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A solid outfielding performance by Grimard and Muldoon helped keep RPG off the board. (Efimov)

Within the confines of the Forefront Center resides a secret unknown to the outside world, for lurking in the hallways of South Pod is a rivalry unique to any other. On one side lies the headquarters of “Racepoint Group” (RPG). On the other: Verdasys Softball. When these two teams meet, there is just one objective: South Pod Supremacy.

Last year was the first ever contest between these two teams. When they met, neither was aware of this made-up rivalry. In fact, few even knew that they were located across the hall from one another. As for the game, the two teams were engaged in an evenly matched contest, ultimately being decided in the final inning, with Racepoint Group coming out on top.

This year, Verdasys will be looking for a different outcome as they look to break a six game skid. Will Racepoint Group retain the crown or will Verdasys claim bragging rights? Is anyone even aware of this made-up rivalry?

Prior to game time there was some uncertainty on whether of not the game would be held. Weather forecasts had called for showers for the entire afternoon. Even if a game was to be played, the humidity would be high.

However, the team lucked out. A storm cell destined for Boston hours before game time stayed south. A second storm cell formed near Worcester an hour before game time. However, it fizzled as it approached the I-495 band while bringing with it a cold front that broke the humidity just before game time. Indeed, Mother Nature was finally siding with the team for a change.

Making his Verdasys Softball debut (finally) was Stephen Gregorio. Gregorio, who was unable to attend any of the team’s 2008 season games, brings to the team many years of baseball experience, including playing time at the college level.

Also appearing in their career game with the team were Taro Aiga and Marc Allen. Taro, a baseball player from Tokyo, was flown in after Verdasys was able to negotiate a one-game deal with his agent. Meanwhile, Allen, with unknown past baseball experience, agreed to play just so he could get a free team jersey. “These things go for $100 on eBay!” claims Allen.

Making their return to the team were Nicole Kelly and Mark Morley. Kelly, (not to be confused with former team member Kelly Raymond,) made a silent exit from the team in 2008 for maternity reasons. Husband and newborn were on hand at the game to witness Nicole’s return to the field. As for Morley, this is his first game since last appearing in the game against RPG in the 2008 season.

In all, Verdasys’ roster consisted of 19 players; the most Coach Wolan has ever managed for a single game in his managerial career. His previous record was 16, which was set in Game 1 in the 2005 season with the A’s.

There was some confusion before game time. About an hour before game time, Ajeet Bhoyar was seen following Coach Wolan as he drove home to change. So, why was Ajeet following the coach? “I wasn’t sure how to get to the field” said Ajeet. “I saw coach so I figured I would follow him to the field. It didn’t work out as I had planned.” Ajeet was given directions and sent on his way.

On the field, Racepoint Group challenged Verdasys’ assertion that you are allowed an extra infielder. (IE, the “free infielder” or FIF.) RPG argued that that the rules allow either an extra outfielder OR an extra infielder, but not both. Furthermore, RPG claimed that in their third season no team has ever fielded ten layers. Coach Wolan contested, for Rule 7 under “Game Rules” in the league’s “Rules and Regulations” states:

… Given that the pitcher is a member of the team at bat, it follows that there will be eleven players on the defensive field. …

In fact, this extra fielder can be placed anywhere on the field, even behind home plate as a second catcher.

Unknown until game time was that fact that Racepoint Group was fitted with some heavy hitters. This was made clear in the first inning as RPG took a quick 3-0 lead thanks to a towering three run blast into left field. The ball landed in the upper branches of a tree in the outfield, reminiscing of the blasts by “Newmark Knight Frank” in Game 8 in the 2008 season.

Verdasys would respond according to this demonstration of “shock and awe”, With one on, Muldoon hit a two-run ITP homerun down the right field, his second HR in two games and matching a team high of 2 set by Grimard. Next batter was Jerry Buote, who connected for a double, his first hit of the season. Following a Grimard single, Smith makes contact for an RBI double, his firsts of the season. Aleksey followed with an RBI single. Eno capped the scoring with a fielder’s choice RBI hit. 5-3 Verdasys remarkably on top.

Top of two, coach asked Gregorio if he has any experience playing shortstop. “Of course!” said Gregorio, whose enthusiasm would only be eclipsed by his skills. With a runner on first, a RPG batters slapped a base hit into the outfield. While the ball was being thrown in, the base runner attempts to sneak-in an extra base and proceeded to third. Gregorio gave chase and tags the runner out after she overruns third base. The play ended the inning and helped keep RPG scoreless.

