Round 18 - ETPBC Div 5

A very hot day was forecasted and it managed to bring what it threatened, a very hot 37 degrees with hardly any cloud cover.

With that came in the reduced game rules, this enforces a maximum of 5 innnings or 90 minutes...

For someone like me who was starting on the bench, that brings in nothing but angst on whether you will be played or not.

Robbo started on the mound and got off to a flyer, zone was good and not many opposition hits through the five innings and really worked hard to keep them at bay - recorded some good strikeouts too!

Gussy again proved to be the one pitchers hate the most being walked twice, Cummo was the hitting specialist for the day twice with big bombs into the gaps and also superb speed to reach third twice for back to back triples.

Cummo's first proved to be a spark the team needed, most were telling him to hold off at 2nd but Cummo knew his pace would beat the throw to 3rd.

Hard to determine which highlight was the best on the day, so I think line honors need to go to both Cummo and Jonesy.

Jonesy is now known as the aerial defender, late in the 4th inning with runners in scoring position, a big bomb was hit to deep left field. For all money Jonesy looked beat on this one as it was well hit, from nowhere Jonesy lept back and took a superb catch which recorded the final out of the inning and any chance of Southern coming back to challenge the lead.

Red Sox ended up holding them off in the last to record a 7-1 win over Southern and securing our place in the finals.

I'm super excited, never in history of sport have I reached finals, not unless you count mixed netball which I don't think I will... During my football life at Happy Valley, my junior years were spent being thrashed by teams like Reynella and Morphett Vale, sometimes by 30 goals... During my senior years at the club we won games but never enough to reach finals, often missing out by one or two.

In my baseball career we haven't made it over the 4 years i've played, the year I missed our team won the flag.

This is something to savor and I look very forward to the challenge.

See you all down at Adelaide this weekend to cheer on the Red Sox!

The Coffee Barun - 2nd Review

Hi All,

This is another mini review of The Coffee Barun so hope you enjoy - remember to try it out :)

Over the weekend I drove over a screw and was forced to change my first flat on my commodore, I've had it for approx a year but never had to do much to it. I changed it over and as everything was shut decided I'd take it to Bob Jane T-Mart on Monday morning.

As i've dropped the car off and found out the original tyres on the car were the wrong size... (another story for later...), they mentioned it will be a 45 minute wait so I decided to cross the road (no jokes here...) and head over to The Coffee Barun for a cappuccino and maybe some breakkie.

First thoughts were I really need to try their Raspberry & White Choc Muffin freshly made, these things are massive and extremely enticing, haven't had one yet but I can imagine it tastes as good as it looks...

Sadly it wasn't to be as my head focused on the blackboard above displaying "Egg & Bacon Roll" $7.50...

Hmm - very hard for me to knock back an invite such as that, plus, I had 30 more minutes to spare...

I whacked through the order for a large cap and egg and bacon roll and went to sit down to jump in to the free wifi... did I mention they have free Wi-Fi!

Within 2 minutes of sitting down my cappuccino was brought over and it looked a treat - as usual it tasted brilliant, they really do great coffee!

It wasn't much longer after my coffee had arrived that my roll was delivered also, beautiful roll with super tasty bacon, cheese and runny gooey egg!

Being time poor I didn't go for the usual Barun Breakfast, the roll was just perfect for the time I had available.

Knife and fork (pictured...) accompanied the dish but thats where they stayed... With both hands I formed a perfect grip and launched into taste sensation as I experienced their bacon & egg roll whilst breaking the egg and watching with glee as the egg yolk poured throughout and also onto the plate.

Wow - for something as simple as bacon, roll, egg, cheese and sauce, they really made it a treat! Using what was left of the roll I mopped up every last bit of egg yolk, finishing off with a couple of sips of coffee and I was done.

My belly was happy, taste buds were jumping for joy and I departed for the tyre shop feeling very happy and keen to get more to experience The Coffee Barun.

I stand by this comment that I believe The Coffee Barun is the Best coffee in Adelaide, it is roasted to perfection and the taste is second to none. The Breakfast & Lunch Menu has something for everyone and child friendly.

Theres a good little spot set up in the corner of the shop for the kiddies so do yourself a favour and head on down to The Coffee Barun this weekend - you won't be dissapointed.

