Catfish Nation: It was a rough season opener for the Catfish. The B(iological) E(ngineering) Natural Killers consisted mainly of one beefcake after another, smashing the ball over the fence and terrorizing the tennis players on the other side. Still, as is our wont, we had piles of fun times.
Two rookies joined us, and they shone and sparkled in the Friday late afternoon sun: Katie "The Most Personable of Personages" Persons, and Jonathan "The Perfesser" Nedeau. (We hear he's got some book larnin' under his belt.) The Perfesser pulled a neat trick at 3rd base, pulling way into left-center field to make a stunning catch and thwart one of the BENK's numerous lefties; he also got on base with some solid hits. KP the Personable won us over at shortstop and 3rd, and she says she will continue to play shortstop for us so long as the pigs are flying and heck is frozen over. We are hoping that rookie Jim “Hungry Like DeWolf” DeWolf will be joining us in the near future.
Other highlights: Kate “The Scalder” Elwell, née “The Scalder” Caldwell, was pitching perfectly. Johnny Tslammin' Tsai scored our first run and also had a lovely double (not to mention his many fantastic plays at 1st, where he proved he's willing to stretch like Gumby to get those outs for the Fish). The 4th inning defensively belonged to Marc "M Lo" Lowenthal, who single-handedly made all the outs himself, catching fly balls and line drives like a frog catches flies. Savagely Savage Chrstine Savage was robbed of some truly stunning hits, and Ryan "The Pickler" Picazio had some great catches out in center field. Jon "Butters" Elwell, Rich "That Pesky Pole" Wladkowski, Evan "The Beast" Mauser, and Alexa "The Perplexer" (who did indeed perplex the BENKs with her baserunning skillz) also shone, with terrific plays in the outfield and solid hitting.
If we shone so much, you may ask, why was the final score BENKs 22, Catfish 4?
I would say there are a few reasons for this discrepancy. One is that we were missing some key players. Katie "Hellie Dawg" Helke Dokshina, it turns out, has a Hellie Puppy in the oven! So we had to relegate her to scorekeeping. We swaddled her up good in bubble wrap and set up a row of backpacks and bags in front of her for protection. We will miss her this season at 3rd, but given that she has a little Catfish-to-be to think about, we think this sacrifice is worth it. Papa-to be Greg The Menace Dokshin was away at a conference, learning biological secrets that will help us to defeat the BENKs in the future. John “JC Superstar” Costello is on the DL with a sore back (which he arguably brought on himself by going golfing with Josh Beckett and eating too much fried chicken, but still, we hold no grudges, we only want him to be healthy). David “The Weisenheimer” Weininger, also out with a troubled back. James “Scrappy Scraps” Lynch is also on the DL with some tricky shoulder issues, and we missed his barefoot flight around the bases. Jose "Hot Stuff" Herrero, also on the DL, recovering from surgery to his knee. Matthew “The Baffler” Abbate was on the “I have 3 kids who are busier than Barack Obama and I need to drive them around” list. Erin F-Bomb Hasley was on the “oh no, we play FRIDAYS? But I already made plans that cannot be broken!” list, and was out and about wining and dining friends who were in from out of town. (We can only hope that some f bombs were dropped in honor of the Fish’s catastrophic loss.)
But perhaps the deeper reason for our falling short is this: We Catfish have a little thing we like to call Tradition. And Tradition tells us to start off slow, even one might say somewhat pathetically, and then slowly, stealthily build up steam, like a gathering storm, until we are a raging school of furious, snorting, wild Catfish, taking down everyone in our path. That is our plan for the rest of the season, and we do hope you join us for that wild and crazy ride.
Next game: this Friday against the Koch Blockers, on astrotruf field 2, at 5:30.
(Note: The Beast Mauser has kindly typed up a game analysis of our opener, available at http://impenetrableblogoffish.blogspot.com/.)
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