changes to the data we be possible without a manager's password. The database used for this applet is fully compatible with the existing scripts already on our site, so I'll use the applet for data entry instead of the old one. Then you players can look at a pretty close-to-real replica of the previous games scoresheet and still have all the reports. I'll probably add or enhance the reports over the winter. But I hope to have the java applet in production by the start of our Fall season.

The games for Thursday, August 17th are scheduled as follows:

6:30 Diamond 6, vs. Team Drunk
7:45 Diamond 6, vs. MC-Parkers

I don't know if we're playing for any hardware but from the looks of the teams we're playing, I kind of doubt it. But you never know.

Game Notes
With the exception of 3 or 4 innings, we played pretty well. Well enough to beat the Tigers without any problems. But The Twilight Zone game was another story. That's where the bad 3 or 4 innings came into play. They hit the ball very well, but we helped them out with errors. They had us down 18-3 by the 3rd inning, and twice were within 1 run of mercying us. But as we've shown all year, we never get down, never give up. We made it 18-11, held them to no runs in 2 innings, then pulled to within 3 runs by the 7th inning, aided by two huge homers by Malloy and LaRue. But that was as close as we got.

Etc.
Mark S.'s brother Matt played with us last night, and went 3 for 3. I suspect we'll be seeing more of him in the future when our ranks begin to inevitably thin.....Watch your email next week, and this site, for times and diamonds for next week's games......We talked with The "Preacher", the pitcher from the Twilight Zone at the tailgate. He tells us that Rotunda fields are not good, they use a limited flight ball, and a bunch of other facts that has us seriously reconsidering the move to Rotunda Field. He told us his team hated it out there and threatened him with bodily harm if he signed them up again out there. LaRue was going to sign us up out there, but I'm not so sure there won't be one more round of team debate on that topic.....I was somewhat suprised to see Scott of Team Drunk out there last night. Evidently their Liberty Park league hasn't started yet?......

Game Notes
With both Malloy and Rocky off for the evening, It certainly was reasonable to expect our fielding would be a little off. But that wasn't really case. Carl did an excellent job filling in at 3rd, and the infield had a pretty good night as did the outfield. Even our hitting was decent last night. We got a somewhat slow start as usual. But that's ok when your first game is against the Sluggers who don't score a lot of runs. Team Drunk got off to a 11 run start. We expected that, and they slowed it down a bit scoring 10 runs in the course of the remaining 5 innings. We did our usual chipping away at their lead, with our best inning coming in the 4th inning with 6 runs, 5 of them off LaRue's grand slam. But we only scored 3 runs in our final at bat, and we needed 6. If it weren't for the damn time limit, I think we all know the results would have been different ;)

Etc. (Update 2:15pm)
That was our last game against Team Drunk for this year. The're moving out to Liberty next week. Hopefully we can catch up with them next season. Mc-Parkers may be moving out to Rotunda next half, so we might see them out there. Then again, we took a team vote last night and the result was 5 for staying at Softball City, 5 for going to Rotunda for the Fall season. I think LaRue was trying to avoid being the deciding vote, because we did have 11 guys out last night. So your guess is as good as mine as to where we will be playing next month. But if I had to guess, I'd say Rotunda. For the record, I voted for Softball City since it's definitely not an option for next year even if they are still in business.....It's now official. This morning I accepted a reassignment with my employer. On August 21st I begin working on short term ecommerce and web development projects for clients of my employer, DCI. So my 10 year gig at the Detroit Fire Department ends August 17th. Friday morning updates of this site may turn into weekend updates......Just made my weekly check of Stile site. Looks like he was hacked today.

LaRue is holding off sign up at Rotunda as it has come to our attention that Softball City will indeed be having a Fall season. Someone there finally answered a phone. The voice said the league starts the week of the 14th, but as usual, that must be a mistake since our league ends the 17th. Plus the State Fair is coming up soon, isn't it? Anyway, LaRue is probably going to talk to everyone before he does anything, since most of you guys rarely respond to my email messages, much less even read this page.

