Proximity Swingers v Spitalfield Meercats (23rd July 2008)

Proximity at the heady heights on top of the league went into Weds game with an air of confidence, even though lacking skipper Becs and any ringers (who needs them ….we thought). Our opponents The Meercats seemed a good squad and also had a captain (captain anal) who was a little precious about the rules (which will always makes a game more fun!).

Our Warm up began well with some good practice hits from everyone including Lou Barber who shyly picked up the bat asking for pointers and saying ‘I played rounders once’ then proceeded to hit the ball over everyone heads (I’m not sure who’s face Lou was picturing on the ball but I pity the fool!).

Game On: Whatters steps up to the plate, deciding to waste no time he hits the 1st ball and sends it packing into the outfield and what we thought would be surely a home run…. But when rounding 3rd base his feet decided to go in a different direction than the rest of his body, but a beautiful hit by Coach got Andy home for our one run of the 1st innings.

Onto the 2nd innings, the score at 1-1. A great home run from Delaney and some mighty fielding by Fordy and Coach, Fordy catching a real stinger shot which left his hand throbbing and he had to resort to holding a cold beer or two to numb the pain. All in all the 2nd innings end with Proximity 2-1 up, and we’re feeling good.

Now the next three innings see some things of beauty, such as two more (YES TWO MORE) home runs from Delaney, runs from Fordy, Rob T, Merkin, Fish, Christy and Pebble
And wonderful catches by Whatters and Merkin, also good fielding by The Power………… but then there were also some things we’d truly like to forget… like the 14 people they got home and when captain anal called Pebble out for hitting the ball incorrectly! (not sure what that’s all about!)

A beer on one side and a lady on the other but Kieran was still focused on the home plate.

Top of the 6th inning The Meercats still to bat and we’re 13-15 down, the time to buckle down and kill these jokers off….. OK that was the idea, a peach of a hit from a Meercat batter sends a low hard shot towards Claire ‘The’ Power…. Now for people who’ve never played softball before the sport does mirror baseball in many ways one of those being you get a big leather padded glove to catch the very hard ball with… so back to the game and the ball is hurtling toward Claire, she runs to intercept and puts out a…. shin to stop the ball! Now I was 25 meters away and I heard an awful crack sound which made me wince and nearly drop my beer (Just nearly). Claire feel to the floor and had to be helped off the field to seek medical advice from the beer squad, which was obviously to have a beer.

One lady down and those crafty Meercats get 8 people home ending the innings at 13 – 23 to The Meercats (one more innings to go).

Now this is the point I’d love to say we then found our footing and romped home to a huge victory….. sadly this is not what happened, the fight back started well with Fordy, Christy and Whatters getting home then captain anal reared his ugly head and tried to deny a run to 1st base, pointing out some unknown rule about having to be called Colin, have three legs and having to walk like an Egyptian before you can get to 1st base! At which point a few Swingers lost their cool, Jeers from the beer squad then Delaney shouting ‘What the £$%&, you $%&£’ and then the lovely bruised Power shouting ‘for £$&£s sake it’s only a &%$£ing game!’ this was all too much for captain anal who crawled back under his rock and didn’t say another word for the rest of the game.

The game ended 16 – 23 to those bloody Meercats.

Your Swingers last Wednesday were;

Gals
Claire (The Power)
Christy A.
Lou Barber
Claire (Pebble) Stones

Guys
Whatters
Marcus
Delaney
Merkin (Erskine)
Fish
Rob T
Ritchie ‘Coach’
Fordy

Beer Squad/Scorer/First Aider
Simmo

Man of the Match

Pebble aka Claire Stones. Not only did she get past 1st base, she got 2 invaluable runs in the process.