The Fifth Ward Weebies and Secret 9 faced off Wednesday evening under the lights at the gorgeous St. Roch Park ball field concluding a previously tied game from earlier in the season with the final S9 (4) – 5WW (1), and a 9-inning makeup game. Jay Lapin smashes a home run and S9 earned an early-game cushion with a 3-0 lead, and they held it for the majority of the game. Weebies strand the bases loaded a couple of times, and scored 1 run late, but couldn’t produce any more offense, and S9 solidifies the win late-game with a multi-run rally. 5WW (1) – S9 (11).
With the two wins to S9 and the two losses to 5WW, S9 move to 4-5 and 5th place; 5WW are winless on the season 0-8. Fifth Ward Weebie pray for them.
Week 9 Recap
Hey hey hey, baseball on Sunday!
Behold the beauty of CSR pitcher David Dekay’s submarine delivery and the slightly more conventional but effective pitching style of Parleaux’s Kelton Castillo.
12:00 You could have bet on Crete Street Riot, and made a lot of money if they won, but they didn’t. Kevin O’Sullivan celebrates a birthday and breaks his pinky finger. Parleaux wins it. CSR (1) – Par (9)
2:30 One of these days we’re all going to agree what 2.5 hours, minimum 7 innings means. I have no idea what happened in this game, but it was close, and I think Rougarou ran away with it in the last inning. Rou (5) – S9 (4)
5:00 The Blues wanted the True Blue Cup back. They got it by clobbering the Pelicans. Pels (1) – Blues (16)
True Blue Cup Record: Blues (2) – Pelicans (1).
Week 8 Recap
With two impending Hurricanes/Tropical Storms, we were treated to a nice cloudy day with a subtle breeze. A great day for baseball.
12:00 The Blues face off against the MSBL-player bolstered Rougarou. Ben “Ole Hickory” Hickey returns to the mound* with his signature off-speed style and baffles the formidable and hard-hitting Blues with the support of a stellar defense. The blues are able to load the bases at the end but get caught stealing at home to end it. Blues (4) – Rou (5)
2:30 CSR hopped onto a first-inning lead, but S9 breaks ahead in the third with a four-run rally. CSR chips away with one run an inning in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th to tie it 5-5 in the 5th. Ultimately, S9’s persistent bats won out, as they tacked on another 5 runs in the 6th and 7th. CSR mounted a late-game comeback with 3 runs in the 8th, but needed at least 5 to continue the game. S9 (10) – CSR (8)
5:00 For a moment there, Parleaux looked a little out of their element batting against Weebies ace Cam and with the Weebies bats alive. But Parleaux ultimately find their stride, and poke holes in the Weebies defense to rack up 7.The records indicate otherwise, but this was a competitive game—the state of the league is strong. Par (7) – 5WW (2)
*Yes, we have an actual mound now courtesy of the league’s own Nicholas Schmidt and several other volunteers who assisted with construction and transportation of this behemoth to the field. Hurray for gravity-assisted pitching!
Captions
1 – Rougarou batter Andy Gross takes a walk from Blues pitcher Shane Vitrano
2- Shane Vitrano strikes out Matt Morrin
3- Zach Ziemba of the Rougarou watches a ball for an RBI walk bringing in Marc Oddo
4- Ben Hickey issues a walk to Blues founder Alex Thompson
5- Ole Hickory produces an easy in-field pop-out
6- Seth Matthews of S9 makes solid contact with an opposite field shot that is handled by CSR’s outfield
7- CSR’s Q grounds out to Miles Tepper on a pitch from S9’s Jay Lapin
8- The Weebies defense handle a center-field shot from Parleaux coach Johnny “Baseball” Bartlett
9- Weebies pitcher Cam strikes out Parleaux’s Brad Rosenblat
10, 11 – Parleaux pitcher Chris Shinaberry with a couple of Ks.
Pitch Sequence Episode 4 – The Manifesto Part 1
In the Spring of 2017, Gabriel Goldstein, one of the founding members of the People’s Baseball League wrote a manifesto. This manifesto was meant to be inspiring. Something to live up to. Soon after writing the manifesto, Gabriel left the country for two years on a coddiwomple that would take him to South America. For a brief time he came back to the league in the Fall of 2019. In this episode, I ask Gabriel how are we doing in terms of living up to the manifesto?
This is part 1 of a two part episode initially recorded on March 25, 2020. You can find Gabriel’s travel blog, The Great Southern Migration here: https://medium.com/the-great-
Week 6 Recap
Yo! New schedule, same great league. We’re still out here, playing ball on Sundays.
Yesterday:
12:00 – Crete Street Riot makes their return, and the Pelicans continue to seek new levels of run differential. Comandante beans three batters, CSR pulls the ole hidden ball trick once again, and the Pels spent the rest of the game seeking revenge… they got it. Pels (26) – CSR (3).
2:30 – A classic matchup, Blues v. Weebies. The proverbial son v. father, and oh how the son has progressed. Weebies rue the day they let Alex Thompson away (I mean, just look at that chest hair). Blues (8) – Fifth Ward Weebies (1)
5:00 – This was an exciting game of baseball between last season’s championship contenders with many lead changes, a lot of great hitting, and the return of two notable players. Secret 9 (7) – Parleaux (9).
Midweek Update – Two Makeup Games
Tuesday, August 4th, 5:30 PM, Gormley Field – The Fractured say farewell with a 4-0 win against the Fifth Ward Weebies in a makeup game. With more players rejoining the league, the Fractured will… fracture themselves back into two teams: Crete Street Riot and Rougarou.