The shop is located at 217-219 Main North Rd (cnr Third Ave), Sefton Park. They also have a website you can check out: http://www.thecoffeebarun.com/ or Facebook page: facebook.com/thecoffeebarun

 

Round 17 - ETPBC Div 5

Big game against Goodwood, not because of the fact previous years they had our number but for the fact every game from here is must win, especially if we want that finals glory...

Goodwood are a changed side compared to last few seasons, one person I spoke to months ago said they had lost alot of players from the club for various reasons - this looks to be what has depleted their Div 5 side, who in previous years has edged us out for the win most of the time.

Temperature wasn't ideal with a quite hot 36 degrees but the ground was looking in great condition.

Well, I can't hide from this... first ball of the game was thrown in by Cummo, from my side it looked straight, maybe a bit inside, the batter connected well with it and straight towards me..

I had an idea of where I thought it was going to go, which turned out to be the complete opposite to where it did go... Embarrisingly the ball went straight through my legs instead of hitting the lip of the 3rd base cut out like I thought it might and ricochet up towards my head...

I hate it when I start off with an error, really plays on my mind and unfortunately you feel completely isolated and hear everyones thoughts without them saying a word....

Cummo was put under pressure early but to his credit worked hard and got out of trouble, yes no runs were scored but my thoughts were in a dark place at that moment...

Bats started off early with Cummo and Gus all getting on base and gaining the early lead, a lead we were able to maintain from the first inning and keep adding to it until the final.

Cummo worked hard through 3 more innings and kept the no score in his pocket, DR took over for final couple and that was it for a pitching point of view - our pitchers threw hard and in the zone, our fielders (despite the first cough up..) did very well and held off any potential score threat that Goodwood threw at us.

For the batters, our team was impressive with the hits, still far from our best but we managed to make good use of our at bats, Cummo, Angus and young Laws hit quite well with Gussy being walked three times I believe.

We ended up running out convincing winners 16-0, defence was strong and offence was great.

Personally yes my 1st play was terrible but I think I bounced back well to minimise any further errors and also had a good hand in one of the slowest Double Plays ever recorded with Scoop..

Batting I'll say I was 50% happy, my first and last at bats were terrible, both hit off the handle of the bat and popped up to the infield. My 2nd and 3rd were good, first one was knocked into the gap between centre left and I pulled up with a double with 2 runs coming in. Beauty was also Goodwoods shortstop overthrew to home plate and I managed to advance to 3rd on the wild throw.

My 3rd at bat I liked but I know personally I swung late and got under it, I hit a deep fly ball to centre field but was straight down the throat of the centre fielder. I'm still relatively happy with the hit, it felt good just a tad late but also managed to score the runner from 3rd.

Overall 1 from 4 but with 3 RBI's thats a good day.

So, final game is this weekend for the regular season, we face Southern Districts @ Home. Southern are currently sitting 5th on the ladder only half a game behind us.

A Win puts us in the finals, the loss, well lets not even consider that.

Get down to the oval and cheer on your Red Sox to get into the finals!

Top Eleven - Youth or Veteran

Ok here's a question i'm debating with myself at the moment...

Is Age an issue in this game? Should we target youth with high skills or an established veteran to fill the voids?

In my main team which I am currently Level 4 Manager, the majority of my team are young and highly skilled. Early on I targeted youth as they was the perceived belief that youth are often more skilled and faster.

I started a second team on my iphone to do things slightly different, end goal to win but I wanted to try different things.

Yesterday while I watched hundreds dive with their thousands of tokens on the youngest with high skill I decided to target some players who are aged 33 or 34 and in their last few years.

Looking at their attributes they possessed the qualities and skill levels I needed, its only my 2nd season on my iphone team (Tigerland II) so really, I have minimal cash and hardly any tokens...

Whilst on the forum yesterday we were discussing our trial competition July Fourth came up with, The Universal Player, idea is we all buy a player at start of season, Striker, and name him the same, Pepp Crawford. We then compare during the season and see who wins overall. Nothing really to gain at the end other than bragging rights but its just a fun thing we're doing.

Anyhow, its whilst we were discussing this that one of the forum members added that the new player won't be kept next season as he tends to clean house each season.

