6 August 1996: Voodoo Toad Fury @ Homers

On the eve of its team convention in San Diego, the Homers nearly divided against itself over the sensitive issue of demotion. A faction of Homers loudly argued that Homer management had no right ever to demote a Homer; included among this group was an even more vocal sub-faction, led by some faithful Homer spectators, who sought to expand the definition of a Homer to include any who in time might join the team. In opposition, a large number of Homers, perhaps a majority, maintained that Homer management had the right to demote a Homer at any time, perhaps to a Co-op or even a Toad.

Homer management, naturally part of the pro-demotion group, sought to revive and revise the old compromise of demotion only under exceptional circumstances; however, the anti-demotionists, perhaps feeding off the noise generated by their own P.R., took a hard line and refused to quiet down. With no alternative in sight and not enough backbone to go around, Homer management succumbed and adopted the anti-demotion plank, thereby ensuring defeat once again of their already weak candidacy to the Voodoo Toad Fury, 11 to 10.

    Voodoo Toad Fury   0  4  5  1  1  0  0   11
    Homers             0  0  0  6  1  2  1   10
The line-up for the nearly comeback kids:
            Scott     OF OF  P OF  OF - OF
            Jeff       C  C OF OF  OF -  C
            Cheryl     P  P 1B  P  - OF  P
            Richard   SS SS SS OF  - 1B SS
            Ron       OF OF OF  -  P P  OF
            Ellen     OF 2B  C  - OF 2B OF
            David     3B 1B  -  C 1B OF 3B
            Tim       OF OF  - SS SS 3B OF
            Sue       2B  - 2B 2B 2B  C 2B
            Allan     1B  - OF 1B OF OF 1B
            Kevin      - OF OF OF  C OF  -   welcome
            Holly      - 3B 3B 3B 3B SS  -
The fundamental foursome, Samantha, Isabelle (celebrating her second birthday - someone get that girl a cone), Hannah, and Taylor, led cheers for the Homers. After the game, Jeff, Kevin, Holly, Ron, Sue, Tim, and Richard hit Georgee's, where Kevin chose to defer his initiation rite of solitaire truth-or-dare until more former Maulers are on hand.

Play of the day goes to Allan in left field, who got the first two Toads out in the sixth inning, one of whom hit a sinking line drive that Big Daddy fully extended for. Ron, after catching a smash right back to him at pitcher for the third Toad out of the sixth, hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the inning to cut the Homer deficit in half. Jeff in the seventh capped his three-hit day with his second two-out RBI single to pull the Homers within one, but these heroics could not overcome the 10-run lead spotted to Voodoo.

Next week's scheduled opponent is the Asterisks on Wednesday on field H2. However, Jeff has already discovered that the Rose Bowl will host another exhibition soccer match that day, plus the Asterisks have a very bad record for attendance. We will try to find an alternate field for this game if we can field two teams between us and our opponents.