The Only Series That Matters: Game 1

I apologize for the long delay in posting over here, but it's been hard to even profile this team right now. Sure, I could blame it on the nervous breakdown I suffered a couple of weeks ago which caused my temporary committal to a medical facility until I was no longer "a danger to myself and others," but that would be disengenuous.

The honest truth is I was just plain bummed.

There's no other way to put it. I was bummed at Major League Baseball's cowardly last-minute decision to "level the playing field" by not allowing the Grizzlies to participate in the postseason this year.¹ Something about "the game has become massively unpopular in several major markets " due to the near quarter century of unquestioned dominance displayed by our Boys in Pink. Those quarters? The decadent East Coast baseball establishment, led by the longtime also-ran sports network, ESPN. ESPN, if you may remember, came on strong in the early 80s, only to be ousted by the juggernaut that was formed when a winning Grizz team prompted a WGN/Lifetime Network merger in 1987. While ESPN still clings to life by duking it out with TBS and FOX for non-Grizzly table scraps every summer and feasting on its monopoly of winter sports like curling and indoor ping-pong, the jealousy felt by the media in the ironically nicknamed "First City" is palpable.

So, their endless and pathetic lobbying has finally found success. On a trial basis, the MLB office has suspended the Grizz from the postseason, citing that they violate Anti-trust legislation. A terrifying precedent to set. Grizzly Manager Skip Essian has retired in disgust, and several players are seriously considering forming their own barnstorming team. Alonso Sorialdo has selflessly offered to bankroll this Globetrotting team from his vast personal fortune,² should the need arise, but most Grizz players are trying to ride this out, and hope that public outcry will be sufficient to get the Pink Train back on the rails in 2009.

However, in a gesture of love for their fans, the Grizz are giving back to the community the only way they know how: by playing baseball at a level not seen outside of the Gods of Olympus.³ The Real World Champions are playing a best of seven against the only team that stands a chance of winning: themselves.

And I was there for Game One last night at the Pad, still in my hospital gown,⁴ to cheer them on!

Though I was hoping for a surprise unveiling of the mythical "40-Therroyo roster⁶" vs. the rest of the Grizz, I was treated to a different, arguably greater experience.

The Grizz had designated two team-members as captainsof each squad:⁷

• Squad A: Third Baseman Extraordinaire and reknowned animal rights activist Ramis Rodriguez
• Squad B: "El Toro del Oro" himself, the always zany starting pitcher Pacho Zapato

The agreement was, just like on a schoolyard, the Grizz Squads would pick each player, one by one until the 40-man roster was split evenly. Ramis won the bat grab after Zapata failed to kick it out of his hand, and selected supersub Marv DelaRosario. Zapato paused for a moment before announcing over the PA at The Pad a single word:

"Finito."

A hush spread over the crowd, as thousands of Grizzheads checked their iPhones for a translation of Zapato's comment. A gasp spread over the same crowd when they realized what he meant.

"Ginormous Z" was challenging the entire Grizz lineup singlehandedly.

An argument ensued as various members of the Grizz lineup attempted to convince Pancho that that was madness. Of course, that was like pouring gasoline on the fire, as Pancho has had a long running bet with Ozzie Guillen and Hugo Chavez as to who is the craziest Venezualan alive.

I could say that cooler heads prevailed, but I would be lying. Eventually Derrick Li and Woodrow Kerrigan managed to talk Z into taking on a catcher, just so the balls wouldn't pelt celebrity umpire Jeremy Piven. Of course, given the choice between rookie phenom Giovanni Solo and seasoned veteran Carlos Negro (Or "Chuck Black" as he's known to his legions of fans), the Z-man made the only choice he could have made.

Mack "Little Big Klusz" Fontegna.

This was a stunning development, as Fontegna has never played the position before. Nor did he fit into either of the catcher's gear (a local little league coach living nearby had to race home to get pads that fit the diminuative infielder-turned-backstop). But just getting Z to agree to have a teammate took 25 minutes, and the lines to every Shenanigan's in the Pad were starting to grow full of hungry and restless Grizzheads.

Finally, the game began in earnest. And what a game! Zapata and "Little Big" took an early lead after Z hit a first inning grand slam off of Canadian newcomer Rick Wardon⁸ that brought in Fontegna and the "ghost runners" on second and third. After that, Wardon settled into a strong series of shutout innings before getting pulled in the seventh.⁹

Meanwhile, Zapato was pitching like a man possessed. He struck out the first 19 batters, despite the fact that he was clearly just aiming his pitches at Fontegna's (admittedly shaking) glove. Then, in the seventh, leadoff man Sorialdo got the first ball into play. It was a line drive comebacker that Z fielded barehanded.