That got me thinking, well.. I sort of do too, not completely and most players stay with me for 2 maybe 3 seasons, but thats the guns only, just over half my team is changed throughout the season...

So, with Tigerland II I've started filling the voids with the veteran players, only expecting to keep them for the one year, then sell them or let them retire - yesterday there was some very good quality veteran players out there.

Really the end goal is to score, win games and take the titles, that way I earn more $$'s and can compete with the bigger players in future seasons to get the big players.

I'm keen to see what everyones thoughts are, is it Youth Policy or Veterans. Could a Veteran only side win a League Cup against a team full of Youth?

Round 15/16 - ETPBC Div 5

Hi All,

Firstly apologies for the delay in writing articles for the last two games, reason for delay... well I'm still that shocked and angry at the result.

Round 15 saw our Red Sox take on Golden Grove at home, GG has lost alot of games this year to teams we have accounted for well - yet GG always seem to have the wood on us and this game was no exception.

The game was full of suprises, whilst I won't go fully into the inning by inning I'll touch on some highlights.

Sadly for us alot of them were not good ones, Cummo had the first bad luck in inning 1 with a ball heading through him, Gussy sadly had the same late in the game which let a couple through and I also managed to bobble one late in the game also...

We didn't take advantage of our opportunities which was our downfall in the end, we had a chance to steal the game in the last inning with myself sitting at 3rd as the tying run but sadly the fairytale finish wasn't to happen with DR grounding out to finish the game.

That one was gut wrenching, a game we needed to win, not only for finals but for ourselves, GG has the wood on us for many years, its time we show them they aint as good...

Myself, well, My hitting is something i'm really pleased with over the last 5 games, according to my stats (hoping this is what the scorers agree with...) I'm 9 hits from the last 17 at bats including the big bomb out at Gawler. Included in that stat was my 2 from 4 with my first knock bringing in a couple of runs.

Fielding is my big worry at the moment, i've had 10 errors this year according to the scorers, thats 10 too many, yes very hard position but something I need to work on. Sadly for me its also a confidence thing, I lost a heap of confidence weeks ago and I'm slowly clawing it back.

So in a heartbreaker the Sox went down 8 - 9...

Round 16 we were on a road trip to Glenelg, everyone who know's me will know I love my Tigers, just not these ones.

In the past few years the games at Glenelg have never been pleasant, the strike zone has always been miniscule and we always tend to hear "New Rules" that come into play...

Theres two good things about playing at Glenelg, One - Its the birthplace of my first ever Home Run, Second - I love the fact the biggest jumbo jet to depart from Adelaide Airport will fly directly, and very low, above your head...

Yep its a superbly scenic ball park.

So, Glenelg of late have been hot, they've moved to first spot on the ladder and look to have added a few players since we last played them. Last time the result was 2-1 in our favour.

Red Sox came out hitting in the first few innings, we also had alot on base over the course of the game courtesy of the pitcher who wasn't hitting the zone.

We ran out to an early 4-1 lead however that was turned around but some good hitting by Glenelg but also some very good base running helped them level the scores and then never look back as they ran out to a 9-4 lead late in the game.

We pushed for contention right throughout that game, Robbo pitched well but was hindered by not being able to find a consistent and nice strike zone, it was small and very inconsistent. Fielding wise I think we weren't too bad but they were just hitting the gaps well.

Our bats were good early but then all of a sudden with runners on base we were skying balls instead of hittting the ground and into the gaps..

7th inning came and went just like that, we managed to go down without making a whimper, ready for the time and game call another swifty came from nowhere and caught us completely offguard..

Glenelg was getting ready to bat......

All year, each time the home side is winning in last inning and the away side has bombed out without getting infront - its been "Time & Game". Not at Glenelg.

**Removed comments here incase of further issues** Those there know my frustration on this issue.
To say we were all annoyed is an understatement, we risked injuring our pitchers arm and the simple fact, we could not win...

Ah well, thats how they play it so be it, we play it differently. Here's hoping we see them again come finals and we repay the favour...

Ok so last few games we are at home against Goodwood and Southern Districts, we just need the one more win and we're home and hosed sewing up 4th position and securing that Finals Birth i've so longed for...

So get down to Payneham oval and cheer us on as the mighty Red Sox push for finals!