Correction: Orange Is the New Dafonte*

*and how many times have I relied on the “Orange Is the New Black” trope? Don’t ask.

Does anyone know how to lay the bases out at Valley Tech?  The outside edge of the bag goes along the baseline with the rest of the bag in fair territory, not the inside of the bag with the rest in foul territory.  Never mind that: does that field have no foul territory or what?  I wonder how many kids hurt themselves chasing after foul balls and falling over that parapet in front of the dugout.  No matter, visiting players shouldn’t swing from the dugout roof.

Valley Tech’s messed up ball field pales in comparison to today’s big reveal: Dafne Dafonte was the second driver!  How else would she be going to prison and seeing Del?   Oh wait, prisons aren’t co-ed?  Never mind.  My head spins with the crazy schemes Dafne could’ve cooked up to make this happen.  Maybe she secretly lusted after True Standish, wanted Boo Radley killed off and, disguised as Shelly from Selasky’s Supper Club, got Del Bader drunk so he would cause death.  Hey, it’s not that much more far-fetched than the idea of Del agreeing to speak to some nosy kid from his son’s high school’s newspaper in order to somehow clear his name.

Meanwhile, another Trumpet staffer, having picked up one of Holly Dobbs’ left-behind wigs, amuses herself with some newfound gadgetry.  Photography/videography buffs, help me out please: isn’t she wearing a steadicam harness?  Are those designed to work with 1960s-era film cameras like the one she’s holding?

metapost: Ned, Tim and the rest of the TWIM community have taken this blog to another level this week.  Here’s hoping I can keep it up.  Thanks to all for keeping this a going concern.

 

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The Moose Is Loose-lipped

Well I was all ready for another day of Barry justifying to his mom why he thinks it’s a good idea to bare his soul to Dafne Dafonte and, by extension, to the Milford High student body.  Barry could point out that budget cuts sent “Sarah,” or “Mrs. Forbes,” or whoever packing and that his coaches would rather manhandle and punish him than see that he gets some kind of help. If Rubin turns this arc into “Barry’s Got a Gun” it wouldn’t surprise me a lick, and I’d expect him to handle it as tactfully as he handled the crisis in Puerto Rico post-Maria.

But noooo, we’re back to actual action and, with two games in one strip, a reminder that the baseball season needs to speed up a little. (BTW, shouldn’t Barry’s two-game suspension be over after the Valley Tech game? Did he make the trip to Jefferson?)  I’m curious as to whether the Jeffs outfielder has dislocated his arm at the shoulder in an effort to snag Pelwecki’s tater, ’cause it looks like that arm will hang below his knees once he lowers it.  Meanwhile, Pelwecki is starting to come perilously close to turning from likeable, ambitious wannabe star into that most common of Milford athletes, a braggart whose hubris will be his undoing.  Careful, Kevin: slow that home run trot down too much and you’ll get the Carlos Gomez treatment.

 

You’re a difference maker all right…

What did I say about all the pitches being straight as a string? I used to visit a place where they had pitching machines and the balls wern’t this straight. There was a shed behind one of the cages and I hit one ball so hard it went through the protective net behind the cage and bounced off the roof of the shed. I felt like I hit the batting cage jackpot. Try that at home folks!

It was 97 out here yesterday, and Bader is sporting long sleeves. Must be afraid of mosquitos or skin cancer, one or the other. What a royal pain in the ass to have in your dugout. I’ll take the mosquitos over this mope.

Feel free to add on-  I’m heading to my local pool for a swim. Happy holiday!

Pitcher Padilla Not So Primo

At the beginning of the season, Jorge Padilla was in the outfield, but today he’s on the mound. Faithful TWIMer vaganova has previously pointed out that high school pitchers, often the best athletes on their teams, frequently play the outfield, first base or DH between starts.  Maybe that’s the case with Jorge, but today he doesn’t appear to be the best pitcher on the Mudlarks.  Maybe that skinny kid can jump but his pitches can’t. Gil may be giving Jorge the hook in P2; from here it looks like he’s asking him to give him some.

No sign of Barry Bader today. I thought it was odd that Gil brought him along to Tilden, as it’s been my understanding that suspended players don’t travel with the team.  Of course, these are Thorp Rules and it was probably Gil that suspended him, not the Valley Conference.  If it was me, I’d have had him waiting back in the equipment room in Milford to wash everybody’s jocks when they got back.

Hey, is that Big Ken Brown back on the bench shouting words of encouragement to Pelwecki?  Doesn’t he have anything better to do?