Here's a newly revised version of the Java Scoresheet applet I've been tinkering with. It's starting to show some promise, but it has a long way to go.

I sent out a team email this morning. Here's the contents:

I just talked to LaRue this morning, and he's asked me to email everyone. He is planning on signing us up at Rotunda field in a class D league for thursday evenings. The season out there starts (we *think*) September 7th. So there will be no overlap between the end of our Softball City league and the new league.

If you have any problems or concerns related to this, you need to contact me or him before tommorow morning (August 1st).

By the way, Jeff G. has told LaRue he will cover the entire registration fee of $400. I don't how they handle ump fees, or any other per game fees. LaRue will pass additional information along to me as he receives it, and I'll post it on the team web page.

Update 6:40PM
LaRue dropped off a flyer with all the details this evening. Rather than type it in, here's a cropped scan of it, describing their program.

Game Notes
That first game against MIC was just a complete shelling. It was 14-3 at the end of the 2nd inning and MIC pretty much conceeded from that point. The 16-13 Loss to the Molars was a missed opportunity as far as I'm concerned. A few too many sloppy mistakes on the infield, one or two key base running mistakes, and maybe one homerun allowed over the homerun limit. But I've said this before (more or less); 13 runs doesn't usually win games in this league. We got notable hitting performances from LaRue, Malloy, and Rocky. Carl returned to the lineup last night and played pretty well.

Etc.
LaRue says Harry told him to get prices on hats, jerseys, and pants (shorts), so we were thumbing through the catalog last night. We're leaning towards a dark green and white color. I'm hoping to talk em into long pants, since short pants discourages sliding. And...well...a number of us never wear shorts no matter how hot it is......Scott, the manager of Team Drunk tells us Ron couldn't give him a definitive answer on whether there will be a Fall season. So the're leaving for Liberty Park as of August 10th. My guess is that we will play on tuesday nights at Liberty or Rotunda field starting in a few weeks, as we finish out our spring season at Softball City......1996 champion season alumni player Pat B. was in town and came out to watch last night. He watched the first game, but played a game as a fill in for Team Drunk.....Got a new Guestbook response this week. This one's from Eric. The answer is: because RBI's aren't recorded on the scoresheet, and I can't rely on a passed-around clipboard to accurately capture that stat, it's not kept.

Team Emailing Today
I just received this email from Carl this morning and I thought I'd share it with everyone:

i am pleased to report that i will be returning on the 27th.I hope you guys still have a spot for me given the recent success the team has been enjoying.At least I can say that I'm healthy and well rested.See you all on Thurs.
Carl #6

I'm pretty sure we'll squeeze you in somewhere, Carl :)

I scanned some of the photos taken from our 1st game on July 13th against Hazel Park Tigers. The're over in the Photo Album area. There's still a few pictures from that evening yet to be developed.

Our next game is early. If you want photos from our final season at Softball City, this might be one of your last chances to get shots during daylight.

Game Notes
Energy Products looked just a little better than the last time we played them. But they still need some work, especially in the field. The second game of the evening was definitely the marque game. MC-Parkers, the first place team, just came off a loss to the second place team Twilight Zone. They started off hitting well, scoring 14 runs by the 3rd inning, to our 7. We were behind most of the game, and in the 5th inning were down 18-11. But time was becoming a factor and we started the bottom of the 5th with 12 minutes left. Well, we scored 14 runs, all on solid hits, and took the lead. The time limit was invoked by the umpire, and we still had two outs to burn. By far, this was our best hitting performance in recent memory. The umpire, the same ump for both games, gave every pitcher a horrible ceiling for arc limit, so there were plenty of walks. I walked 5 or 6 batters, probably matching all the walks I issued all year. But we were issued 19 walks on the evening, so I guess you could say I did ok, all things considered. We got notable hitting performances by Scott, Malloy, and Rocky, but just about everyone hit very well last night.

"It's a great night. Let's play three!" -- Malloy to an opposing short stop last night.

