Three Cheers for the Alternative Softball League

Make that two cheers for BookPeople, holding strong to that first place spot, and one for The Austin Chronicle, which is no longer in last place.

BookPeople stayed busy last week with two games in four days. Last Sunday they took out KOOP. And Wednesday, July 9, they defeated Emo’s. Representing in the third game of the week, the Chronicle finally pulled ahead on Sunday, July 13, and beat KOOP – the Chron’s first season win.

I won't lie; on Sunday, July 6, my focus was not so much on the game as it was on what was going on around me. Yes, it was the first official league game for KOOP Radio, but the Carmadillo, an armadillo go-cart, provided a bit too much distraction. I mean, seriously, all metal with fire shooting out of its eyes. It even has its own MySpace page: www.myspace.com/armadillo_car. Wow, impressive. The KOOP team, however, was not, losing to BookPeople, 25-8.

I missed the game on Wednesday. It was a late night because of deadline – you people do want your Austin Chronicle on Thursday morning, don’t you? Someone had to finish the paper – well, not by myself. Since I wasn’t at the game, I wasn’t able to get any of the goodness that makes up your typical ASL game. However, BookPeople won, 18-8, and remain king of the mountain, and Emo’s is close behind, standing in second place.

This past Sunday’s game, between two of the lower ranked teams, was a hot one, starting at 6pm, a bit early for ASL games, which generally begin at 8pm when the sun has gone down quite a bit. It was KOOP Radio’s second official league game, but the had the desire to win.

The first inning saw the most action, with KOOP scoring four runs in the top and the Chronicle scoring five in the bottom. Our runs were quite impressive. Cody was up to bat with two outs and the bases loaded; he made a great swing and got two RBIs: Mark Fagan and Doug Freeman.

The top of the third, our defense really stepped up – three at bats reciprocated by three outs. We shut them down. One, two, three, as Michael King would say. The bottom of the third the Chronicle had three more runs: Shannon Stott, Shawn Badgley, and Mike B.

KOOP only scored one more run, in the top of the seventh. We had home field advantage, and there was no need to play the bottom of the ninth. Finally, the Chronicle won our first official league game, 10-5. KOOP has fallen to last place in the league, and we have made a small comeback, holding down the fourth place spot.

We did have one injury, however. Freeman hurt his knee jumping up for a ball in centerfield, which was thankfully caught by Badgley. Our defense was so on it that night that two of our players were headed full force for the ball. It seemed Freeman did what he could to avoid the collision but still ended up hurting himself in the process. We hope that knee gets better before Thursday, Mr. Freeman.

Chronicle pep talk from Coach Bobby Leath: “We keep playing D like that, and we’ll definitely win more than we lose.” Well, OK. We better bring it on Thursday, July 17, then. The Chronicle will be playing Waterloo Records at Krieg field 11 at 7:30pm.