 

Bader could play for Tilden…

 

Well here it is Memorial Day weekend, and graduations are going on this weekend plus a co-worker has her sons on Tuesday night, and in Milford its… the Conference Opener?? Another example of slow play thats not on the golf course. Bader looks like the saddest kid on earth as he ponders when Dafne will grill him about his dad like so many burgers and brats. Maybe he’s thinking .. if I could sneak over to the other bench and don a helmet, nobody will notice I’m playing for the other team! Hey, the way that Tildenite swung and missed by a mile even with the ball being straight as a string ( why is every pitch straight as a string?) Why dont we see ONE human being behind the Tilden batter? No fan, player, on-deck hitter, dugout shot, umpire out of position, announcer ( hey Marty  Moon, your suspension has ended) or reporter ( hey Marjie Ducey, would be nice to see you more then 3 times a year)?

Pelwecki goes yard in P2, and he’s quietly fading into the background in this storyline, (thank goodness. If I hear any more launch angle crap I’m running on the field myself and tackling him before he gets home.)

So maybe Bader will see the field again before summer starts. Or maybe he’ll graduate like everyone else and leave the team and this dreadful scene behind as he moves on to a college career as a wine taster. Sorry, a whine taster. Cheers!

 

 

Launch Angles!

OK, Gil Thorp, I am not ashamed to admit that, when it comes to depictions of cartoon violence, you have my full attention. Showing the Derby baserunner (my hero!) dusting himself off in P1 just before getting tackled made my day. The only disappointment is that we miss the rest of the tussle and skip right ahead to the ump ejecting BB.

Bonus points:

BB’s form looks pretty good in panel two.

I always thought umps tossed people with their thumbs, not their pointer fingers but maybe I’m wrong about that.

Bonus questions:

How much of a run up do you think BB got and did the Derby baserunner (my hero!) see him coming or was he hit from the side?

Did I mention that the Derby baserunner is my hero?

Barry Being Barry

Is Barry being pissy because his father is in prison and he’s being hounded by Dafne, or is Barry just predisposed to pissiness? This is the question of the season, along with a general, all around WTF.

There’s something about the overall proportions of panel one that makes Barry look tiny. Maybe it’s just me. Each figure in the panel looks to be in a different plane and they seem disproportionately sized. I don’t really know. It just looks off.

So Barry grounds out and gets pissy with the ump. Seemingly out of nowhere, Coach Kaz appears to lift Barry and carry him away from confrontation. Is this a condensed version where we missed an escalating confrontation or did Coach Kaz just materialize at first to manhandle Barry preemptively? (If Kaz was coaching first base, he should have a helmet on, right?)

I’m going to have to say, as pissy as Barry can be, being lifted up and carried away by a coach (as humorous as the image is) is pretty transgressive. Even if Barry was being a turd, this is just a bad move. Do we have enough room in this plot to examine the repercussions of Kaz handling a player like this? It’s doubtful. I think it’s just supposed to be a funny gag, but it leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t even think I’m going all #metoo on this. I just think it looks bad. I think an ump should take control very quickly and just toss Barry for arguing. I would think that would be warranted in high school ball. If Barry melted down as a result of being tossed, that would require intervention, but we just don’t see that much detail of the whole incident.

Have at it readers!

Also: Rapped or chopped? Which one would you think would be easier to beat out?

Holy Smokes! Marty’s Back!

One of the common pet peeves here at This Week in Milford is the passage of time in the Thorpiverse and how rarely the school year and sports seasons parallel neatly with those in real life. For example, while the Mudlarks are playing what appears to be their second game of the season, high schools in the US have completed their regular seasons and the College World Series is less than a month away. Given that this is the first appearance of Marty Moon since he was given an additional two-week suspension and roasted by Gil on his way out the WDIG door, I want to say two weeks in Milford pass like a month in real time. Of course time dilation is fluid and by the end of next week we could be looking at a playdown scenario.

Me, I’m just waiting to hear what Marty has to say when Jorge Padilla comes to bat. Anyone else feel cheated that Rubin didn’t give us Marty’s on-air mea culpa?

Anyhoo, let’s focus on the action.  Looks like Pelwecki found his missing 1/16 of an inch.  I think I figured out how he found it; he’d been wearing #30 up to this point but now he’s switched to lucky #13.  Our cliffhanger comes at the other end of Barry Bader’s sharply hit ground ball.  Barry’s been a bit tetchy since Dafne set Jay Bhatia on him and got all up in his face about his dad; he’s a firecracker waiting to go off.  Maybe there’ll be a close play at first and Barry will give us that Jimmy Piersall moment I’ve been waiting for for the past two years.