A Season to Remember

Bats Come Up Short in Quarterfinal

The time has come, as it does every year, to take the gear out of the trunk and put it back in the garage, the back of the closet, or wherever you keep that stuff.

This is not how the Beat expected this season to end. After Monday’s 20-5 Mercy Ruling of Toronado, the bats were hot again, the freight train rolling. But when word came through at the last minute that our game had been pushed back 45 minutes—just like it had before the prior Thursday’s loss to Flor de Cana—well as Mondo said, “it just felt like a bad omen.”

The delay was necessary to get in the second half of a divisional playoff between Bloom’s Kamikazes and the S.F. Olds that had been rained out twice already. The winner of that game would face the Beat at 7:45pm so it was rather important to get that one in first. In the opener, Bloom’s held on to defeat the Olds 15-14 and came in pumped and ready for the Beat.

Team	W	L	PCT	Pts	GB
2007 Summer Standings
x Flor de Cana	8	1	.888	16	–
y The BEAT	7	2	.778	14	1
Monte Carlo	6	2	.750	12	1.5
Ronin	4	4	.500	8	3.5
Sledgehammers	3	5	.375	6	4.5
SF Ballers	3	5	.375	6	4.5
Il Pirata	2	6	.250	4	5.5
Old Clamhouse	2	6	.250	4	5.5
The Onsters	2	6	.250	4	5.5
x=won division; y=wildcard

Special K struggled early with the strike zone, the defense made a couple errors, but most importantly, the guys just couldn’t seem to get the bats in gear. Bloom hurler Lans and the home blue seemed to have a special relationship, providing Lans with a 16’ ceiling and infinitely deep zone.

Down 2-0 heading into the bottom of the second, the Beat strung together a nice rally on singles by Mondo, MSG, Jim, and Gunnar who came through with a clutch 2-out, 2-run bloop single to put the Beat up 3-2. D-Rey reached on a 2-base error and Jacq came through with the second big hit, another 2-run single giving the boys a 5-2 advantage.

In the top of the third, Bloom parlayed five hits and a couple walks into five of their own and went back on top 7-5. Jacq, Brian, and Mondo made it 7-6 on two singles and a sac fly but Bloom slapped on another 4-run rally in the 4th aided by Q’s airmail throw to the plate that cleared the backstop, trees, and houses across the street (like much of this year, reminiscent of John Palmer).

The Beat was down 11-6 after four, but five runs should be easy to pick up for this record-breaking Beat team. Kev shut the door on Bloom allowing only three hits in the last three innings; unfortunately the Beat faired no better. It took two triples by Mondo and Jim Colletto to push a run across in the 6th but the Beat flamed out losing the match 11-7.

The two sides were similar in a number of ways. Bloom had 14 hits (1 triple) and the Beat had 13 hits (2 triples). Lans induced the Beat into 4 comebackers, 3 infield flies, 2 double plays, and a strikeout. Kev got Blooms on 4 comebackers, 3 infield flies, and one double play. Kev had 4 walks to Lans’ 1 and the Beat committed 4 errors to Bloom’s 2 but the Beat did a pretty damn good job holding Bloom to just 11 runs in a 7-inning playoff game. Unfortunately, for the second time in three games the Beat was held to under 10.

The problems on the offensive side were in many ways the consequence of Lans’ pitching style and the Bloom defense. Lans continually quick-pitched the Beat batters keeping them off-balance as they struggled to get the timing down on his high arcing pitches. Only three Beat batters had more than one hit; Jim and Mondo (combined 5-5, 2 triples, 3 runs, 3 RBI) who are more familiar with Lars style of pitching from playing another league, and Gunnar (2-3, run, 2 RBI). The Bloom outfield played medium to shallow stealing line drives and daring the Beat to go deep which only Jim and Mondo accomplished. Of the Beat’s 21 outs, 15 were recorded by the Bloom infield.

Blooms defense also turned in two huge double plays when they needed them. After they had rolled off their second good inning to take an 11-6 lead, Bloom’s shortstop smothered D’s grounder to snuff the Beat’s comeback. And with the game in the balance, one on, one out, bottom of the 7th, Jacq roped a liner that short caught at his shoe strings and G-man was hung out to dry on first. Game, set, match.