Etc.
The Hazel Park Tigers and the Sluggers got into a pretty big fist fight last night on diamond 5. It featured male and female spectator participation, flying beers, and bats were also brought out, though thank God they weren't used. I hear the Slugger's spectator started it because an overthrow that hit the fence in front of the bleachers was mistaken to be intentional. You may recall the Sluggers are the poor sport team that doesn't shake hands after their usual humiliating losses. I hope this gets them booted from the league. We're calling Softball City today to register our vote for that outcome......We were in 3rd place in both leagues going in last night. With MC-Parkers losing both of their games to the 2nd and third place teams, it just got a whole lot tighter......They want to start construction on the race track in September, barring legal barriers. If we want to play the Fall season we will probably have to pick another night since the leagues will almost certainly overlap.

Site News
Have a look at our Guestbook for a new comment from Coach Dave......Also take a look at the Java Scoresheet Demo program I'm writing. Don't look for that to be in production this year, but maybe over the winter I'll redo the site's databases to incorporate it....The pictures taken at last week's game have been developed. I'll scan them within the next 72 hours and post them.

Game Notes
This one certainly ranks among our worst hitting performances of the year. 21 flyouts on the evening, with a team batting average of .389 for the first game and a slightly worse .375 for the 2nd. To Hazel Park Tigers credit, they have improved quite a bit since the first week. The 2nd game apparently was a make up for the blacked-out diamond 12 game last week. Lucky for us we checked at the league office before everyone left. Also lucky for us we didn't play Twilight Zone who probably would have spanked us if we hit like we did last night. We sure didn't help ourselves in the standings last night :(

Personnel Notes
LaRue played last night as an AH, despite the bandaged and braced knee. Hopefully there's no swelling today.....Jeff G and family showed up to watch last night. He tells us the rehab is going extremely well, and the Doctor told him good therapy would be to swing a bat and throw a ball. How cool is that? The only thing better would be if he was told to also do 12 ounce curls and stay away from desks, computers, and lawn equipment.....Was Randy a no-show last night, or did LaRue know he wouldn't be there?

Etc. (Updated 9:41am)
LaRue hosted another fine BBQ after the game last night, with about half the team attending. Too bad we can't get more guys to attend these things. Anyway, thanks LaRue.....We also had about half the team attend the Mudhens game last sunday. It was the best game we've been to in a while even though the Hens blew it in the 10th inning......It looks like Liberty Park is winning the players poll at the Members Only page. I don't know how official the results will be, but it's still a good idea to cast your vote for where you want to move to when Softball City is finally put out of its misery.....Lions single game tickets go on sale tommorow at 10am. If you're planning on getting a mini pack, I would suggest doing that today.

Check back for more news thoughout the day as it develops or as I make up when I think of it :)

Team email today
BBQ at LaRue's tommorow immediately following the game.

Personnel Notes
I got an email from Jeff G. yesterday:

I just started my 2nd week of therapy. Painful but feels good to move it.
I probably have 6-8 weeks of therapy left.

Jeff also said he's planning on playing ball after his PT, and hopefully will be coming out to the game tommorow.

Game Notes
That was some pretty lame hitting for us last night. Once again it took us until the 4th inning to start scoring. But this time it went 2-4-4-2 in the 4th through 7th innings, for a total of 12. Team Drunk's hitting wasn't a whole lot better than ours, but they did manage to stay 2 or 3 runs ahead for most of the game. We made a few critical fielding errors in the later innings that probably sealed our fate. Take those away and we may have won, but nonetheless, you don't win too often scoring only 12 runs on 16 hits.

Personnel Notes
LaRue had another 170 cc's of fluid drain off his knee today. The doctor said one more load like that and he's recommending surgery. The Dr. didn't say whether LaRue can play ball or not (like that would stop him), but he did give him a brace.

Schedule Notes
Our 2nd game of the evening against Twilight Zone was postponed. The lights on diamond 12 were out, so after shuffling teams every which-way, Softball City could only manage to get one game in for us. I hear that the Twilight Zone game will be rescheduled. I hope they reschedule it on a night we only have one game already scheduled.

