Sandlot Baseball Game Logs – 8.2023
Sandlot Baseball – an inclusive recreational adult baseball league that has been described as “Little League for Adults” and “baseball mediocrity on the highest level.”
This unofficial association of social baseball is growing rapidly across the country.
I’ve been playing Sandlot since 2018 and writing game logs since August 2023.
8.12.2023 – South Austin Parakeets vs. Austin Drag
@Southeast Metro (Austin) – 10am
Link to instagram post about game.
I know what yall want. Yall want a spiffy, concise Nick Stillman recap, but we don’t have that today so, I’ll give it a shot.
Today was hot and the playing surface was somewhere between Death Valley and South Texas Ranchland. Keith was throwing strikes and the Keets remembered to bring their lumber. Their hard liners weren’t finding gloves and, unfortunately for Dragsters, their swings that drew soft contact didn’t find leather either. They put up some runs. However, we also remembered our bats for a few innings and put together some rallies of our own.
Our defense did complete a few doubleplays and had another opportunity for a third (or fourth?). The Keets’ former college baller, Randy, showed out more in the field than he did at the plate robbing us of a few knocks. They had a big fella, who isn’t a well-experienced or polished player go yard off both Keith and then Rickner. I wouldn’t have expected that fella to put two out in the same game, but– that’s baseball.
How’d The Drag play you ask?
Mike Miller went yard with a no-doubter to Left Center (easily the deepest Jack of the day) and played better at short as the day went on. It’s always a tough position to field, but he settled in and made some great plays in the last 6 innings or so.
Collectively, we all put some great swings on some good pitches while also having the occasional less-than-great swing on some not-so-good pitches, but– that’s baseball.
We lost 17-10. A five-run mercy rule (five-run maximum allowed in every inning other than the final inning) was not in effect and we ran into a tough inning where we gave up 9 runs. Take that inning away and it’s obviously an entirely different game, but– that’s baseball.
To take a step back and get a broader view of the big picture– I successfully did not shit myself (I have been fighting a mean stomach bug or… something).
And to take a further step back and get an even broader view of this team and our game, I enjoyed today far more than the past games in San Antonio and Temple.
It’s not the driving distance. It’s not the end result. It’s simply the experience and history between our two teams (Drag + Keets) and how, when we get down a few runs, we’re helping one another, we’re joking with one another and really feeling like a team. When we’re sort of cruising through recently-formed teams, we kind of feel the opposition’s frustration and the game becomes more about managing ourselves while trying to keep the opposition from getting too cranky when, in the end, we all just want to play baseball.
Aside from the dude who hit two homeruns not having bat control in his backswing (he oddly flung the bat near RJ’s head both times he hit a dinger) and the ump not giving 50/50 calls to the team that was down by a bunch (ahem, The Drag), the game was fairly jovial and light-hearted. You know, the way that grown-ass adults playing a child’s game should be.
Final Score
Keets – 17
Drag – 10
8.19.2023 – Austin Drag vs. Los Slowpokes de San Antonio
@San Antonio – 7pm
Link to instagram post about game.
Two truths were reinforced last night:
-Baseball is a humbling game.
-San Antonio is a strange place.
I know exactly what happened. We all got the same Slowpoke scouting report— “Mostly inexperienced team with about three ballplayers with a legit baseball background.”
Honestly, that kind of scouting report could apply to most Sandlot squads on any given day.
We all arrived sort of/kinda late (between 6:30pm-6:45pm when 6:10pm would’ve been preferable so that we’d have the option to do some infield/outfield warmup, pepper, etc.), but still somehow earlier than 90% of the home/host team.
We all watched our hosts struggle during warmups. And you know what we did? We collectively thought, “this game is. in. the. bag.”
And you know what? I’m mad at someone on this team. Last week I published on this very document that– paraphrasing here– the ump is supposed to give 50/50 calls to the team that is down by “a bunch.” Well, some Dragster must’ve shared this document with the Sandlot Umpire Society [not a real thing] because we had the privilege of competing against both the Slowpokes as well as The Large Man in Baby Blue (TLMiBB).
It’s well documented that I don’t like folks, specifically sandlotters, who publicly and loudly bitch about a Sandlot umpire in a performative way. So it’d be absolutely hypocritical for me to loudly protest an umpire. That said, I’ll give all Dragsters kudos for keeping their in-the-moment comments about how terrible TLMiBB was fairly discreet. We pretty much held our criticisms under our breaths.
That said, in my 5+ years of sandlot ball, I’ve never seen an ump call a more lopsided game.
When Dragsters were at bat, the zone was basically the Stargate Portal.
When a Dragster was on the mound, the zone magically shrunk to the size of a shoebox.
Someone at the Sandlot Umpire Society must’ve decreed a new edict stating “if the majority of the home team shows up late and has fewer than four experienced ballplayers, the home team is awarded a diminutive offensive strikezone AND an incredibly expansive defensive strikezone.”
They call this “homecooking” and boy did we ever get a healthy serving of it?
As far as 50/50 bang-bang plays go– there weren’t many, but TLMiBB correctly called a play at the plate (great play by Stillman, Marc, and RJ) that favored us (much to public and performative dissent from many malcontented Slowpokes). TLMiBB had to return to form however, so he decided to biff a call on a play where a Slowpoke was definitively out on a third-to-first across-the-diamond play. This incorrect call, more or less, led to the only Slowpoke rally.
The following statement is true, accurate, strictly factual— before arriving at the ballpark, I enjoyed two Modelo Especiales in a lovely San Marcos River alcove.
On a purely speculative note, I heard that TLMiBB was spotted knocking down three shrimp cocktails and seven avocado margs at the nearby Puerto Vallarta just before rolling up to The Capitol Park Baseball Complex. You know what they say about hearsay though…
Wait, wait, wait— why was last night a “humbling” experience?
