Feb.
24, 2008
Band-Aids vs. Jokers Wild
WIN
13-12
The Songs We Chose
Charles: Cult of Personality - Living Colour
Byrd: The Street Beater (Theme from Sanford & Son) - Quincy Jones
Lauren: Carry On My Wayward Son - Kansas
Noel: Be Good Johnny - Men At Work
Amanda: Groove Is In The Heart - Deee Lite
Aaron: Laid - Matt Nathanson
Tracy: Paralyzer - Finger Eleven
Ian: The Payback - James Brown
Brian: Sabotage - Beastie Boys
Natalie: Maneater - Hall & Oates
Matthew: Homebrew - 311
Koryn: Sledgehammer - Peter Gabriel
Other Songs You Heard
MenaMena - The Muppets
Ecstacy of Gold - Ennio Morricone
Rock The Night - Europe
The Final Countdown - Europe
Fitting In With The Misfits - E!E
Post
Game Blogs
Brought to you by the Band-Aids Management Team
Joke's On You: Band-Aids Get the Last Laugh
By Lauren Henschen, Manager
For the first time, maybe ever, I was running
late to the game. I arrived at my home at 5:00pm Sunday, fully realizing
that I had exactly 30 minutes to connect my laptop to my external
hard drive, open iTunes and arrange an entirely new playlist, acquire
all requested player songs and arrange them according to our batting
order, export them to my iPod and print out a copy of the playlist
for Rachel, make the lineup for the game, shower, get my uniform on,
and get to the field.
It took me 35 minutes. Sacrifices were made.
Still, by the time I arrived, I was happy to see that most every greensleever
we have was already there, ready to give me guff about my tardiness.
Now THAT’S the Band-Aids I know and love. Never afraid to raz.
Confidence was the name of the game when we took to the field. I think
that in the back of our minds, we’d just had a phenomenal win
and were ready to rest on our laurels, but Jokers Wild came out swinging.
The interesting trend that I have noticed is that hitters on this
team (and other teams we have played of late) have been pulling the
ball towards right field more, putting pressure on our center and
right fielders to keep on their toes. I’m LONELY in left field.
Except for one short fly that sealed off the 7th inning for Jokers
Wild, I was left to do nothing but call out plays in my unfortunately
shrill yelling voice. This hitting trend has put new pressure on the
Band-Aids and I’m happy to say that everyone is coping with
it like we’ve been ready all along. Aaron, Matthew and Natalie
all were shining stars out there!
One of the things I love (and sometimes don't love, hahaha) about
the Band-Aids is our zeal to make miraculous plays. Nonetheless, my
favorite play of the game was Charles’ diving snag at 3rd base.
His attempt to flip the ball to 2nd for the out may have been thwarted,
but the mere idea that he was thinking on his toes (and OFF his toes),
makes me happy.
I also want to take a second to especially acknowledge Natalie, who
was playing the entire game with a knee injury from skiing. She still
managed to get to first base nearly every time at bat and give us
an automatic runner on the diamond. Way to bite the stick, Natalie!
I think we all thought we were losing by a lot more than we were the
entire game, so when the clock ticked down, many of us foresaw a loss.
But before we knew it, runs came in. I called to my dad, “Hey,
what’s the score?” “5 to 7,” he said. WHAT?!
We’re only down by two?! I yelled to the team that we weren’t
as far away as we all thought. And the renewed energy we acquired
was like a literal shot of adrenaline into our chest cavities. Then
three runs came in! WE WIN WE WIN! But wait…the ump says the
score was 5 to 10. Bob had misread the scoresheet (it’s okay,
Bob). The game isn’t over. There are two outs now. I come up
to bat and take a walk to 1st. Noel hits a long one…a home run!
We both come in. The score is tied, 10-10. But alas, we get a third
out and the game is over.
OR IS IT? The umps call game and we slap hands with our tying opponents,
but Coach Bob has other ideas. Consulting the umps, he asks about
playing out the tie game. The umps consult the field attendant and
decide to let the game finish in favor of one team or the other. Energetically,
we rushed the field and took our positions once more.
Final inning!!!!!
Jokers Wild automatically get a girl on 2nd base, but when she comes
home, she tags the wrong base…out number one. They score, not
once, but twice before we get the other two outs. We’re down
by two heading into the final half-inning.
Many of us had already packed our batting gloves away, thinking the
game was over. I mean, we already high-fived! Excitement was rampant.
