And Awaaaay We Roh!

Bonfire’s out of the way, let’s get to footballin’.

Marty’s mom and dad have moved his crate out of the basement into the attic so he peer out the roof vent and down onto Milford. This better situates him to indulge his sportscaster fantasies. Marty always acts so shocked to see the Mudlarks line up in some offensive formation that fell out of favor decades ago. He should know by now that’s Gil’s fallback position when he lacks the horses (or confidence in the horses he has) to play the modern version of the game. All anyone who scouts Milford has to do is hit the library for some dusty old volume on how to defend against these archaic offenses and that’s all she wrote for the Mudlarks.

Gil starts the season with two runs up the gut from Charlie “Ruh” Roh, last year’s backup RB and wish fulfillment vehicle for Chet Ballard. Speaking of whom, where is old Chet these days? Holed up in the crate with Marty; nah, most likely living under his desk at the insurance agency. Back to the gridiron: have you ever seen a zebra signal a first down like that? Looks like he’s ready to snap off a Polish salute. It’s those quirky, not-quite-of-the-current-century details that keep we few coming back to Milford.

metapost: A moment of silence for the late Gale Sayers, whose most famous speech, as paraphrased by Billy Dee Williams, I shared with you all on that fateful day when True Standish learned of Boo Radley’s fate. If there’s a place beyond this one, I hope that Gale and Brian are back together again there.

How Long Before the Dancing Flash Mob?

We’re back from the pizza break. Just how did those pizzas ex machina show up? Please tell me one of the VM! kids leaned on Nick of Nick’s Pizza to get them gratis. “Nice delivery van you got there. Shame if something happened to it.” Now let’s see if any of these kids puke ’em up like the football players did with their sloppy joes last summer.

Wouldn’t this have been much more entertaining if Rubin had stuck to the old ’80s movie conceits, like in Animal House, Bachelor Party or Revenge of the Nerds? Instead we’re left to watch him trot out more random crap to pad this final week of the arc. The ump is as ready to get this over as we are; I think he heard the malls were reopening and is ready to get back to work at Foot Locker. No wonder he’s annoyed at yet another time out being called – but who’s calling it? Who the hell is this young lady stepping out to give Ardis a “quick pointer or two,” and why did she wait so long to do it? Couldn’t this have happened last week, when the Dead End Kids were practicing?

Is There A Gluten Free Option?

This little game just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Big turnout, swapping players, lending equipment and now some cool dude in a van shows up with 20 pizzas. OMG, it’s the wackiest “game” we’ve ever seen.

This will be fun for the spectators. They can watch these kids eat. (I think that’s what’s missing in spectator sports today, meal breaks for the competitors.) I hope they have some tables and chairs. Some plates and napkins would be good too. If not hey can just spread twenty pizza boxes in the infield dirt and the teams can stand around eating pizza to the delight of the crowd.

It’s Different for Girls

As robmize and you faithful TWIMers pointed out yesterday, this turned into a farce pretty quickly. Players in jeans, an umpire in a zebra shirt, one team’s pitcher coming in to pitch for the other, and now this. Since story arcs always end on Saturdays, I was hoping for the ten-run mercy rule to be invoked today. No such luck; we’re gonna get dragged through this for at least another week.

Confession time: I have owned at one time both a baseball catcher’s mitt* and a softball catcher’s mitt. They are indeed two different creatures. I probably could’ve gotten away with using my regular fielder’s glove to catch softball and, eventually, I did, sending the softball mitt on to someone playing at a more competitive level than I.  Has it been that obvious that Lotus Cortina Anna Karenina has been catching with a softball catcher’s mitt? Click that last link and look at the ball in the pocket of her mitt. It’s proportionately large in there, innit? There was nothing to lead us to believe she wasn’t catching a baseball in that “softball trapper,” a term so loaded with innuendo I ain’t even gonna try to touch it.

 

*Two, actually. My first was an Howard Elston Elston Howard model, my second a Bob Boone.

No Mas.

Well this isnt going quite the way I thought it would– the Mayors team is getting overrun by a Milford club without one of its better players.  I had ideas about a fairly close game where the inferior team pulls off the upset after hanging around and building up the pressure on the more talented side, which finally cracks making a crucial error allowing the winning run to pull off the upset.

Nope. When you dont have pitching and defense, you got nothin.  Even with a sexy backstop with 2 first names.

Its not only an embarrassing rout, its now a farce, as one of Milfords players is taking over on the mound for the Mayor (or so I figure) .

So basically the Larks are ending the competitive portion of the game. Its now just a glorified scrimmage, since no matter what happens from this point, its not Team A vs Team B anymore. So be it. The Mayors team was thrown together in 2 weeks. Milford is a real team who just played a high school varsity season. The worst team they played all season was better then this outfit. Who didnt see this coming?

The Mayor going to center field –  The Ultimate Walk Of Shame.

 

She fights authority, we’ll see who wins

Talk about stretching out a plot. We’re now having tryouts for individual positions, for whats basically a practice game. Of course a girl who we didnt know squat about last week is now the next Johnny Bench. Sheesh. She showed she can catch a baseball thrown right in the center of her mitt, and also can stand and pat her glove with her helmet off. This team calls you amazing if you can butter bread with one hand. Woo hoo.

No wonder theyre a bunch of misfits. Anybody walking in with an ounce of talent looks like Joe Pro.

Although I have to say, it helps having a good catcher. In 2000 my second team I managed went 5-10, starting 0-7 before finishing respectably the second half of the season when they started hitting better after seeing so many pitches. Our catcher was the best player on the team, not only for his baseball ability but his leadership; he was like a coach on the field since he faced everyone behind the plate. His intangibles were most evident one night when he got ejected for bumping the umpire accidently as he walked off the field before our last at bat trailing by 1 run. His mom went ballistic at the ump, and we had to restrain her before I could figure out who was gonna catch the next inning if we caught up. (We didnt, largely because our heart and soul was out of the game.)  A memorable night for sure. The old movie  “Kill the Umpire” was in a few fans minds during the brouhaha.. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042641/

So we’ll see where Corina goes with this venture; at least she appears to have more personality then the deadbeats back at old Milford High. Now all they need is a 1st baseman, and 2nd baseman… hey maybe John Fogerty can play center

 

But another John gets the title of the post—-

 

 

This Plot Finally Gets Its Much-Needed Crutch

P1: Don’t look so surprised, Mimi. You knew her ankle looked sketchy. Where was Trainer Rick Scott when you needed him? Does he only train for the football team?

P2: Having once again failed to develop any pitching depth (see Radley, Boo and Hobson, Carrie), Mimi resorts to strategically planting land mines along the basepaths. Unfortunately the mines aren’t very powerful and the Madison runner still scores. An eye for an eye and an ankle for an ankle won’t cut it in the Valley, Mimi. As if you care.

P3: Ah yes, back to the perspective we’re used to in this strip: Girls watching boys. At least I think that’s a girl. Maybe it’s Phoebe and she’ll help Mike and the Misfits hone their skills to beat the Mudlarks. After it’s all done she’ll say it was her way of protesting the draconian zero-tolerance policy that went unchallenged and sent Mike down this path of pathos.

Stepped On

Remember that chopper to the first base side from last week? Here’s the payoff! Pitcher Jamila Moses races the Valley Tech batter to the bag, catches probably too much bag and gets herself stepped on!

It’s her foot, maybe her ankle! Mimi assesses Jamila’s status while performing a provocative squat on the infield dirt.

Jamila pops up because she’s a gamer and wants to continue to perform. She also doesn’t need an eyeful of Mimi’s jeanmeat. Mimi’s having none of it and Jamila is through for the day.