Gnaturals Nip Demon Deacons
New Lenox, IL - The Lion's Den was a hotbed of playoff activity last night as the post season began for nine hopeful teams looking to take the 2021 New Lenox Men's Softball title. Game one featured a thrilling battle between the Gnaturals and Demon Deacons. The night was chilly with still wind conditions and the ball carrying off the bats. Demon Deacons started out the scoring by pushing five runs home in the top of the first inning and looked like they were poised to have quite an offensive night by hitting the ball hard to all fields. Gnaturals answered with two runs in the home half of the first inning on the strength of a Stapes two-run shot over the left-center field fence. The Deacons came back with four runs in the bottom of the 2nd inning after a defensive lapse cost the Gnaturals a chance to shut down their foe. One pitch later, Johnny Jagstick (#15) hit a three-run homerun and did a rooster strut to first base. The Deacons added another run to go ahead 9-2 heading to the bottom of the 2nd inning. The Gnats batted around for 12 runs in their half of the frame to take a 16-9 leading heading into the third inning. The scoring was highlighted by a Zlogar three-run homerun over the left field fence. After just two innings, 30 minutes had ticked off the 1-hour game clock. The Deacons added two in the third inning while holding the Gnats blank in their frame to close the score to 16-11. The mid game scoring woes continued for the Gnats as they went scoreless in the fourth inning while the Deacons tacked on another three runs to close the score to 16-14 after four innings. Key to the game for the Gnats was that the Deacons had run out of homeruns in the third inning and proceeded to make 3 outs the remainder of the game on “over the limit” homeruns. The Deacons continued the charge by putting three runs across in the home half of the fifth inning to take a 17-16 lead over the Gnats. After singles by Stapes and Pratl, Koz came to the plate with one out and deposited a three-run homerun over the right field fence to end the scoring drought and give the Gnats a 19-17 lead, which they would hang on to for the remainder of the game. The Deacons could not score in the home half of the 6th inning while the game ended on time limit after Cap’n Jack went deep into the count and slapped a single to center field, then Arik stood and took a couple of pitches as the clock expired for a 19-17 victory.
Noteables:
First Bowl Game of the Season - Game 1 between the Gnaturals and Demon Deacons was a play-in playoff game with the 8th seed taking on the 9th seed, thus making the game The Blow Bowl.
Nice Fence - Gazette reporters were shocked when getting to the field that the Gnaturals were in the first base dugout. On the walk to the press box, Gazette photographer Vincent VanDough took the picture below, which shows a gap between the Balderman fence and the homerun fence that leaves spectators exposed for a unsuspected clunking in the head. Good job Baldy!
What????? - Koz took a walk in the 2nd inning of the game. Jacky Stats will corroborate this rarest of occurrences.
Stay Hot! - Was what Ken shouted to Whitehouse as he came to bat in the 2nd inning for the second time. Problem is that W.H. flew out in his first at-bat. A Gazette reporter asked Ken to "define hot". W.H. did single in that at-bat for an RBI.
For You Youngsters - "Never make the 3rd out at 3rd base!!!" is what Ken said rhetorically about Jack sliding safely into the base as the Deacon fielder missed the tagout at third. Jack and Arik would ultimately score in the inning, which ended up being the winning margin that may not have been if the fielder knew how to tag a runner out.
Blown Go Sign - Ken was sent home by Koz two plays later but the former turned around on his own somewhere exactly between third and home. Ken did not go on to score as the next batter flew out.
Pull The Goalie - #80 on the Deacons sold out in the fourth inning by standing exactly where Arik hit a missile into short right-center field for an out. A little height on that ball and Arik is still running.
It's A Long Way To The Top - Kudos to the Deacons for having an AC/DC only playlist that featured most songs from Highway to Hell and Back In Black.
Cut It Out - Ryno made a nice cutoff in the 5th inning on a bases loaded clearing double and nabbed a startled Deacon runner at third base. That was the first out of the inning. The Deacons did not score again and lost by two. Every little thing counts!
Best Pitch - Ryno recorded three outs on Deacon extra homeruns, which are as good as strikeouts.
Fuck Them Assholes - This will conclude the Gazette reporting on games for the evening of October 26, 2021 as nothing that happened after this game will be recognized.
Mr. Pen - If a more ridiculous name (and mustache logo) could be made up for a felt-tip pen, let us know. Scorebook ink was provided last evening by "Mr. Pen".
Blue Origin - Zlogar continues to show the love for Jeff Besos by using the Blue Origin Bat by Amazon.
Apologies - Sorry for the useless comment on the fencing. If you look up at the earlier picture above, the fence does make a tremendous two leaf collector.
Coyotes - Ken (seen below) asks Koz if it was a mistake to take Ron Furnaston over Kent Cumberland at 12 year old tryouts.
Quartet - Some combination of the pictures below form the Schoenhofen Four.
One. Effing One! - The amount of people who texted the Gazette to do a feature on Zlogar. The one person to text wasn't even Zlogar....WTF!!! The response was actually a positive vote for the Zlogar feature. The Gazette would have done the feature but never heard back from the man himself so we'll wait for a feature on the swarthy Amazonian.
Season Ender - It's a guarantee that the Gnaturals (Master Batters) would say that they underachieved in the 2021 seasons. Everyone always thinks that they can do better; it's human nature. It's also a guarantee that nobody else in New Lenox had more fun in the Summer and Fall than the Gnaturals (Master Batters). Speaking for the fan base, there's nothing else we'd rather do on a Tuesday than to watch our favorite home team play softball.
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