HGH finishes ‘08 with a perfect 10

By Craig McMurtry
Softball Times

ABILENE — The championship t-shirts were already in the bag — literally. Five HGH players didn’t even bother to show up. And the Syringes trailed by three runs after 1 1/2 innings.

So what kept HGH from simply licking a Holiday Nutcracker postage stamp and mailing it in?

Pride, Holmes. Straight up pride.

Despite playing in a contest as meaningless as a Rangers game in September, the skeleton crew of Syringes gutted out a 19-16 victory over UBC Blue on Monday in the Fall 2008 season finale. The win was HGH’s 10th in a row after an 0-2 start.

All of the excuses were in place for the Syringes to drop a stinkbomb on Monday night. Consider:

1. After clinching the Church III crown on Nov. 10, HGH was enveloped by a media frenzy. First, their title-winning game story was published on the Abilene Reporter-News web site. Then all of a sudden, the Syringes were featured in every magazine from Slow-Pitch Weekly (”HGH: Team of the Decade”), to Popular Mechanics (”The space-age technology behind Scott Kilmer’s knee brace”) to GQ (”David Pittman: Bringing Back The Nappy Afro”).

“It was insane,” said HGH pitcher/pizza mogul Jonathan Sharp, who revealed his new Pepperoni Pancakes on the season premiere of Top Chef. “I never expected to get so much attention for walking 10 batters per game.”

2. With the season all but over, several players turned their attention to other pursuits. Rookie utilityman and cosmetology student Ryan Quidley spent game night studying for his Tuesday exam on pedicures. Designated “hitter” Scott Kilmer was due for a 20,000-mile tune-up on his bionic knee. Shortstop Brandon Stover, recently recovered from a severe lip fungus, flew to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to donate his leftover pus to science. And reserves James Mayo and Mark Lavender are still missing after their Romo-inspired vacation getaway with a Simpson — O.J. Simpson. As a result, for the second consecutive week HGH was limited to 10 players on Monday, barely enough to field a team.

3. The players weren’t the only ones providing distractions. An unnamed source revealed to the Softball Times that HGH coach Nathan Sanders spent the week in contract negotiations to become coach and general manager for the Uruguayan team Los Burros de Sofbol. Confronted before the game, Sanders was noncommittal.

“I’m not gonna comment on that,” said Sanders, who curiously had an English-to-Spanish dictionary tucked into one of his knee-length socks. “I’ve got enough to worry about with organizing the end-of-season team party at Build-A-Bear and scheduling the championship parade through the church parking lot.”

With all of that going on, there was a game to play. And while all seemed well when the Syringes opened with a seven-run first inning, the Blue Hens from UBC Blue responded with a 10-spot in the second. The HGH defense didn’t help. Sanders and the other outfielders turned virtually every fly ball into an adventure, while shortstop/gunslinger Garrett Sublette showed off his arm by proving there was no overthrow he couldn’t make.

Add in the fact that HGH was facing the unorthodox multi-fake pitching style of UBC ace and former circus clown Eugene “Twinkles” Smerples, and an upset appeared to be in the making.

But HGH rallied. And with the score tied at 12 heading into the bottom of the fourth, the Syringes smacked Smerples with a seven-run inning. Then with the tying run in the on-deck circle for UBC in the fifth, Sharp retired the final two hitters to put a bow on the season and give HGH a 2-1 season series edge over the Hens.

Once again the HGH offense was, as Sanders put it afterwards, en fuego. Monday was the second consecutive game that all 10 batters in HGH’s lineup had at least one hit. Pittman posted four RBI, while Sharp and first baseman John Powell each added three. Powell reached base in all three at-bats, which could be attributable to the fact that he was wearing his hunting camouflage.

“You can’t tag out what you can’t see,” said Powell, who was last seen heading over to the Abilene Zoo with a deer rifle slung over his back.

But they all took a back seat to Sanders, who once again was swinging his bat like an LAPD officer with a 3-for-4 night and two triples. Plus, he did it all while hampered by a severe case of what has been clinically diagnosed as Guitar Hero Kick Pedal Ankle.

In the final two games of the season, Sanders went 8-for-9 with a home run, two triples, four doubles and 11 RBI. And while it wasn’t enough to catch lame-duck hitting leader Brandon Stover (.750) for the batting title, Sanders did finish first in runs (25), hits (27) and RBI (24).

“What a way to go out,” Sanders said. “I’ll remember this when I’m in South America … um, if I were going there … which I can neither confirm nor deny.”

This story is dedicated to the memory of Dee Woody (1926-2008).

