After two weeks of not playing (rainout, golf trip), I was chomping at the bit to get on the field this week.  It was time for the (3-2) WILX News team to take on the (0-5) WILX Sales team and things got a little chippy because of some trash talking.  Over the last few days, I'd heard about some talk-- some really good bulletin board material-- so I was more than happy to share it with the team as we took the field.

They responded with 3 quick runs in the first, jump started by Chris Gervat's lead-off double.  The other thing you need to know about this rivalry is two players on the sales team used to be on our team-- and both are pretty good.  (Nicole and Troy both quit before the season started for different reasons).  Troy also brought his sister to play against us.  I'll go ahead and call her a ringer since she had a few hits and made a diving catch deep in the outfield on Gervat that saved two runs.

Anyway, Bottom 1, Troy and his sister bat 1,2 and are speedy enough to put a run on the board to make it 3-1.  Then comes our big inning.  Everybody bats at least once as we put up 8 in the top of the second.  Maria Tocco, Proctor, and Matt Ondecker all came through with big hits in the inning.  The best part is we went out in the field and shut them down for no runs.  11-1 after 2.

Throughout the game there was a couple of hard slides (Nicole took me out at 2nd-- totally clean), there was a little collision at home, and plenty of trash talking and hootin' and hollerin' in the field.  In the end the News team held on for the 14-3 victory in 5 innings.

Now there was a wager of some sort with a now former WILX sales guy mentioned in previous posts.  The other thing I told the team pregame was the winnings would go to the bar tab.  That didn't happen.  Let's just say... he didn't pay up... and the team wasn't happy, unleashing a cascade of boos as we left the field.

So the war's over and now we can back to work at the big 1-0.  We're all friends again and-- wait... we could potentially play them again in the playoffs.  Time to get the game face on.