Site Update
In case you haven't noticed, I've updated the site's design. Pages are build partially on-the-fly. To do this, I had to move the site to a full service host. For now the entire site is being hosted by www.michaelkingmusic.com, my brother-in-law's site (which I also designed). You can thank him by visiting his site, and purchasing his CD's :)

Please let me know if you experience any problems, like broken links, broken scripts, slow load times, or whatever.

Also, I'm asking everyone on the team who has photographs of our team from seasons past to bring them out for me to add to the site. Any photos will do, but I especially need some from the 1998 season, since I misplaced mine.

Etc.
Last call for the Mudhens trip this Sunday. We're meeting at Malloys at 11:30, leaving at Noon.

Game Notes
We didn't score a single run until the 4th inning, where we were down by 12. That was a 9 run inning, pulling us to within 3. Team Drunk OTOH, did some real nice hitting in the early innings, and until the 4th it looked like we were in for some serious trouble. But their hitting went south, scoring only 3 runs in the final 3 innings while we scored another 9 in our last 2 at bats. In fact, we scored all of our runs in the 4th, 5th, and 6th inning.

Personnel Notes
Unfortunately, I got an email from Danny yesterday informing me that thursdays are not going to work out for him. I'm real hesitant to write him off just yet, hoping that maybe he'll be able to return at some future time.....For the first time, possibly ever, we only have 9 players who've played at least half of our games.

Etc.
I hear that MIC lost 2 games last night. That should put us one game out of 1st place in one of the leagues.....Next Sunday is the Mudhens Trip. So far I think we have 5 players going......Yet another Racetrack story, from yesterday's Freep. All these stories are starting to look the same.

LaRue and Team Drunk were working with Ron to reschedule this week's 10:15 game time to something earlier. Unfortunately it wasn't doable. The reason I'm posting this today is because Team Drunk expressed some concern about their ability to field enough players for such a late start time for a night where they only have one game. My hunch is we'll be playing, but just to let you know, there is a chance we might not.

As long as I'm here I'll also mention that LaRue's knee has swelled up again and will probably require draining again in two weeks. He says the knee doesn't hurt.

The online schedule was wrong for the next two weeks. I fixed it today. I'm suprized none of you guys caught that. Please everyone take a look at your printed schedule from time to time and double check the online version. Mistakes do happen, especially when I'm the one doing the data entry, and I'd hate to hear about someone showing up at 10:15 for a game that should have been posted as 6:30 :)

Game Notes
Hoo boy, we came pretty close to losing to a team with 7 players in the first game against the Molars. We provided a catcher so they did have eight in the field, but still. The 7 that did show up for them must have been their top 7 hitters cuz they hit pretty damn well. We made plenty of early errors and didn't start hitting until 5th inning, where we took a 20-17 lead. We never lost the lead after that, and won the game 25-20 (score sheet recorded 24 runs for, but someone miss counted). The 2nd game against the Sluggers was very much a repeat of last weeks game. We jumped out to an 11-0 lead in the first inning and they were pretty much defeated right then and there. Again, only half their team shook hands afterwards.
I'd like to note that Malloy went 9 for 9, Dale went 8 for 9. Our Stats indicate that 8 of our 10 Regulars are hitting over .500, and 5 of 10 are over .600. I'll also point out that we've won our last 6 out of 7 games, and are alone in 2nd and 3rd place in the Giants and Enterprize leagues.

Personnel Notes (updated 2:07pm)
For those too lazy, or forgetful of the password, Dale posted this announcement on the discussion board this week:
Carissa and I have a new baby girl! Yes, thats right, another girl! Her name is Charlotte Laura, she was born last Thursday, June 15th, and she was 6 lbs 13 oz, 20" long......
LaRue got word from Carl this week that his employer has hired someone to replace the guy who's shift Carl's been covering. Hopefully this means Carl will be playing at least a few games a month soon......Scott's been out the last few games as his wife's got blood poisoning, according to Malloy. That sounds pretty unpleasant, Scott. We all send our regards and best wishes for a quick recovery.....Danny, where are you?......Just got word from LaRue that he had 170 cc's of fluid drained off the top of his knee this morning. It was swollen more than usual this morning so he went to the doctor. Apparently he doesn't require any additional medical attention at this point and was cleared to continue playing ball.