Final HGH season stats

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Game 12 box score

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CHAMPIONS!

Resurgent HGH clinches Church III title

By Esteban Yan

Softball Times

ABILENE — An 0-2 team rallying to win a title? Never been done. Can’t be done. Forget it.

Such were the discouraging words thrown at the Dallas Cowboys after they dropped their first two games of the 1993 season. Four months later, they were champions.

And now they have company.

With names like Pittman, Kilmer and Shewmaker filling the roles of Aikman, Smith and Irvin, the Cinderella Syringes from HGH completed arguably the most impressive turnaround in the history of modern civilization by winning a 28-20 slugfest against second-place Hillcrest at Nelson Park’s Coors Field. With that, HGH (9-2) secured the ASSA Church III crown with one game remaining while winning its ninth in a row.

“Unbelievable,” said HGH coach Nathan Sanders, his jersey soaked with the 7UP that was sprayed jubliantly in the post-game dugout celebration. “There are no words to describe it, so I’m just gonna have to make one up: cryniluvant. Yeah, that’s it. This is the most cryniluvant team I’ve ever been a part of, and it was our cryniluvance that pulled us out of that 0-2 hole and put us where we are now.”

If Sanders’ newly-minted word ever does make it onto dictionary.com, there’s a good bet that his picture will be next to it.

With shortstop and cleanup hitter Brandon Stover sidelined by a severe allergic reaction to purple and white body paint, HGH was forced to juggle its lineup. Sanders, who was banished to the bottom of the order after the Syringes’ two losses, was bumped back up to the No. 3 spot. And how did he handle the return to the spotlight in the team’s biggest game of the year? Two words say it all:

Nine RBI.

Yeah, that’s right.

Showing more pop than the late Orville Redenbacher, Sanders belted a two-run home run to right field and crushed three run-scoring doubles that caromed off the right field wall against the Hilltoppers’ pitching ace. His productivity on a 5-for-5 night almost doubled the previous single-game RBI record of five set by Ryan Quidley and David Pittman.

But where did this sudden power come from? An investigation by the Softball Times revealed that Sanders had recently been taking Mucinex for what he called “crud in my throat.” Among the side effects listed on the bottle are diarrhea, short-term memory loss … and a newfound ability to hit the absolute snot out of a softball.

“I did what?” Sanders said when told of his Game 11 greatness. “Wow! How ’bout that! All I know is I wanted to show that idiot manager that he made a huge mistake movin’ me down in the lineup. Whenever he looks in the mirror from now on, I want him to see this face and remember my name. Wait — what IS my name? Starts with an N, I think. But … uh-oh. Gotta go.”

With that, Sanders sprinted for Nelson Park’s facilities like Usain Bolt running from a hungry cheetah. He had not yet emerged as of press time.

But enough about him. Some other people did some stuff, too, I guess.

People like “third baseman” David Pittman, who had four RBI of his own on his three hits. Pittman followed Sanders’ home run in the second inning with one of his own, proving that he has a true inferiority complex and has to be the center of attention at all times.

Those were but a few of the big blasts that pushed HGH to 16 runs in the first two innings. However, to their credit, the Hilltoppers (6-5) would not wilt, answering with 14 of their own to make things way too close for comfort. But HGH’s steady offensive machine was not to be denied, and 12 more runs in the final two innings proved too much for Hillcrest to counter despite three home runs off of Jonathan “Pops” Sharp that still might not have landed yet.

“That’s just a mark of a great group of CoCers,” bionic catcher Scott Kilmer said in praise of his Hillcrest foes. “We don’t use instrumental music, we sing in four-part harmony and we never, ever quit on the softball field. That’s how we roll. And that’s why God loves us the most. Take some notes, UBC.”

Seven of the Syringes’ 10 hitters had at least three hits, including a 4-for-5 night by scrappy leadoff hitter Blaine “Shredder” Martin and a 3-for-4 performance by Shewmaker. The result was a new team record for hits (29) and runs (28) and a season-best 22 RBI — and it was all done without Stover, the batting race leader.

“This team is more than just one player,” team statistical expert Kevin Campbell said. “In fact, it’s actually quite more than that. Fifteen, to be exact. I can show you the numbers. It’s all on my spreadsheet. Want me to sort it by IQ or body fat percentage?”

While the championship is in hand, HGH looks to finish the season strong with an 8:30 p.m. game against UBC Blue on Monday night. The game is on Field … aw, forget it. Nobody actually pays attention to that anyway.

HGH stats thru 11-10

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