21 May 1996: Zephyrs @ Homers

With pathos enough for a Greek epic, the Homers sacrificed themselves to play the heavies to the Zephyrs' heroics. Condescendingly and naively allowing their opponents to play without a full complement of women and to use pinch runners before reaching base, the Homers blew leads of 10 to 2 and 12 to 7 before losing 16 to 12. Were the Homers emulating the Angels in the 1986 American League Championship Series or perhaps the latter half of the summer of 1995? Or were they Greg Norman at this year's Master's searching for any lucky sap who happened to be hanging around to lose to? No, with a nod to this year's presidential elections and to pre-published editions of the Homers report with a 72-point headline of HOMERS DEFEAT ZEPHYRS, the Homers relived the 1948 presidential elections by playing the role of "the bridegroom on the wedding cake." 
    Zephyrs     0  1  1  0  5  7  2      16
    Homers      0  4  5  1  2  0  0      12
The Homers had another excellent turnout with 19 players and fans showing up before the first opposing player got to the Rose Bowl. Playing for the hapless ones were Ellen (RF), Jeff (RCF/1B/LF), David (LCF/SS/2B/3B/LCF), Sue (2B/RF), Ron (P/SS/LCF), Tim (SS/RCF), Cheryl Kiedrowski in her Homer debut (1B/LF/P), Robb (3B/P), Scott (C/1B), Amy (LF/LCF), Evora (3B), Allan (C/1B), and Mary (LF/2B/RCF). Cheering for the fallen heroes were Richard, Hannah/Taylor/Susie, Cheryl's friends Marisol and Janell, and Cheryl's kids Samantha and Isabelle. Drowning their sorrows afterwards at Round Table were Joe Guinn, Dwayne Chong, Cheryl, Tim, Katie and Ron Stevens, Amy, and Richard, and, oh, yes, in the practice dinner before the real thing, Sue, Robb, Scott, and Jeff rehashed the events of the day, culminating in Tim's and Richard's destruction of an unfortunate bicyclist while crossing the street to the south of the field.

The Homer game ball clearly goes to Ron Baalke for his Hectorian efforts. Ron's first home run, a three-run shot, provided most of the five-run Homer outburst in the third that almost put the mercy rule on; his second dinger, a two-run blow, gave the Homers their last leading margin of the day, 12 to 7. Yet Ron could not stave off the final destruction of the Homers as he ended the game with a fly ball out to right center. Perhaps inspired by angelic cheers from her personal rooting section, Ellen also hit well, beating out two solid hits and scoring both times.

Defensively, Homer management blew this one by switching nine players out of their positions between the 5th and 6th innings and by turning Ron into Jose Offerman by giving him two ill-fated innings at shortstop. Tim made some nice plays at both shortstop and right-center field, with his best catch being a shoestring grab of a dying line drive followed by a somersault and medical attention.

Next week's game is Thursday, May 30, against the Devil Rays (TTFKAPT) on field H2 again, which is on the south side of the Rose Bowl field. This time has historically been very good, and we might even have a losing record against them.