Etc. (updated 2:07pm)
This is totally unsoftball-related, but here's a link to Stile Project, a Webby Award winning site I was telling you about last night, that posts strange and unusual stuff he finds on the net. Caution: There's plenty of offensive material, so watch you back if your boss or wife is in the vicinity :).....Here's another Detroit News storyabout the proposed fairgrounds racetrack, published in today's paper.....LaRue talked to Team Drunk's manager (sorry dude, I forgot yer name), and Ron last night, and we're going to try to get our 10:15 game time against them changed to an earlier time. We should know something by Sunday......Ron also indicated that at least three teams have complained to him about the Sluggers nasty attitudes. He's considering tossing them out of the league. Personally, I'd like to see them stay; I think the're funny :)

Game Notes
We scored 19 runs on 17 hits and 4 walks against Sluggers, who fielded only nine players. They made quite a few fielding errors. Our fielding was pretty solid last night, and we were smacking that mush ball about as well as can be expected. I must say that the officiating by the "umpire" was real bad, as far as ball and strikes were concerned. Real bad. And he should have called out that "Slugger" who made an unmistakable half-swing/drag bunt in the last inning. WTF was that? At least 3 or 4 of the Sluggers refused to shake hands, presumably because they didn't like us throwing the ball around the horn between innings. They weren't too happy with us not swinging at pitches that fell a foot short of the plate either. I can't wait to play them again next week :).

Personnel Notes
No word from Dale yet on whether we have a new future player prospect (boy), or cheering section addition (girl)......Scott: where were you last night? We played with 10, but the 10th guy was Kris, a fill in friend of LaRue's.....Mark W. played, but his back is obviously still bothering him.

Site News (updated 12:54pm)
I replaced the old, static html Guestbook with a cgi Guestbook on the main site yesterday. And cool...it's already sporting two "You suck" messages!.....Our private discussion board is seeing some action, but more participation would be nice....Weeded out some bad and/or unreciprocated links from our links page this week, as well as updated a few of them..... I made major revisions to the Team Stats report today. It now separates the regulars from the subs based on games played. Now LaRue can stop with the suggestions :)

Etc.
Scroll down to June 9th. Notice I said that MIC was appearing to be the team to beat. Twilight Zone, despite their record, doesn't really impress me too much for some reason. Probably because we used to spank them when we were Precise Metal Products. But MIC played damn well against us. By far the best team we've played so far, IMO.....Speaking of sponsors (sort of), LaRue's working on adding a new one. I'll keep the details off the public site until we have a commitment of funds, since the competition is no doubt reading this. It'd be foolish for me to give a team named Team Drunk info on a liquor store that wants to sponsor a softball team ;).....The July 9th Mudhens roadtrip date may or may not be good for LaRue, so let's try to get a plan B date in mind in case he can't make it....Beer and Dogs at LaRue's house after our July 13th 6:30 single header; Mark your calendar now.

I finally put a discussion board on the private portion of the site. It's for team member use only, and requires your user name/password. The board is pretty generic-looking right now, but I'll be customizing it at some point.

Here's another racetrack story in today's paper.

Game Notes
As Gerry pointed out, we must have scored a good 15 runs with two outs in the first game against MC-Parker. We made them pay for their errors. This was the team that beat us 9-7 a few weeks ago, where we had a 7-0 lead going into the 7th. So the revenge was nice. MIC on the other hand, is demonstrating they are the team to beat this season. They must have pounded 15 hits through the left side of our infield in the first three innings. If that didn't kill us, our errors sure did.

Personnel News
Dale will be missing next week's game as he'll be with the mrs. for the birth of their 3rd child....LaRue tells us Jeff G's surgery went well, and he'll begin PT in a few weeks.....Mark W. missed last night's games due to what we hope is a minor back problem.....LaRue gave a recently recovered jersey to Randy last night. We decided he earned it more so than any other newcomer since he's been showing up regularly.