For a lark, Z pitched lefthanded to the next two Grizzlies (Ryne "Ryngo" Therroyo and Derrick Li), striking The Royo out on 5 pitches and beating out a grounder to first by Li. The fact that Pancho only beat Li by a step apparently scared Ginormous Z enough that he switched back to righthanded pitching and gunned down his rival captain in three pitches.

A scoreless and batterless eighth followed, though it was not without heroics as left fielder Rook Jackson (replacing Alonso Sorialdo, who had to rush to a board meeting) made a spectacular diving catch headlong into the Pink Monster. He got up and finished the game, though at the time of my writing it is unclear whether the speech centers of his brain will ever recover from the impact.

Zapata and Fontegna failed to score in the ninth (as Woodrow Kerrigan was playing at his regular postseason levels), stranding a ghost on third and Zapata at first on a groundout. In the ninth inning, the rest of the Grizz turned on the heat. Number 8 hitter, Kotsay Thundudome got the first hit the game for his side (and ended his 4 game mini-slump - the longest of the season), a triple scorching down the right field line.⁹ Pinch hitter Darlyle "Big Possum" Wadd advanced to first after the inexperienced Fontegna dropped strike three - Thundudome would have scored then but, as he stated in the postgame interview, Pancho Zapata stared at him with such rage that he feared for both "his life and the lives of his ancestors" if he left third. It is unsure what this actually means, but Kotsay looked pretty rattled.

Of course, none of this mattered as the now-functionally-retarded Rook Jackson belted a homerun over the very same Pink Monster that had taken a sizable chunk of his prefrontal cortex in the previous inning. Z fumed, Fontegna quaked, and The Royo stuck out on a close fastball on a full count (that umpire Piven originally called a ball until Z stared him down). Derrick Li then hit a combacker at Zapata that might have been an out had the Golden Bull not attempted to field it in his teeth.

The richocheted ball landed in the "visitors" dugout and was ruled a ground rule double by a visibly quivering Piven. This set the stage for the at-bat to end all at-bats: Pancho Zapata vs. Ramis Rodriguez. I would love to give a play-by-play for this AB, but at that exact moment my table number was called at Shennanny North, and I missed the first 8 pitches getting seated. By the time I could locate a jumbotron, it was a full count. And it stayed that way for 37 straight foul pitches. I was already finished with my Tater Nachos before El Hombre Gigantico hung a slider right in Rodriguez's zone. He grooved it all the way to where the old "Eamus Catuli" sign used to be (now a jumbotron devoted to Designing Women reruns)!¹⁰ The crowd erupted, half of them hanging up their cellphones to applaud, the other half calling friends to see if they got on TV.

It was a madhouse! With just one game down, this series is already interesting. While the underdog Zapata squad lost, it was a nailbiter, and I think any of the local media calling for a sweep are premature.

I for one, am just glad that the Grizz aren't letting a little thing like not making it to the postseason end their season.

Here's hoping everyone tunes in for game 2, and whether you're rooting for squad A or Squad B - Go Grizz!

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1. An event that annoyed me so much I could hardly even enjoy watching Boise get leveled by the Tampa Bay Devils (wise move to drop Ray from their name, as it was clearly cursing them).
2. The recent crash has hardly affected Lonzie's bottom line at all - alert as always, Sorialdo had closed a crafty series of deals days before anyone else was aware of the cracks in the market. In fact, his net worth rose considerably in the first few unstable days. Some economists think his personal pledge of 800 billion to bail out the banking industry is the only thing keeping consumer confidence from plummeting.
3. Who, strictly speaking, just played Rounders.
4. Hot pink, of course.⁵
5. I did remove the IV stent. I'm not a freak.
6. Sadly (as was told later by a friend who works in the Michael Kors boutique on the Pad's Mezzanine level - a favorite haunt of fashion conscious owner "Smilin" Sam Zeeck), this is still not within the realms of current medical science.
7. In the absence of "Skip" Essian, these captains would act as managers as well.
8. It's been said before, but it bears repeating: the man deserves some respect for surviving the rather harsh hazing that all players receive that arrive in Chicago from the AL (or as the Grizz nicknamed it after their starting lineup won the all-star game for the fifth straight year, "the Sissy Circuit"). Few players can throw a shutout after having the pinky on their non-throwing hand broken (if the player cries, it's back to the minors - club tradition) - but the "Shawshank Redeemer" is as hard as they come.
9. I found out in today's paper that Ramis Rodriguez, as acting manager, pulled him because setup man Carlo Marmot wanted to try a "really, really neat idea for a new trick pitch." This later turned out to be just a four finger fastball, only really, really fast.
10. To be honest, it probably wouldn't have been more than a single, but without any fielders behind him, Z had a devil of a time getting it to Fontegna at third.
11. Reputedly a favorite diversion of longtime Grizzly legend Grant Madison during his off days.