Even our fans were standing. What an exhilarating game! And you know,
the rest is kind of a blur to me, but somehow we knocked three runs
in and came back from a large deficit and a miraculous tie, to actually
WIN the game.
It was interesting for me to see the difference on our faces when
we high-fived a tie game, as opposed to when we high-fived a winning
game. Jokers Wild may have thought they pulled one over on us, but
at the end of the day, we had the last laugh.
Band-Aids Dine on Jokers...No
"Tie" Required
By Charles Pheanis, Assistant Manager
As I awoke from my two hour nap
less than an hour before Sunday's game, I realized that the nap was
no substitute for my sleep-deprived Saturday night. I also realized
that the spicy pesole' I ate for lunch had not digested as I planned.
I chewed on a handful of extra strength antacids hoping that the heartburn
would at least go away before I had to take my first swing. It turned
out to be too much to hope for, and after the game I was thankful
that I didn't regurgitate on the umpire's shoes.
Being under-the-weather is part of co-rec softball. It's what separates
us from professional athletes. Our lives do not revolve around the
game. None of us are compensated for training, practicing, or playing.
We have careers and social lives to manage. We play for the love of
the game, not strictly for wins. Win or loose, we still booze. We
are weekend warriors. Our performance does not depend so much on our
physical conditioning, but more on our mental conditioning.
Sunday night we displayed intense mental strength. Most of us were
a little late and nursing hangovers. In earlier seasons, we may have
written off the game before it started, blaming our state of being.
But we persevered. We ignored the pain in our stomachs and the headaches.
We didn't get off to a great start. The Jokers ran up the score, and
we were having a hard time getting hits. Once again, in earlier seasons
we may have lost hope, but we carried on and chased the win.
Near the end of the hour Noel hit an over the fence home run to tie
the game (my favorite play). I don't need to reiterate how awesome
our comeback was. We were on top of the world. And when we we found
out the game was tied and our hour was up, we were satisfied with
our performance. We high-fived the other team with our heads held
high. But as the dugouts started to clear, our sharp umpire discovered
in the ancient texts of the Tempe Co-Recreational Softball Rules and
Regulations, that we were compelled to break the tie.
We were all excited at the prospect of wining in extra innings, but
at the same time a little nervous about going from a tie to a loss.
In the face of pressure, we held them to two runs, and came up with
the win. The Band-Aids showed everyone that we are for real. We are
going for the title. And the Jokers were not wild about it. Some of
them seemed a little upset as we snatched away the victory. Perhaps
they felt jilted by the discovery of the tie-breaker rule. Perhaps
they were upset that one of their players ran to the wrong plate.
And some of them expressed displeasure when Noel checked a runner
at 2nd base with a little love tap.
"Tie" me a river.
If you want to win, you really need to take the game seriously, and
the Joker's just don't seem to care. They had no music even though
they seemed to love ours. One of their players asked me who made our
play list. I told him that we each pick our own song and our manager
creates the play list. "I really like your music" he replied.
I told him he could find the play list on our website if he wanted
to know the titles and artists. Of course, his face went blank and
he went on to loose the game.
We are a music loving-team. Surely you know that Lauren is a solo
musician under the name "Jumbo Jr." And some of you may
not know that Ian (Judas) is a bass player for a band called "Black
Carl." Maybe we should have a talent show some day. I know we
have other artists on the team, and I recently learned to juggle.
What can you do? "The Band-Aids Spectacular!" Coming soon?
Jokers Schwild
By Amanda Telloni, Assistant Manager
This past weekend
was huge for me. My best friends got married and there was, of course,
tons of energy that went into it…there was also a lot of energy
put on to the dance floor that night, so I was a bit weary of how
my pitching skills were going to hold up. My feet, legs, arms and
head were all feeling the moves that I had exhibited that night,
but I manned up and grabbed my freshly cleaned jersey from the dryer
and was on my way.
Similar to Lauren, I showed up to the field a bit later then anticipated.
There were a few lights I probably could’ve gone through,
but I decided to play it safe knowing I could already have a speeding
ticket in the mail from our Band-Aids practice. I didn’t feel
too bad getting there late seeing that Koryn and Roy were right
behind me and getting out of her Corolla was the team manager. I
guess we were all feeling the effects of being on the dance floor
past our bedtime.
