Red heads seem to come in the fair skinned, quiet type or the wacky baseball type.
Full moons tend to produce odd behavior in certain people. Just ask a policeman or school principal.
So I wasn't too surprised as Full Moon Friday approached when I saw a red headed, left handed baseball player launch himself like a javelin towards second base at the North-Springfield game. And like a javelin, he stuck in the mud with his legs sticking up in the air.
As you can imagine, the North Eugene player, Dillon Hudson, was mighty sore from his "javelin" slide. The umps called a lengthy time out to see if he was all in one piece, and finally Dillon carried on from second base. After the game, coaches Nicholsen and Haxby tried to convince me that Dillon's unusual slide was just some leftover energy from playing on wet artificial turf over Spring Break. The coaches said the guys were having fun on the wet turf and sliding twenty feet or more, like they were on a Slip-N-Slide, sometimes going right by the bags. I said, "No way, if Dillon impaled himself on artificial turn like that, he would have torn a hole in it, and North would have had to pay to repair it."
Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. The speedy Hudson is an entrepreneur.
Hudson must not be a loony-lefty after all. He's a smart business guy. His business cards say "Slide with Style". Anyway, after that performance I just had to go back to Swede on the totally Full Moon Friday and watch Hudson slide. Sure enough, he pulled off some pop up slides with flair, but I didn't see my favorite, the 'javelin'. However, I left early, so maybe he pulled it off one more time....
RPI, District Standings and Pitching Match-Ups
You all know by now that my 9 team MWL league standing is a hoax. There won't be a 9 team MLW champion crowned, mainly because there won't be a complete double round robin among all teams. The 6A teams won't be playing Marshfield, while all of the 5A MWL teams will. And there won't be any pressure for the 6A MWL teams to reschedule games against the 5A MWL teams. So, who knows how many MWL games will be played.
But there's pride out there and who doesn't want to know who the best team is among the old MWL group? That's why I'm still tracking the nine teams. And we can all calculate percentages -- right?
5A MWL Standings. Ironically the 5A standings don't really count for much. A team can win the league, but get a lower seed for the playoffs because of a lower RPI. This has happened in other sports this school year.
6A Special District Standings. These standings count for quite a bit. The top three finishes in SD6 (Sheldon, South, Thurston, Grant, Lincoln, Redmond) get an automatic berth into the 32 team bracket. The bottom three league teams play a play in game to get to the round of 32. ANDDDD.... it's possible that a team that wins a play-in game gets a higher seed than an automatically placed team because the play-in winner has a higher RPI than the automatic team. Don't you just love it...
But worst of all, the RPI driven world with Special Districts is messing up awesome pitching match ups in our local area. By all rights I should have seen Joe Schindler and Andrew Moore face up last Friday. In a way, they did.... at shortstop. (Moore won this one with a stellar defensive day at short and slapped the ball around quite a bit at the plate.) I didn't get to see the dream match up because South coach Chris Vermeer wisely held back Schindler for a next day Special District league counting game in Portland.
MWL fans usually see two or three true studs pitching league games in a year, and you get a couple of head to head matches. I'm lucky, because I don't follow one school, so I can choose to see great match ups when ever I want.
But this year, my goodness. Moore, Schindler, Lessel, Nielsen, and Watson were all potential or proven upper shelf starters before this season began and they have delivered as hoped. (Three of these men are juniors) Then you've got Waggoner, Molzahn, and Evans who all have the ability to throw sterling games and certainly have at times. So we should be seeing a ton of great head to head match ups, but it's not going to happen often because of those weird Thursday/Saturday Special District games. Let's hope the leagues can work out something else next year. Schindler, Nielsen, Watson, Molzahn and Evans will all be back and I haven't even waded into some of the really good number two's and relievers who will return.
That rant leads me to think of some of my blogs over the past few years about how the programs and facilities have been improving locally and we have the hardware to prove it. State Champs - Thurston '09, North '10. Runner-ups Churchill '07, Thurston '08
Thoughts Week of Apri 1 - 7
Marshfield. Better than their 0-7 recored indicates. Marshfield's Doug Molzahn pitched a great game against Willamette last Thursday. The Pirates had a tidy 2-1 lead after three and a half innings, but Willamette's bats got hot for just one inning, and the Pirate ship was down 7-2. The Pirate defense was good except for a few critical overthrows of cutoff men in the big six run Wolverine fourth.
Willamette. 3-0 in league with wins over Marist, Marshfield and Springfield. Next up... Churchill and North Eugene. The Wolverine offense took a big hit when they lost the torrid hitting of Cole Hathaway to a broken wrist. Someone has to step up to replace Cole or Willamette's pitching staff is going to have to suck it up.
Thurston. I don't want to get accused of writing too much and too favorably about the Colts (like I get accused of writing too much about Marist in football). However, the record speaks for itself. Thurston is 8-0, has beaten MWL teams 12 straight games and has great balance among their hitting, speed, defense and pitching. Plus, I've written a lot about the new 'soft' bats. That was before Watson and Goddard jacked out back to backers.
Sheldon. Back to the wall in the 6A Special District. An early season 5 inning 2-1 loss to the Axemen and last Friday's 5-4 loss to Thurston really hurts. The Irish only get one league counting game against Grant, Lincoln and Redmond, so they better sweep those and pick off either South or Thurston the next time around. I don't know what the tiebreaker is for the bizzaro 6A Special District, but I don't think Sheldon wants to be tied up for third.
North. The last thing I wrote about the Highlanders was how anemic their offense was. Then they score 12 in back to back games. Go figure. Key game with Willamette this week, but North doesn't have Churchill until the following week.
South. These guys are sneaking up on people. It didn't help the Axemen to have four games in three days, starting with a thrilling 3-2 win over Churchill. That was okay, but South kind of punted against North in a 12-2 loss on Friday, before winning a very key league game in Portland Saturday against Lincoln. South closed the week with a 10-9 loss to Lincoln in the back end of a double header, but the game didn't count in the Special District standings. I really like South's potential. I think they have the talent and they just need experience and games under their belts. If the Axemen continue to develop their number two starter and primary reliever, then South might go deeper in the playoffs than anyone is thinking right now.
Churchill. Some people are thinking, 'Well, the Lancers are only 4-4 on the season.' I'm thinking, "Yeah, but...' Three of those losses were in Arizona. Back at the ranch in Oregon, the Lancers pounded Siuslaw 15-5 for the Vikings only loss in 7 games. The Lancers own a 7-5 win over Sheldon and barely lost to South 3-2. I haven't seen Churchill this year, but I hope to tonight at Willamette (Monday). I'm still confident that it'll be Churchill or North for the 5A MWL title with Willamette knocking on the door trying to be let in.
Marist and Springfield. When I go to a ballpark, I usually have my eye on the players. But when I watch these two teams this year, I've got my eye on the head coaches. How they approach their newbies after graduating a ton of seniors is going to determine whether they develop this year, next year, or never.....
MWL in College and Pros
Thanks to those who have helped update and correct my lists. I only know of one player in the pros this year. Let me know if you know of others. Plus there's a nice article about Dan Straily's journey to the pros.
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