Dead Money Splits for the Fall Season

After many seasons of successful and unsuccessful play in various leagues and arenas, Dead Money will split into two separate teams for the fall season.  Both Teams will play in Minnetonka, but one will remain in the Tuesday night league and the other on Thursday nights.  This allows new talent to surface as there are numerous prospects in the farm system dying to make it to the Bigs.  Not sure how this will pan out, but it will be a great way to let everyone get a chance to play and show thier skills (or lack there of).  Stay tuned to see if this will help or hinder Dead Money's ability to stay competitive.

Dead Money Loses 0-7....But Then Wins, and Wins, and Wins Again!

Yup, that's right, Dead Money wins the Championship the hard way.  We couldn't put any hits together following numerous walks, to score any runs in the first game.  Any decent hits seemed to be hit directly at a Doublewide player.  Huge disappointment.

The second game was against The Wild Turkeys who beat Ballz Deep to squeeze themselves into a guaranteed 3rd place finish for the summer season.  This was a very relaxed game for us, didn't need to pull out anything fantastic, just played our game for the win.

The second game against Doublewide started out much the same as the first...except with runners scoring.  Also for the first time this season we were able to track down the intricacies of the Doublewide offense.  Our defense seemed too much for them to handle and we came away with out first victory of the year against the #1 seed.  At one point we were within 1 run of a 10 run rule limit but they were able to battle back with some solid base hits and a few Texas leaguers. 

The Championship game left Doublewide defending themselves with only 9 players.  With their defense completely exposed we picked them apart inning after inning finally finishing the game off in the 6th inning after using the 10 run rule.  Doublewide is definitely a good team, but after last nights games, I think that they will be the ones struggling in the future.  I think that their anonymity worked in their favor this year.  We've got them all but completely locked down.  The most impressive thing all night was to watch their center fielder run all over the place making catches and strong throws.  Taking away their fifth infielder in the last game showed how bad they need that player in the infield.  Not much range there. 

Congrats Dead Money and the rest of the teams in the league for a fine season played.  I will leave Team Alliance out of that congrats, because they are....... Never mind, too mean.

All Wet!

Tuesday's game was cancelled due to a downpour and what looked to be Armageddon.  However,  the games at 6 and 7 were able to be played.  As was expected, The Extreme, The Silver Bullets and Team Alliance were eliminated.  But, the Wild Turkeys were able to put a hurtin' on The Dirty Grizzlies sending the number three seed packin'.  That leaves Ballz Deep and the Turkeys left in losers bracket.

I expect that the game against Doublewide will be a tough one, but in the two losses we have to them this year, there is only a 4 run differential.  The good side of a one week delay is that those of us with looming injuries will have some extra time to heal up.  Despite that, we were all ready to on Tuesday to send Doublewide down to the lower bracket, leaving them with an extra game to play for the championship.

That'll Work!!!

Well Dead money continued to climb up the winners bracket of the post-season playoffs in Minnetonka on Tuesday night.  The first round was a breeze, taking down the far inferior Silver Bullets.  We were determined to not repeat what happened last year in the first round.  15-1 was the final score in that game.

The second game proved to be a bit more complex and difficult, as it was expected to be.  The Dirty Grizzlies have been a difficult opponent for the last couple of years and it was nice to get a win against them in the playoffs, even if it was only by one point.  We managed to have a 7 run inning that was the defining point in the game where their shortstop botched a couple of plays.  This game definitely was all about the defense.  We played well, but not as well as we could have, and not as well as we should next week when we have three of our top players returning from vacation.  Two of them are team leaders in batting average, and all three of them are amongst our top power hitters.  And defensively, their return will make us almost unstoppable.

There was a phrase that defined one of the games last night.  "That'll work", was spewed numerous times by an opponent.  Unfortunately for the opponent, that phrase seemed to apply more to Dead Money!

!!!Attention: New Rules for Thursday Night League!!!

The new mostly pertains to pregame warm ups.  We must have some drinks prior to the rest of the games in Plymouth.  This gives us an excuse for playing out of our minds on Thursday nights.  What is the deal?  We seem to have a knack for losing to terrible teams.   We scored 5 runs in 2 games last Thursday,  making it the worst performance I have seen from Dead Money since our days as "Thunder".   However, Jesse did make a diving catch in right field that I never thought he would get to. 

