"Boldly Going Where No Bear Has Gone Before"
Faithful Cap Readers, usually this time brings us a season wrap up but I am happy to inform you this is not the case. For the first time in team history we are forging ahead into new ground because not only did we eliminate our round 1 opponent (again!), but we decided to put ourselves 1 up in round 2 completeing a two game sweep. One game away from playing for all the Tribbles. "Number 1 - make it so."
Round 1:
Bears 14
Vanguard 4
"The History Game": This match-up was so wrought with Deja Vu I expected Denzel himself to ump home plate. After being crushed just a few weeks earlier by our old purple buddies all we heard was, "You're not taking us out this year." Sorry boys. History has indeed repeated itself and for the second time in two years, we have eliminated Vanguard from post season competition. A brilliant game of back and forth whose complexity changed on a phenomenal sliding right field catch (from newly aquired and future rookie
Dan "The General" Lee) that lead to an absolute unloading of offense around the sixth inning capped by a demoralizing grand slam from
Jose "Phi GRAND Slamma Jamma" Lora, that required landing clearance at JFK, and finished off by an off balance, unassisted double play by
Scotty "50 Takes" Foster .
Round 2 - Game 1:
Bears 3
Dub Squad 1
"The Put Your Balls Out There Game": Facing the number one team in the league it was time to forget what we had just done. This was new territory for us because we hadn't faced an opponent of this caliber this deep ever. Normally that would be enough to rattle anybody's saber but not #44. With our offense jolting the 'Sqad alive by jumping out to an early 3-0 lead, Bennett "Throwfax" Beckenstein kept them scoreless until the sixth where they scratched out one run. But it wasn't enough. Although our offense didn't add any insurance, brilliant pitching coupled with flawlessly executed defense was enough to give us the edge.
We have officially gone where "no Bear has gone before".
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The Positives: Soup to nuts to it was all spectacular. Lock down defense in all aspects of the field and game one featured some amazing hitting from our middle order.
Jeff "Eat It Brunswick" Fennelli was a force to be reckoned with. So much so it was visibly noticable in body language and comments every time he stepped up to the plate.
The pitching was fantastic in both tilts and Bennett had two of the best games I have ever seen. That ball belonged on Dancing With the Stars it was so fucking good.
Defensively we were pretty much inpenetrable. Everyone did their job beautifully and once again a hearty thanks to Dan for not only filling a valuable spot in lieu of injuries, but for playing the position beautifully in some tough (sun blinding) conditions.
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And now it's time for the Bears "Geico Playoff Round 1 MVP Award"!
The 'Cap is handing out MVP's for each round and then a Player Of The Year will be determined at season's end.
Round 1 was a complete team effort from warm up to the last inning of game 2. Therefore, it's really hard to pick a certain one individual when so many did all the little things a team needs to do to accomplish what we did. With that said, there are three folks I would like to give this to as co-winners and they are as follows:
Bennett "Throwfax" Beckenstein: It starts on the mound and when that falters, bad things happen. Nothing faltered in his performance. Anywhere.
Jose "Phi GRAND Slamma Jamma" Lora: Kept that head down and that swing smooth and basically ate whatever last glimmer of hope Vanguard had. Plus, his smile is damn contageous.
Jefferey "Eat It New Brunswick" Fennelli": The consistancy of the hitting in both games (and it was fully acknowledged you were robbed of another HUGE hit in game 2) was absolutely amazing. Please keep hating your new location and continue to take it out on the rest of our opponents.
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It's time for another episode of
"Overheard/Thoughts at the Bar
Thoughts:
1: Holy shit. Did that just happen?
2: Buddy can't stop grinning.
3: Don't fuck with Karma. Hello 80th!!!
4: Buddy can't stop grinning.
5: Bear Groupies: Oh boy.
6: The General: Big debut's on both "fields".
7. Buddy can't stop grinning.
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Other Business: I will let you know when we play the next game of round 2.
NEXT GAME:
TBA
Gentlemen, I personally could not be prouder of what we accomplished. With that said, we're not done yet. We put ourselves in a fantastic spot to make a run for it all so lets use it to our advantage and pick up right where we left off.
Bears on three...
- James Buddy "We're Really Here??" Villani