Etc.
The remainder of the schedule was released last night. It's still in my bag so I'll update our online schedule this weekend. If memory serves me, next week is a single header, at 7:45....As of last week's league results, Twilight Zone is in first place in both leagues. We're right behind them at 2nd place in the Giants division. We're right in the middle of the pack in the Enterprise Division......It's looking like July 9th is the favorite date so far for the Mudhens outing....I got an email from Barry D. this week, which I've yet to respond to...but I will, Barry. In fact, everytime I get an email from him, it reminds me I have to get going on that message board so all players can respond. I'll do that before the month's over.

Update
I just entered the rest of our Spring schedule, and all I have to say is I hope you guys have many-a friday mornings that you can sleep in. Wait, I have one more thing to say; what moron scheduled us to play several teams 3+ times, while we play 4M only once?

I heard on WWJ radio last night that demolition of the grandstands overlooking Softball City will begin this month. The race track will be ready for action in 2002. State Fair Executive Director John Hurtel and Governor Engler are going forward with the track despite strong opposition from Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer and neighboring City and suburban residents. City Counselwomen Kay Everett vowed to fight the project in court in a radio interview this morning on WDFN. Though seemingly unrelated to the race track, it's interesting to note that this morning WWJ reported this will be the final year for the Detroit Grand Prix.

So I'm thinking that barring any legal delays, they probably need to start ripping Softball City apart next year at the latest. Starting this season wouldn't suprise me either, though.

Related Stories: Detroit News, Free Press, Free Press, fairgroundspark.com, Royal Oak Tribune, WDIV, Yahoo

Game Notes
It wasn't a particularly pretty game but we managed to pull it off. Energy Products is a team we should spank every single time we play them, so a two run margin is a little slim IMO.

LaRue checked the standings last night, and we were tied for 1st place in one league at 3-1, and tied for 2nd place in the other at 2-2. I haven't seen one team in either league that I would consider as "the team to beat". So I think we have a real good chance of taking at least one league championship, if we can get a regular turnout from our players. They key for us will be continuity of players turning out, and the momentum that tends to build, IMO.

Personnel Notes
We inked three new players last night. Recent fill-ins Presley Y., Pete and Mark W.'s buddy Eric. Eric is an infielder (short stop), and did a pretty decent job in his first game with us. The other two guys are probably going to continue in a fill-in capacity since they play on other teams, but Eric should be with us regularly.....I exchanged emails with Danny this week, and he tells me he's been pretty busy with work and other stuff, but he should be back with us for next week's doubleheader.....Carl V.'s work schedule has been changed again; someone quit where he works, so instead of working nights 2 out of 4 thursdays a month, he now works them all...at least until they hire a replacement.....Mark S. played with us for the first time since opening day, and tells us he should be able to make the rest of our games....So just like that, it appears that for the time being our player shortage problems of recent weeks should be solved, especially since Gerry should be returning from vacation by next week's games.....I almost forgot to mention this; Jeff G. had his rotator cuff surgery this week. I hope Jeff will be able to update us soon on his recovery. Jeff's been hoping to return to the lineup this Fall, but we'll just have to see how the recovery and rehab goes.

Etc.
Everyone have a look at the Toledo Mud Hens schedule, and pick out a Sunday game or two that you think you can attend. For you new guys to the team, we make at least one trip every year down to "The Ned" to take in a game. Anyone you want to bring with you is welcome to come with us. So pick out a game, and register your vote for a game date in our Members-Only section of the site. New guys, email me for the username/password.

Well um.... not really. I just temporarily moved the all our site's cgi stuff to a unix server in Texas. On the old Windows server, data files were corrupting after a certain amount of records were created. The good news is the files are no longer corrupting. The bad news is the new server can be pretty flaky sometimes.

The new server space provided by www.michaelkingmusic.com.

Game Notes
Well, we're really having BIG personnel problems now. Danny, Mark S., Moe each pulled no-shows on us, so we only had 8 players. We managed to recruit enough players to fill in for the night, including Presley Yates, who went an amazing 9 for 9. Both games were mared by bad officiating, but at least the bad calls went both ways.