I’m not a tennis guy, but I’ve read that some tennis pros approach the game as though they are not competing against their opponent. They view their opponent as a vessel that provides the opportunity to compete against themselves. The opponent is not an enemy. A tennis pro is simply striving for individual athletic perfection and the opponent makes this pursuit possible.
You hear similar things in other individual sports such as golf, “You’re not competing against an opponent; you’re competing against the scorecard.”
All this philosophical bullshit and criticisms on TLMiBB aside, we collectively didn’t perform offensively the way we’re capable. We scored 10 runs against a MUCH better Keets team last week. We put up 16 runs in five innings against a similarly-skilled SA Dingers team before an active UT Longhorn ballplayer took the mound, pumped gas, ate our lunch, and mowed us down.
It’s all good though. It’s only my humble opinion that we were all a little lethargic and we just assumed that a big rally would just sort of occur naturally… and it didn’t. It was a humbling experience. The pitcher isn’t who we’re competing against. The pitcher only provides us the opportunity to identify a favorable pitch and give it our absolute best swing.
And we just couldn’t string our hits together. TLMiBB did make many of our ABs unnecessarily difficult, but we can still barrel the two pitchers we saw last night even if we were forced to start every AB down 0-2.
I’m already getting pumped about our next offensive explosion. It’s going to happen soon and it’s going to be outstanding. We’re going to bat up and down the lineup and we’re going to work our hands raw with all the consummated high fives.
Wait, wait, wait— why is “San Antonio a strange place”?
I don’t believe that sandlotters wake up every morning with the thought, “I’m going to bring my malcontent attitude to the ballpark today.” Somehow, if a team doesn’t have 3+ years of sandlot experience, the likelihood of that team having four or more malcontents skyrockets.
In the fourth inning or so, the Slowpoke with the worst attitude (Most Malcontented Slowpoke) was awarded first base on a walk because TLMiBB just didn’t feel like calling Steven’s pitches that entered the strikezone as “strikes.” Fascinating. MMS took second on a passed ball. We all took notice that MMP was getting pretty jumpy at 2nd. Steven wisely picked him off. MMP ended up in a pickle. Steven delivered the ball to third base. MMP decides to zag seven feet towards left field in an attempt to evade the tag. Rickner lightly applied tag to the shoulder of MMS. TLMiBB correctly calls MMP out (Thank Christ) signaling that MMS ran out of the basepath.
MMS responded by dropping these verbal gems to the ump, “What the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me?” To which I interjected, “Yall can’t have a problem with this ump. He’s been helping yall out all game.” MMS had some words for me, “Shut the fuck up. Go fuck yourself.”
To MMS’s credit, Stillman later reported that MMS did eventually apologize for MMS’s exhibition of his lousy character.
Second Most Malcontented Slowpoke reaches second base due to an actual walk (unassisted by TLMiBB– I believe our pitcher actually threw four balls before delivering three strikes this time). SMMS advances to second somehow. SMMS attempts to steal third. RJ (catcher) was having none of it, delivering a very strong, knee-high throw that just happened to be about five feet off the bag inside fair territory. It was a great throw, not knocking RJ’s placement, but this throw affected how the tag was going to be applied to SMMS. Since I was up the line a little bit and SMMS employed a surprisingly textbook feet-first slide, I had to tag whatever part of SMMS that I could. It happened to be SMMS’s face. SMMS was not happy about it. He angrily expressed his displeasure to the thirdbaseman, the ump, and then his dugout.
An inning later, a Slowpoke third base coach tried to advocate for SMMS, the attempted thief, and echo his resentment with the tag. I replied with, “who told him to steal third base? Did you? I didn’t. Tags happen.” Sometimes they’re painful.
Now, the majority of The Slowpokes were mild-mannered and/or positive. Big time positive. It wasn’t a team raging with a shit-ton of malcontents, but they were out there and there didn’t seem to be anybody on their squad attempting to reign in shit attitude.
I’ve said it before and I’ll continue saying it, I’d rather lose to teams like the Keets, Gracks, Jards, Cobras, and the like over sometimes getting into angsty business with less experienced “younger” teams. The new addendum is that I really don’t enjoy playing relatively tight games with malcontent teams because it somehow turns some ballplayers into the assholes they were when they were teenagers (and perhaps still are).
Most sandlotters come to sandlot knowing they never even had “Asshole Teenage Jock Years” or that they’ve matured well beyond their asshole teenage jock years. I’m just so goddamned grateful that Stillman dug deep and struck out the the game’s final hitter because MMS and SMMS were on-deck and in-the-hole when the game ended and had one of those fellas somehow managed to hit a walkoff— that would’ve been a difficult pill to swallow.
As it was, we didn’t play our best baseball, it wasn’t pretty, but we got a win.
Sometimes sandlot feels like every participant and spectator are truly valuing their time at the ballpark. Other times, San Antonio sandlot will make you circle the deepest recesses of your mind taking you to the precipice of an existential crisis—
“Why is this the thing we choose to do?”
“What is happiness?”
“Does my glove get to experience the same love I feel?”
Final Score
Drag – 7
Slowpokes – 6
Extra notes:
-Braden and Rickner’s college bar, Showdown (San Marcos), is remarkably still a pretty good spot to tie a few on at.
-Dr. Williams is about the best-damn umpire in San Antonio (the paid ump left with two innings left in the game, Braden’s father finished up as umpire).
-Rickner and RJ dove into the San Marcos River on the way to and from San Antonio.
-Mel and Tyler caught their separate Sunday morning flights.
-Somewhere, TLMiBB is still making terrible calls.
-Somewhere, MMS is still being very malcontent.