The Beat was left stunned wondering how this powerhouse offense could be disabled, not once but twice in the last week. Players stared at the scoresheet after the game looking for answers that weren’t there. There are some lessons to take away around focus and composure in a single-elimination playoff and there is plenty of time now to think about them.

Date	Visitors		Home
July 28	Ronin	1	The Beat	22
August 4	The Onsters	7	The Beat	11
August 18	The Beat	14	SF Ballers	11
August 25	The Beat	14	Flor de Cana	17
September 8	The Beat	25	Old Clamhouse	3
September 15	The Beat	20	Il Pirata	1
September 29	Monte Carlo	13	The Beat	15
October 6	Sledgehammers	12	The Beat	27
October 11*	Flor de Cana	22	The Beat	5
Playoffs
October 15	Toronado	5	The Beat	20
October 18	Bloom's Kamikazes	11	The Beat	7
* division playoff

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	R	H	E
Bloom's Kamikazes	1	1	5	4	0	0	0	11	14	2
The Beat	0	5	1	0	0	1	0	7	13	4

Much to be Proud of
Still, the Beat made it to the Elite Eight of 35 teams and played two weeks longer and three games more than most of them. Of course when you make the playoffs you just expect to see it through, but in the grand scheme only one of those ten playoff teams will go home satiated. As Pete said, “With more teams in the playoffs than ever before, it's harder to run the table. Just like NCAA March Madness, it takes luck as well as skill.”

Barring that, the Beat put in a season to be really proud of in 2007. The 20th anniversary Beat broke numerous offensive records, many of which have held up for nearly 15 years. The team went 12-5 including a 12-2 run from game 3 in the spring to the summer divisional playoff. The boys finally beat arch nemesis Flor de Cana in the spring and we made the playoffs for the first time since 2005. Moreover we’ve got a great team to nurture and build on next year.

How much does it say that 9 of the team’s 12 roster players this summer have 5+ years of service on the team and 5 of those have 10+ years? Or that 10 of the 12 have already won the coveted Brass Beat award, two of those twice? This is the most stable core of players this team has seen in its 20 year history and Manager Pete Wenner has done an exceptional job of replacing lost players with younger and better ones as was exemplified by the signing of 2007 rookie star Tim Smith who set an all time record for hits in a year with 42 and came one shy of the single season homerun record.

Tim and Mondo challenged each other all year and Mondo turned in a career year setting new team marks for RBI (40) and triples (7) and winning his second Brass Beat in three years. Jacq Wilson also set a team mark with 39 runs scored. Add all those together and you get new team records for hits (322), runs (278), RBI (233), batting average (.513), slugging (.717), and homers (22). Jacq, Mondo, Tim et al also combined for nine single season marks for this summer.

Jim Colletto turned in an MVP performance in the playoffs going 6 for 7 (.857) with a triple, three runs and four RBI in the two games.

The vets continued to pad their career marks as MSG became the first Beat player to pass the 500 hit mark finishing the season with 504 and is just 13 runs shy of reaching 400 runs scored. Pete became the first manager in Beat history to break the 100 mark for total wins (season, tourneys & playoffs) finishing the year at 111 and just two shy of the 100 mark for regular season wins. On the mound, Special K hit the 100 win milestone in the playoff game against Toronado and also passed 100 career walks on offense finishing the year with 102. Jacq Wilson improved on his career marks for lifetime Average (.541) and on base percentage (.637) and Big Daddy is just 15 shy of the 300 mark for RBI.

We have so much to be proud of this year. Five of our eight victories this summer (including the playoffs) were by mercy rule and nine of our 14 overall victories (season, tournament & playoffs) were by 12 runs or more. We shattered records, we made the playoffs and got three extra games, and unlike most teams in our division, we fielded our own team all year. So to close out this milestone, 20th Anniversary season of Beat softball in San Francisco, I’ll leave you with these words from our fearless leader: “It all goes by too fast. As you hear MLB managers often say, defeat in the postseason tends to overshadow all that we've accomplished during the regular season, but after some time and the hurt wears off, I think we'll be able to look back and appreciate what we've done this year.” Hear, hear!

Nice season boys. I’m proud of each and every one of you.

Special K has left the building.

2007 PHOTO GALLERY
Photos by T.C.

A Season to Remember

On The BEAT News Archive