Personnel News
The big issue is now adding players to the roster and dropping the guys that have been letting us down. It's real hard to get any momentum going when you're fielding a different set of players each week. We have a couple of guys who've been called week after week and assured us they're still playing...and then they don't show up. Hey guys, it's one thing when your working, or have other legitimate real-life conflicts that prevent you from playing. That happens to everyone from time to time. But it's quite another matter when we rely on your assurances that you'll be there, and then you don't show up. So, our scouts have been unleashed and the're looking for your replacements right now.

Site info
As I mentioned earlier today in this section, I ran into what I thought was a minor bug in the script I wrote to enter stats. Well, it now appears to be not a bug in my script, but rather a bug in Perl (the scripting language) itself. I can replicate the bug using simple code. Anyway, I'm going to research it and get a work-around to the problem....eventually. What this means to you unfortunately, is that I can't get the stats for the last 10:15 game online until it's all worked out. But the stats that are currently online are correct.

Certain sections of this site may be periodically unavailable until the issue is resolved.

According to the Field Conditions Hotline at Softball City, 313-892-3210, all games for tonight have been cancelled. See you next week at 9:00 PM, diamond 1, unless we contact you with makeup game information.

Game Notes
I don't know what it was about MIC's pitcher, but nobody could hit off him. Pitches that were straight down the middle somehow ended up on the bat handle by the time we got around on it. I've never seen us popup so many times in one game. Pitching was also a major factor in the game against Motor City Molars. We walked six times, and won the game by six.

Etc.
Well we're only three weeks into the season and already it's starting to look like we have to start calling out the reserves. With Carl, Gerry, and Danny out next week, and a couple of other guys not showing up in recent weeks, personnel is already getting to be a problem.....Our sponsor Jeff showed up to watch the 2nd game last night with his family. Jeff tells us he's soon having surgery on his rotator cuff, but may be able to return to playing late in the summer season.....We received yet another revised schedule last night. It is online, and I fixed a tiny bug this evening that prevented it from working earlier today.

Today's team email
6:30 diamond 11
7:45 diamond 6

Note the 2nd game has changed from 10:15 to a more reasonable 7:45 start time.

LaRue went to SBC and picked up completely revised schedules. He read it to me on the phone, and we discovered there where still weeks where we had two games at the same time.

By the way did anyone see the news last night? There was a story on Channel 2 (I think), about a race track at SBC. They were actually running cars there while neighborhood groups ran sound measuring equipment in their area. It appeared that the noise level was pretty low. John Hurtel, is really hell-bent on putting in that race track and the news story suggested that he wants it there very soon....as in ground breaking this year. I doubt anything would happen that quickly. But now it becomes quite a bit more understandable to me why SBC doesn't put any maintenance into the place. Anyway, I really think that race track is going to happen sooner or later. I wouldn't be a bit suprised if this is the last year for Softball City.

Game Notes
Well, that 20-10 win vs. Energy Products was nothing to brag about. They had a team full of guys that looked like they haven't played much ball. Our 9-6 loss to McGlinchy was worse. Taking a 6 to nothing lead into the top of the 7th, we gave up nine runs with about 5 errors to help seal our fate. Now, nevermind the fact that we blew the shutout. To give up all nine runs in the final inning on error after error was just ugly.

Etc.
Our schedule has been released. I don't have it with me at the moment, so I'll post it this evening. There are several glaring errors on it, such as games scheduled at the same time. Also, I'm not sure this is an error...in fact I fear it's not...but we have a 6:30 and 10:15 game next week. LaRue will be calling SBC today to find out WTF is going on with this screwy schedule. They must be using the dart board method of scheduling this year.........Mike A. will be unable to play the rest of the season as we feared, since his downriver team will also play on thursdays........Carl V. also regrets to inform us that he will be working about two thursday evenings a month, so he's going to be missing a number of games.......We had three no-shows last night. Three players that never showed up. I'm gonna tell you right now that LaRue ain't gonna put up with that this year. We have a number of extras waiting in the wings to come play for us if your reliability becomes an issue..........Thanks LaRue, for hosting the post-game BBQ at your house last night.