Jokers Wild started off ready to play and we honestly didn’t
expect it. They had some perfectly placed hits and were ahead of
us throughout the entire game, but the "never say die"
Band-Aids chomped back and took the Jokers by storm. With homeruns
both by Drewface and Noeler, we found ourselves in a little bit
of a slow pitch situation: a tie! The umps seriously didn’t
want us to continue on, but after the persistence of Coach Bob the
Band-aids went into inning number 8 with enough energy to fill Shaq’s
body.
Jokers Schwild really gave us a run for our money the last inning
by scoring 2 hard-earned runs, but the Band-aids, in all their glory,
got the big W.
Matthew has my game winning play with putting the ball in play to
get us to 2-0. Good riddance, Jokers…see ya around town.
In Just One Day, One
Man Accepts The Band-Aids in His Life:
How Judas Reversed History and Converted a Non-Believer
A Special Guest Blog / Testimonial By John Krause, Fan
I must confess that I haven’t always been
a Band-Aids fan. For instance, if I was walking down the street and
an Asian man walked up to me and asked, “What time is it?”
let’s just say The Band-Aids wouldn’t have bled its way
into my 12-minute conversation about time, Kim Jong-il, and Vitamin
Water®. Nevertheless, seasons change and so did I.
I showed up at Kiwanis with Judas much earlier than the rest of the
team. What happens when you show up at Kiwanis early? Well, you get
called “gringo” by a small Mexican boy on your way to the
bathroom. Eventually, the team began to arrive and in no time it was
game time. Luckily, I was wearing my team colors and so was Roy; we
looked chic and/or savvy.
Upon first impression, the Joker’s Wild seemed to have it all:
punctuality, muscle, agility, suave, and Joe Lo Truglio at third base:
I’m usually a negative person, so I thought the Band-Aids were
going to get creamed; however, I did show up to root them on and before
seeing the Joker’s Wild, I called my bookie in Vegas, Fabrizio
Giuseppe, to place my child’s college fund on a Band-Aids’
victory.
Now my memory may fail me, but after the 1st inning, I believe Joker’s
Wild had taken an early lead, 2-1. This was probably because Judas ate
a Double Buford from Rally’s before playing, and my,
did it show. Inning after inning, the Joker’s Wild kept upping
the ante to a folding Band-Aid lineup. Mr. Purple Shorts, who apparently
played some minor league ball in the 80s, robbed Traceface and Conna
of some surefire multiple-base hits. The bastard!
CharCho couldn’t make enough amazing, dirt-diving stops to keep
the JW from running up the score. T Rex, despite her change-ups, screwballs,
and knuckles, was a little hungover; she was pitching most valiantly,
but as most aficionados know, you need runs to win. Somewhere in the
middle of the game, Koko ironically reminded the team that there were
two outs and that’s when T Rex registered a backwards K. This
was just the first of many momentum-shifting plays to be dealt. Now
I don’t remember much after that, but here is what I do remember:
1. Some people were on base when Byrd hit a homer to leftfield.
2. I think some more people were on base when Conna soared the soft
(even-softer-now) ball over the leftfield fence. It reminded me of a
bald eagle flying towards freedom after sh**ting democracy on a crowd
of despots and tyrants. [deep inhale] The scent of freedom still lingers
in my nostrils.
3. I taunted the ump. He looked at me. I stopped.
4. Someone scored and now it was tied, but oh wait, sorry folks: Game
Over…NOT! What is this? Some half-assed sport called hockey? An
office I work at? There are no stinking TIES in softball!
After much confusion, the umps settled on a tie-breaker. This, I must
say, is when I knew I was a Band-Aids fan. The Oscars had started 15
minutes prior and I didn’t even care! I wanted my team, The mutha-fiddlestickin’
Band-Aids to win!
Two runs and three outs later, the BAs were in a painful spot—the
kind that has a lot of hair and hurts when you rip them off. I thought
about my child’s education and how Judas coaxed me into coming.
I eyed each player with a look of respect and nodded to myself. “Ok
guys,” I said. “I believe in you and I accept you in my
life. Now, go out there and give it your best.” Naturally, I didn’t
say those passages aloud, but I heard myself speak them. With hustle,
T Rex on second, and numerous cuts that would have literally sliced
my f***ing arm off, the Band-Aids slashed their way to victory! Jokes
on you Joker’s Wusses!
Thank you, Judas. What I thought was a wily move to get me to hold onto
your cigs while mommy watched you play, was really a conversion method
to align my future with destiny: The emotionally biggest Band-Aids fan!
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