Thursday, May 13, 2010

THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN: RELAXED DIRTBAGS READY TO SPOIL THE ELEPHANT WALK

As the 49er faithful roll toward this baseball weekend with Fullerton State, everybody has a mixture of anxiety, uncertainty and optimism. The anxiety has been earned by a season of sputtering, no win streak longer than three games and perplexing losses. Last Friday and Saturday the Beach twice got late inning sand kicked in their faces before a 10-5 Mother’s Day present on Sunday. The win streak improved to two on Wednesday when the Niner youth moment (22-23) stopped the Trojans early and late with a 9-1 spanking using freshmen battery mates Nate Underwood and catcher Joel Thys…Nate for the W and Thys threw out a base stealer in the third…meanwhile the mid-weeker for Fullerton (31-14) produced a 10-7 W over woeful Pepperdine It was Tuffy’s 12th come-from-behind win of the season and their 13th in their last 14.

With the surprise retirement decision by Coach Weathers, and their post-season chances all but erased, this weekend with the Titans and in two weeks with Irvine, the Dirtbags can play spoiler at least in terms of where their neighbors are ranked and who hosts a regional. And the new secret victory plan--on Sunday Mike said it is the proper combination of your hits, their walks and their errors. Sunday ten LB hits, seven Stanford walks and an error led to the W. Ditto on Wednesday when SC gave up 4 walks, committed 4 errors and the Beach won with 11 hits. Let the games begin.

NOTES ON MY NAPKIN--Away from baseball places and back to people, the Pyramid will host their 16th Annual 49er Jewels of the Night Saturday in support of the over 300 student athletes at the Beach. With hundreds of auction items, food from top local restaurants and live entertainment, your C note goes a long way…On the softball side, Kim Sowder’s Sweethearts of Swat will not get an NCAA invite but they did their own spoiler thing last weekend winning a series at Fullerton. Unlike baseball where most of the top talent takes a hike to the minor leagues in June, softball will keep the nucleus of a team that has pitching depth and promising offensive players. The Dirtbags meanwhile will likely lose junior shortstop Devin Lohman, third baseman Joey Terdoslavich, pitcher Jake Thompson and OF Jonathan Jones…softball paced last weekend by frosh Bree Stephan (5-for-11 and a home run) closes the season hosting UCR… CSUF baseball had four important series and went 4-7 against TCU, Arizona, ASU and UCI…more reasons why the F hat fans are properly jealous of their rich cousins at LBSU…corporate sponsor Tim Richmond Plastering threw a mega party last weekend where nobody got plastered but everybody attending could plaster…except those three gals from accounting…in the Principality of Park Estates Marcia and Bill Scharfen raised a ton of cash at their annual pool-side fund raiser…more LB good deeds this weekend a leukemia awareness event Saturday and salute to services Sunday…Tennis’s Jacki Alawi's named the Big West Freshman of the Year--LB has had four of the last six awardees...in that Sparks exhibition the referee was former LBSU player Tamara Inoue, a high schools and college teammate of VB all world--Tayyiba Haneef…another ex Niner, Reta Sula is the new basketball head coach at Wilson HS…schedule chatter now has LB BB men playing at Michigan State…the Dust recently got a difficult question on baseball scoring so we passed it on to our retired Virginia squire, and ex PT genius, Gordie Verrell…”how little can a starting pitcher work and still get a loss? Gordie says, “Say our ace right-hander throws his first pitch and the guy hits it into the seats. While watching the guy circle the bases our ace develops a stomach ache -- like he knows he's headed back to the bush leagues -- and, if the trainer doesn’t have any PeptoBismal 'cause the writers drank it all, he has to come out of the game, losing, 1-0. His team might end up losing 10-0 or even 10-9 -- but if his team never ties the score (to get him off the hook) it's a big ol' L and, tomorrow, it's off to Peoria.” Closing quote, over and out.—DR. DAN

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