Bend it Like MBC!

What a great weekend.  The MBC 16’s stormed (literally) into Bend Oregon on Friday and proceeded to kick behinds and take names; the only sad news is that I have since lost my list.

Sadly, and to some disappointment, we soon discovered that not all of our weekend opponents were worthy adversaries.  They were good quality teams, but for some reason unknown to us, two younger teams decided that entering an older tournament might be good for them.  Someone gave them some bad advice.  It was not just our size to their size that made such a difference, but the real problem for them was team speed.  Their outfielders could not cover the ground needed for our gap shots and their infielders were not used to playing a game where every batter ran like Ichiro.

Coach Cougan was proud that his talk to the MBC players of showing respect and dignity to an opponent throughout the game was well heeded.  Against both of the younger opponents Coach Cougan was complimented by the class and spirit that MBC showed to their younger opponents.

MBC scored 94 runs in the tournament on torrid hitting.  MBC banged out 17 doubles 4 triples and 3 home runs.  MBC raced out to big leads early in each game.

Day ONE

In game one MBC saw its big lead disappear, but rallied for more runs and found the relief pitching needed to hold off Sho-Time to record their first victory.  This game was a warning of what happens when you let teams hang around, but as will be seen later it was not taken to heart at this point.

Game two was a blow-out with the highlights being Nick Reeve’s throwing a perfect game and Quinn Burcham launching a massive three run homer.

Day Two

Game three was an early morning (8:00 am) contest in which again MBC broke out with a big lead against a pretty good opponent.  Sitting idly on their lead (again) MBC saw this team come back within one run going into the seventh, and of course MBC was the visitor.  It was not pretty in the seventh as the Mongoose scored two runs to win without a hit. (and they only showed bunt once, but I guess that was enough Kryptonite to weaken the MBC defense, see past year’s woes and more woes about other teams bunting on us).

You never really want to play a team just after they lose a game they should have won, but the poor Salem Shamrock really had no other choice.  MBC took out an awful lot of frustration on the poor Shamrock team and launched ball after ball into outfield and made quick work of the Shamrocks

The shock of losing did nothing to dampen the spirits of the club.  The planned team dinner was great.  It was good for us all to get together, eat some wonderful food and enjoy each others company.  It did wonders to recover from the disappointment of losing earlier in the day.  Upon learning that we still made the final four AND that our first opponent in the Championship round would be the Mongoose sent everyone home with great anticipation for morning revenge.

Day Three

The Mongoose had NO chance against a resolved MBC bunch.  MBC jumped out with a two run first and the Mongoose did not like the look of Andrew Helean from the get go.  Andrew pounded the strike zone and limited the Mongoose to just three runs as MBC pounded their three pitchers for eighteen runs.  Revenge was sweet.

MBC basically turned in a repeat performance for the Championship game.  A fresh Robbie Dunbar Jr.* ate up the Bears and his team (with big help from his own bat) again blasted out eighteen runs.  This marked Coach Cougan’s first Championship in his eight years of coaching MBC baseball (and might finally shut up the critics who say he cannot win the big one)

The tournament drove home the point of just how valuable MBC's mid winter signing of Robbie Dunbar Jr.* was to the team. (*please remember that adding the Jr. to his name is contractually necessary).  Robbie hit .600 with two doubles and a triple and threw a complete game shut-out in the final game.  The current depth of our pitching staff was a wonderful luxury.  The ability to roll out a fresh strong starter after all teams had played five games was instrumental in capturing the tournament title.

Adam (Wee Man) Hinthorne went off big time in this tournament.  Adam hit .588 with three doubles and a triple and drove in 10 runs.  In addition he made his second mound appearance in as many years and brought home his second victory, this one a complete game.

Nick Safka hit .500 for the tourney with a big double.  He also pitched well in his only pitching appearance.  Nick was a valuable ally in assisting Coach Cougan sorting out the “Mechanical Pencil Caper” (MPC) as well, more on this later.

The mighty Quinn Burcham batted .462, and hit a massive home run and three doubles (but only got to second on one of them)  He also made a fine relief appearance in game one.

Stuart Fairchild continued his consistent (and powerful) ways.  Stuart hit .467 with just one double, but TWO home runs.  Stuart’s first home run left the yard so fast that Coach Cougan could hear it go by!

Tai Huff hit a strong .455 with a booming double.  Aside from being a top suspect (he was later cleared) in the MPC, Tai is fast becoming a favorite teammate.

Dylan (the blur) Vchulek (.429) made a strong case to remain at lead-off for the remainder of the season.  His disruptive speed, in front of the bats this team has, made an incredible impact in each game.  MBC was lucky enough to loose EVERY coin flip prior to each game to garner Visitor status.  The other teams were just playing into our hands as Dylan immediately shook up each pitcher and put the other team on edge thinking they had to make every play as fast as they could, thus forcing many errors throughout the game. Dylan also made a fantastic backhand play at second base early in the semi-final game to record the third out and save a run.

After the shock of our loss to the Mongoose, Coach Cougan received an even bigger shock and bigger loss.  His yellow mechanical pencil that he uses to record line-ups and keep track of things in general during the game was missing!  As any good detective could tell you, the suspect HAD to be someone who had access to the dugout during the game.  This made the rest of the coaching staff, and all the players’ suspects. Smeagle was dismissed because we were pretty sure he did not know what a pencil was due to his reliance on crayons in his kindergarten class.

Coach Cougan quickly cleared the coaching staff.  Their integrity and credibility are above question they promptly answered that, no they had not taken it.  

All players were told they were suspects early Monday morning.  They were told they would be questioned, and they were told that they had all better have a pretty good alibi for the 4^th inning of yesterday’s first game.

Most suspects were cleared.  Nick Safka did admit to liking mechanical pencils, using them and that his favorite color was yellow.

David Becker refused to give any direct answers without his lawyer present, which moved him up the short list.  Nick Salle reminded me that he was warming up in the bullpen with me during the disappearance. Jack Murphy denied being in Bend on Sunday and had five alibi witnesses that saw him in Mag Town during our 4^th inning.

Nick Reeves was evasive, his upper lip was sweating and he would not directly answer questions but I did notice he was twitching his head in Keenan’s direction. Kennan Heller broke down early in his questioning and confessed to be the culprit.  Oddly he could not explain how he did it, why he did it or even what the pencil looked like.  The authorities started to think that he may be just a serial confessor, but someone had to go down for it and it might as well be Keenan. 

Prior to calling the Bend Police on the way out of town, Coach Cougan found the pencil deep in his baseball bag as he was changing into his travel clothes.  This, luckily, kept the incident out of the papers and saved Keenan from doing prison time on Bend Oregon.