Wednesday, August 5th, 7:30 PM, St. Roch Park – Secret 9 hosted the Pelicans in a mid-week showdown under the lights at St. Roch Park, and boy was it a doozy. The heart of the S9 batting order hit around to jump to an early lead in the bottom of the 1st 3-0. The Pelicans defense successfully shut down S9 for the rest of the game despite S9’s ability to put a lot of runners on base. Pels scored 2 In the 4th inning off a double from Hagen Curl. Top 5, Pelican runners on 2nd and 3rd. S9 intentionally walked leadoff hitter, Charley Hession, loading the bases and bringing Kelley Engman to the plate, who proceeded to hit a 2RBI single, allowing her husband Braden Piper to score the go-ahead run. S9 (3) – Pels (4).
Week 5 Recap
After last week’s rainout, yesterday provided a weird day of baseball for the Peoples Baseball League, Sunday, August 2, 2020.
12:00 – Everything seemed to start out normally with a good-spirited game between the Blues and The Pelicans until the bottom of the 4th inning when violent lightning began striking all around the field. Heavy rain followed in the top of the 5th, and the teams agreed to call the game, and put it in the books with 4 complete innings played. Bayou St. John Blues (2) – Pelicans (3).
2:30 – With Gormley field awash in puddles, Parleaux swiftly drove their players home, and members of the Fractured turned into hydrologists and frantically tried to figure out how to extract water from mud to turn it back into dirt. Unable to make water not wet, they resolved to play baseball in the grassy outfield where there was no mud, and it looks like they had a pretty good time. The Kronenberg Eephus returned, and I saw a guy run into a tree in left field, but I think he’s OK. Fractured (9) – Fractured (1)
6:30 – After a week of taunting each other on Instagram, a field-change, and two revised start times the Weebies and Secret 9 finally got to settle the score… Or did they? Don’t ask me how, but Weebie Mike and Commish Schmidt convinced (ie. tricked) Phil into agreeing that the game doesn’t count, even though both teams showed up and appeared to have (semi)-adequate subs. So we saw yet another game that just didn’t matter at all—and it was a pretty good one. Weebies got an early lead after walking in a run. S9 took it back, then the Weebies took it back, then Jason Sorbet launched a multi-run homer over the super-tall left field fence, and the game was pretty much over. But you know, doesn’t matter anyway. Secret 9 (8) – Fifth Ward Weebies (4)
Pictures available here!
Week 3 Recap
Another week of PBL Baseball in the books!
12:00 – A light rain cleaned off the Weebies who were in need of a shower anyway. Parleaux wins it. Is this the start of a curse? The curse of the Thompsino? A punishment for trading away the great Alex Thompson to form his own team? Time will tell. Fifth Ward Weebies (2) – Parleaux Beer Labs (6)
2:30 – The Pelicans walloped on the Fractured with large freshly caught fish, but too bad so sad, they didn’t have enough players at game time, so it’s a forfeit. If this game taught us anything, it’s that nothing matters, and pitchers should never cut off throws to home. Fractured (4) – Pelicans (13)
5:00 – Hot off last week’s shutout, S9 got shutout by the even hotter Blues who can now boast 2 wins in a row. Don’t call it a win streak… yet. Secret 9 (0) – Blues (8).
Week 2 Recap
Your Week 2 Results in The People’s Baseball League Summer/Fall 2020 Heat-Stroke/Coronavirus Season (Now with masks!). All teams sit tied for second with one win and one loss a piece… except Parleaux who are undefeated, and the Weebies who are winless. If you weren’t there, you didn’t get to enjoy “feels like” temps hovering around 118 degrees fahrenheit while inhaling your own tobacco-juice breath inside a mask. It was great. 94% would recommend playing baseball in 94% humidity.
12:00 – The Fractured used their special power, “Shiny Shards!” but apparently didn’t stand a chance with Secret 9’s Jay Lapin throwing 14 strikeouts and a shutout. The Fractured (0) – Secret 9 (6)
2:30 – I’m so sad I wasn’t there to witness it, but please read the following as if I were a Mike Shannon-esque broadcaster over some AM radio waves:
“Holy Shitballs, The Blues have done it! They have broken the curse! The Blues Win it! You heard that right folks, The Bayou St. John Blues win!” It took them a season and a game, but The Blues finally walk off the field victorious, and the Weebies will forever live on as the team that let them do it. Bayou St. John Blues (4) – Fifth Ward Weebies (3)
5:00 – For a few innings there, it looked like The Pelicans had a chance, but 4-2 pretty quickly turned in to 8-2. The Pels managed to avoid a single strikeout, but whaddya know, Parleaux won. Pelicans (2) – Parleaux (8)
Opening Day Recap
The People’s Baseball League returned to their roots at the sandlot of City Park in the shadows of Tad Gormley Stadium, an overcast day with a 90% chance of rain—the baseball gods beat up the rain gods this time, and there occurred 3 games of baseball, and a home-team sweep:
Noon saw the Bayou St. John Blues hunting for their first “official” win, but the newly minted Voltron-team, The Fractured (born from shards of CSR and Rougarou) had other plans.
Blues (0) – Fractured (7)
2:30. A hitting-heavy game between the Pelicans and Weebies that might almost have been confused for a PBL inaugural season game had the Weebies not been wearing brand new threads—they were so excited about their new clothes, that they forgot to score runs.
Weebies (2) – Pelicans (10)
5:00. A rematch of last year’s championship game, the perennial all-star Parleaux Beer Labs hosted the insurgent, well-practiced Secret 9. We all turn to Secret 9 to find the answer to the question on everyone’s mind, “Does Parleaux have any weakness?” and the resounding answer: “No.”
S9 (0) – Parleaux (5)
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