Bottom of two, Verdasys pads their lead. Avi leads the inning off with a double, which is followed by a Morley single, his first hit of the season. Gregorio follows suit with an RBI single of his own, his first as a member of the team. After an A-WOL felder’s choice, Taro made his batting debut, only to pop-out to the catcher. Ajeet topped the scoring with an RBI single of his own, his first base hit and RBI of the season. 7-3 good guys.

Smith slips and mistakenly tackles a base runner in the fourth. (Efimov)

Solid defense would keep RPG off the board in the third inning as well. A-WOL helps keep it real at short with two fly-out catches. The team’s offense would scratch together a run by cashing in on a Muldoon double with a Jerry Buote RBI single. RPG kept the scoring to a minimal with a close 6-3 play to get Ron out of first to end the inning. 8-3 after three.

Top of fourth, a scary play. With runners on first and second, RPG hit a grounder to short. Ron fields the ball and gave chase to the lead base runner. However, he slips and mistakenly trips the base runner to the ground with his gloved hand. Both players were fine after the play and the base runner was awarded third due to “excessiveness,” even though it was unintentional. “I know Ron and that was an accident” said Coach Wolan. “He would never intentionally tackle a base runner.”

Even though this play left the bases loaded with just one out, RPG could not capitalize, going scoreless for the inning. Verdasys responded by going down in order in their half of the inning. Still 8-3 after four.

Top of five, “the guy in the black shirt” kicked things off with a solo homerun between the scoreboard and the foul pole in left, his second HR of the game. It was also the second ball lost to the brush behind the outfield. With supplies of game balls running low, Grimard hopped the fence in hopes of recovering HR ball #2. However, the search was called off after the RPG bench thought Verdasys had lost a fielder. “Great, now they have one less fielder.”

After the ball hunt, RPG would rally behind “the guy in the black shirt” and score 4 more runs to tie the score at 8-all. Grimard helped keep the scoring in check with a nice running catch at the feet in left field. So coach, what went wrong that inning? “Our outfielders were playing deep due to the threat of the long ball and were also spread-out. This opened-up the shallow left field, which RPG exploited this inning.”

Verdasys got two runs back in the bottom half of the fifth. Allen, who told the other team “not to worry” because “I will probably make an out,” managed to get on board with an infield base hit, his first with the team. Mark Morley followed with an infield SAC, allowing Allen to advance. The wind from his swing was so strong that A-WOL, who was pitching at the time, was knocked over backwards onto the ground. (Or perhaps he stumbled over his own feet, we couldn’t tell.)

Allen then scored on a Gregorio RBI hit, his first RBI of the season and Allen’s first run scored with the team. Gregorio caught the fielders napping and stretched the hit into a triple. A-WOL capped the inning by batting in Gregorio with an opposite field base hit. According to A-WOL, the ball’s placement was intentional. “I’ve been practicing that kind of hit all pre-season, waiting for the right moment. With two down and the fielders favoring left, I took a chance into right.” 12-10 good guys after 5.

Racepoint Group scored two more times in the sixth. “Ivan the Terrible’ lives up to his name with a defensive block of a bullet hit to second.

Misha, O’Conner and Nicole got the bottom half of the inning going by loading the bases for Muldoon, who hits a flair into right field. The ball was caught, leading to an RBI SAC. What happened Muldoon? “I didn’t get a good rip on the ball.”

Jerry Buote followed with an RBI double, scoring O’Connor. Nicole would score on a Grimard single, his first RBI of the season. Ron Smith capped the inning with a launch into left field, good enough for an RBI SAC, scoring Jerry. 14-10 Verdasys.

And so to the seventh we go. RPG needed to rally for at least 4 runs to keep the game going. They led the inning off with a ball ripped deep into center field. The ball hopped the fence for a ground rule double. The next batter slaps a shot to Taro in right field. Taro’s was able to quickly field the ball and throw it in to limit the speed batter to a double.

As intimidating as the start of the inning was, Verdasys’ offense would hold, limiting RPG to just one more run. Grimard made the final out in left field to seal the deal, giving Verdasys a 14-12 win. The win snaps the team’s 6 game losing streak and lets the team hit the .500 mark for the first time in team history … and if anyone cares, South Pod bragging right.

On hand for the “Ramune () Post-Game Show” was most of the team. As always, Coach Wolan lead things off with this post game analysis followed by Q&A:

"What can I say? When you have you 19 players to manage, it can be a mad house. I like to thank the team for bearing with me today as I tried to keep things in order. As expected, the team is excited to collect their first win of the season, and they should be because they deserve it.

