The New Frontiersmen may have lost MVP-candidate Matt “Marquis de” Sadewitz to a shoulder separation, but the team hasn’t missed a beat so far.
Perhaps that’s because rosters have been depleted on the Lobos as well. The team, lacking its own all-stars Jesse “Sportz” Alexander and Jackson “Kate” Bosworth, fell in this heavyweight matchup, 2–1.
“We’ve been playing together long enough to know exactly what each person on the team is good at when at the plate, and we built a strong order to maximize that,” said Sadewitz, who coached from the sidelines.
It wasn’t the hitting that won this ballgame, though. A Lobos error in the first inning and another in the fourth led to both Frontiersmen runs before the Lobos rallied with one run in the bottom of the fifth.
But Lobos shortstop-sub Jesse “The Comeback” Sullivan, who retired from league play last year, was thrown out at home in an alert play by Frontiersman Jelmer “Showtime Jr.” Steenhuis, who lived up to his nickname.
Lobos all-star Neil “Wheelz” Rabinowitz made the decision to move Brian “Futurama” Frye to right field and plug Sullivan into shortstop, whose struggled in the first inning.
“[Sullivan’s] rust showed, as his first inning error and fifth inning base running blunder were the differences of the game,” said Rabinowitz. “He was solid otherwise with big kicks for us late in the game.”
The plucky plaid players of the New Frontiersmen now rank fourth in the league.
Earlier in the day, league power Never Scared bounced back with two impressive wins, overruling the People’s Court, 8-1, and demolishing the Wrecking Crew, 5-0, after two surprising losses last week.
As second-ranked Never Scared, 10-3-1, solidifies its play for a grinding stretch run through the regular season, third-ranked Crucial Taunt washed out Licensed to Thunder, doing what it does best — beating weaker teams — on its way to a 9-3-1 record.
Commissioner Kevin Dailey isn’t sleeping on the reeling Thunder just yet, whose talented roster includes Wendy “House Wine” Gallo, Kirk “Cameron” Wells, and Rob “Bobby” Roberts, could get hot at any weekend.
“If that team is full strength, I wouldn’t want to play them in the playoffs,” said Dailey. “They’re a Gonzaga-like team.”
In other games, 11th-ranked Drinkers with a Kicking Problem attacked its kicking problem not through drinking but through solid fielding, clipping The Divine Sisterhood of the Sacred Bleeding Heart, 4-3, while the Dolls Kicking Balls notched another win grounding the Space Cadets.
Dolls all-star kicker Emily “Shades” Corkhill believes her team is ready for a turnaround in the second half of the season.
“I don’t have any evidence to back that up but I think we’re going to be more spirited,” said Corkhill. “There’s only one way for us to go and that’s up.”
And the People’s Court bounced back after its earlier loss to Never Scared by salvaging a 7-7 tie with Zeus’ Beard in the night’s most entertaining game. Led by Courtney “People’s Courtney” Danielson, People’s Court staged an unexpected comeback to add a run in the bottom of the fifth in a game that went back and forth the whole day.
“It was a fair game,” said People’s Court’s Stu “Kabbalah” Kabakoff. “We’ll take it. One-two-three hung jury!”
One lingering question of the season concerns Sugar Tits!, the controversially named, floundering team. At 4–11, Sugar Tits! is down near the bottom of the league.
“Sugar Tits!?” mused one regular. “They stink. That’s the bottom line.”