Team emailing today
LaRue asked me to email everyone this evening to mention that he will be hosting us for beer and hot dogs at his house immediately after the games this thursday.

Game Notes
It was a pretty interesting night. The first game versus Hazel Park Tigers, looked like two teams that hadn't had any BP since last year. We won the game 8-7 in the 9th inning...yes the game went so fast there was time enough to play two extra innings to decide the outcome.
The 2nd game was against the Mariners, our rivals going back at least 5 years. We didn't beat them once last year. We clobbered them in a 20-9 mercy decision. Here, our hitting was excellent.

One thing both games had in common was quality fielding. Our infield played near flawless, and the outfield played great too. Malloy was getting to balls I would have bet he'd not get to in time. Paul was showing some nice range as well. Carl, Mark S., and Mike played great on the infield. Mike went 7 for 7 in the hitting department, and scored 3 runs.

By the way, both scoresheet's final scores were incorrect. The scores as described above are correct, based on my count of runs scored. This would indicate to me that our game against the Mariners ended one or two batters early.

League Info
I forgot to mention earlier today that in case you didn't hear, we are in a doubleheader league. I guess when half of your customers bolt for well-runned softball parks, doubling up on those who remain would help solve the loss of cash.

Site Stuff
I've fixed a very minor bugs in the scoresheet script this evening, so the batting order sorting should be fine now. I also added links to the scoresheet, Spring schedule, and Spring team stats reports at the top of this page.

Game Times
Tommorow's games: 9:00 diamond 9, 10:15 diamond 6
Next week's games: 6:30 diamond 8, 7:45 diamond 8

It is very important that you Email me, acknowledging you've read this. Otherwise LaRue has to try to track you down via telephone. If he can't get a hold of you, and I don't hear from you, you may find yourself warming the bench. I'm at work right now, so a team email will not go out until tonight.

Links to our schedule, and other season-specific pages, will be added to this page tonight.

Nobody's answering the phones at Softball City tonight. They must be out fixing the fences, pulling weeds, painting, etc. If we don't get a hold of them tonight, we'll keep trying tommorow.

Practice
Unfortunately the turnout today was only half. Considering we've had at least nine, and on some days more than 10 players show, I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later. Anyway, we have no more practices planned at this point. But that doesn't mean there won't be any; especially if we get rained out this thursday.

Game Time
The game time for this thursday will be known on tuesday, after 6:00 PM. You'll get an email with the details, and possibly a phone call. And of course, it will be plastered all over this site within minutes.

The consensus at yesterday's practice was for our next practice to be held Saturday, April 22nd, 5:00 PM in Livonia. So please plan on it. This is probably going to be our last practice before the season starts on April 27th.

First Game Scheduled
Opening day has been pushed forward to April 27th, time T.B.A. LaRue has signed us up and he'll have the roster for you to sign this Sunday at practice (which is at 1PM, in Livonia at Five Mile and Inkster).

Personnel News
Paul B. faked us all out; he will indeed be returning to play with us this season. It's great to have our 1999 Golden Razor awardee back. Gentlemen, get your rustiest razor ready...My e-commerce class is over, so I won't miss any games in April.

Site News
I moved the Off-Season News Page to the archives tonight, and debut the new, improved News Page (you're reading it right now). It looks the same as before, yeah I know. But, it is now actually calling a CGI program that reads a news file for its input. Over in the members-only section of the site, there's now a screen for entering news. The cool thing about this is that I, or anyone with manager rights for that matter, can post updates using the edit screen without the use of FTP software. Quite handy for us firewall-hampered corporate types. All the important stuff on our site now works this way, so I can make changes from any web-enabled appliance.

Please note that you may occasionally experience problems loading this page. This is because that, like the members-only section, this page now sits on a server under my basement stairs. Sometimes the cat will reboot it when he's extremely bored ;).

Also, come August my ICNet account will be terminated. I've worked out a programming-for-hosting deal with DetroitInternet.com, so I might move the site there in a few months.