"On the field I think we did very well. In fact, I credit our fielding for being a key to today’s win. Our veteran players did an excellent job fielding. Grimard and Muldoon responded nicely to the deep ball threat by gobbling up whatever was hit at them. Gregorio did a great job anchoring short stop, as did A-WOL who I believe converted the only force-out at first in the fifth. As for our non-veteran players, overall, I think they have some work to do, but that’s expected since they have such limited in-game experience.

"As for the other aspects of the game, I think our hitting was productive as our batting line-up worked pretty much the way I expected it to. And our base running was conservative but effective."

Q. Some are saying that your line-up had too many batters. What are your thoughts on this critique?

Depends who you speak to, and the league itself. Some leagues only allow the 10 position players (to bat), plus a "DH" and maybe even an "extra hitter". Others have an "everybody bats" policy, which make it fun for everyone. This league has no formal limit on the number of batters. In fact, the only line-up related rule is that there must be 3 women in the top 10 positions of line-up.

With that said, I don’t think any team ever expects to bat 19 batters in a normal game. When I created the line-up, I set the limit to 16, which was as much as my scorebook would handle. The remaining players were rotated in. Now, do I think this line-up impacted the results of this game? No. The top half of the line-up made about as many outs as the bottom half (9 vs 7) after two iterations.

Overall, having such a long line-up can hurt you. Think about it; if your batting line-up is 19 players long, each batter is going to get fewer at bats. This means your heavy hitters will get fewer chances at the plate. Of course, this argument works in the other direction: a long batting line-up filled with many great hitters will mask weak hitters by giving them fewer at bats. To me, that would be unfair.

Taro shares his experiences about flying in from Toyko just to play in this game. (Wolan)

Q. What are your thoughts on the Racepoint Group lineup?

They had a lot more power than they did last time, that's for sure, especially that guy in the black shirt. I think their players matched us play for play like prize fighters in a heavy weight boxing matching. We managed make a few more plays for the win.

Q. Rumor was circulating that Ryan Huynh would participate in today’s game. Is this true?

I’m the coach and I can tell you that I was not made aware of this rumor until after the game.

Q. Are you concerned about Ron’s performance fielding in today’s game?

No, he’s just rusty. Give him time and he’ll be back to his usual self.

After the press conference, Taro Aiga, who came all the way from Japan just to play in this afternoon game, spoke about his experience: “Well, I did not hit well, but I made a few catches. And I was glad to be here on the day that Verdasys won. So thank you for inviting me.”

“Ya, it’s something that happens only once a year” added Muldoon.

This was followed with a discussion about “Courtesy Belts”. “Let’s not get this confused with chastity belts, which is a totally different thing”, said someone. Coach Wolan commented that while RPG appeared to observe the rule, it was not consistently observed by the new players on Verdasys. “I know all about that rule, Andy” said Allen. “I read about it in one of your bulletins.”

“You mean people actually read those emails?” said a surprised Coach Wolan.

This was followed with a viewer question about score keeping, specifically, “Why is a letter ‘K’ written whenever a player strikes out?” Muldoon fielded this question.

“The letter ‘K’ is used because it is the most pronounced syllable of the word ‘strikeout’. A forward ‘K’ stands for a swinging strike-out. A backwards ‘K’ stands for called or “caught-looking” strike-out. And no Andy, you don’t write SO. Where did you get the idea of writing ‘SO’?”

Leave it to Ruben to find a way to be unhappy during a team win. (Wolan)

After showing Muldoon his score book, Don responded: “That’s bologna. You print-out out your own copies. Or did you buy a misprint edition from the Dollar Store?”

Muldoon and Grimard followed with a discussion about the “guy in the black shirt” in RPG’s line-up. “Every time that guy came up, I had to backup close to the fence” said Muldoon. “It seemed like that guy was making an at bat in every inning.”

The on-field segment concluded as the team agreed to name Stephen Gregorio the “Ramune Walk on Player of the Game”.

So, it looks like the entire team is psyched about the win .. everyone but Ruben Echandy that is. The show ended with a brief interview with Ruben at Verdasys Softball headquarters. “My sources assured me that this afternoon’s game would be canceled. It was suppose to rain and be very muggy. They were wrong. Now I missed the team’s first win of the season. Ruben not happy. Now if you excuse me, I have work to do.”