I don't think any of us would be surprised if we lost the rest of our games in Plymouth, so lets have a little fun with it.  Maybe do some experimentation with getting in the heads of the other teams.  I will be looking for suggestions on this.  Anything goes.  I think having a little fun with it may be the only way to salvage the rest of the season.

We don't have 2nd place locked up yet in Minnetonka.  But all it will take is coming up with a win against the Extreme tomorrow.  Not a game that should be taken for granted.  Remember what happened last year in the playoffs.  We lost to the Silver Bullets in the first round.  If we do beat the Extreme tomorrow, it looks like we will once again be playing the Silver Bullets in the first round.

Last nights scores and standings

War of Wildlife-Surprising Night

Well, last night was full of surprises.  The Turkeys and The Dirty Grizzlies went head to head last night.  For those of us that were there early, we got to watch an exciting game.  I predicted yesterday that The Dirty Grizzlies would have no problem extinguishing the Turkeys.  And, maybe the Grizzlies had the same mindset, a mindset that eventually led to a loss by the Griz.  It may have not been all mindset issues though.  The Turkeys strung together base hit after base hit, inning after inning.  It seemed like 3 innings in a row they led off with the bases loaded.  Could be the Turkeys have finally found their footing for the season.  If that is true, it couldn't be at a better time, as we are only 2 weeks from play-offs.  The Grizzlies loss put Dead Money into 2nd place in the regular season with only the Extreme to play next week.

Our game ended up being way to close for comfort.  We had a 6 run lead going into the bottom of the 7th, which we were all too comfortable with.  Alliance managed for the first time in the game to get some extra base hits into the gaps and tie the game up by the time the inning was over.  The inning should have been over much earlier, but there was a mind-numbing play during a rundown play that allowed a run and left the other two base runners on base without getting an out.  This is the kind of play that we see from other teams.  Not from the #1 defense in the league.  But, in Dead Money fashion, we batted around in the top of the 8th, scoring 6 runs and shut Alliance down with a 1-2-3 bottom of the 8th.  I am still not a big fan of Team Alliance.  The pitcher never stops running his mouth, and the rest of the team can't manage to shut theirs either.  They seem to be angry people.  Not at all happy with the life they have chosen.  Maybe they should sit down and listen to a book on tape or something.  Maybe a little less torturing small animals.  Just a suggestion.

Whoa!!! Is this thing on?

...and we're back.  This has been a long awaited post.  But, it will prove to be worth the wait as it has been about a year since the last one.  I will try to recap what has happened since last season.

We have a new website at our old address www.DeadMoneySoftball.com .  This was put together by "V", and I believe the updates and the stats are posted by Roth.  I believe a "Thank you!" is in order for the hard work that the two of them have put into that. 

Last season proved to be fruitful as we were once again League Champions (after a review of the rules).  We clearly were the dominating force in the league, both offensively and defensively. 

This year is a different story.  We have struggled a bit, mostly because of our Plymouth league.  In Minnetonka,  we have completely locked in, at least 3rd place for the regular season.  After losing to the second place Dirty Grizzlies early in the season when we only fielded 8 players, we beat them last week in a rather dominating win allowing only 3 runs.  Doublewide Express has definitely improved this year, most likely a roster change.  They are on the top of the league with only one loss so far this season.  We have lost both games that we have played against them this season.  The other possible contenders, have for the most part, made themselves irrelevant.  Ballz Deep just hasn't been the power house that they once were.  Wild Turkeys have been misbehaving and become a non-factor (most likely the trash-talking, cry-baby, shortstop.  He just can't shut his mouth, especially when there is a pending loss).  And Team Alliance just hasn't figured out how to control themselves, their emotions, or their crack-pot pitcher. 

Just to set things straight after a little web based trash-talking...Dead Money is perfect! 

Well....our defense is almost perfect.  We have out-played our opponents in the field all year.  Only the Dirty Grizzlies have scored more than 10 runs against us.  And that was when we only had 8 players on the field.  Only one other team has scored more than 5 runs against us, and that is the first place Doublewide Express.  When I saw these stats I was very impressed....and shocked.  The latest data shows that we have out scored our opponents 182-69! 

So, it goes without saying, that the playoffs are going to be very important this year.  I don't see either Dirty Grizzlies or Doublewide Express dumping any of the remaining games of the regular season in the next couple of weeks.  We just need to look at our next few games as warm-ups for the playoffs.  Good, consistent hitting will be the key for us, as it has been our downfall for the begining of the year.