Mirage Softball: 'Robbery' On Lower Shore Road

First off, we would like to commend the 16 players that were not scared off by a couple of rain drops. When ballplayers really want to play they make it happen. Joe G gets a pass. The rest of you, not so much...

The sides: Skip,Pat, Marty, Tino, Robin, Andy, Lou and Kenny vs. Jerry, Rich, Larry, John, A., John S., Bill, Joe F and Artie.

Lets fast foward to the bottom of the 6th... Team Lou has a 7-1 lead and as usual 78-year-old Artie is looking to kick someone's butt.

Team Lou is a man short so team Artie must send out one infielder each inning to fill in. This player is on the honor system to play his BEST. HA!!!

Today was only a seven-inning game (parade) so with team Lou ahead  7-1 this contest is all but over right. HA!

Artie calls for another secret team meeting.

Enter suspect #1 Bill Farmer.

Bill goes in to play up the middle...With a man on 1st there is a perfect, I mean PERFECT double play ball to short, Tino flips to Bill for the easy force at 2nd,,,,, OOPS I must have dropped it. 

So instead of 2 out and no one on we have 0 outs and 2 men on. A couple of hits and 2 runs come in. Ok we can live with that, lets just get the last out and go home.

Enter suspect #2 Crazy Legs Rich, this one was toooo obvious.

Bill Farmer was due up so Rich goes out to take his spot up the middle, no problem... An easy ground ball right to him and Craz thinks to himself, I have to make this look good so he decides to barehand it (WHO, I ASK YOU BAREHAnDS A GROUNDER RIGHT AT EM) that way when he drops it he will not look bad. Well what do you know, HOLY BLEEP!!!! The ball sticks in his hand, Rich now thinks to himself: What am I gonna do now?

I have seen Craze make this throw 100 times with no problem, now somehow in his mind the rightfield line suddenly looks like 1st baseman ANDY,  I am not sure why, as Andy did not even have a stripe shirt on.

So instead of 3 out, the game is now tied. I smell a RAT. At this point you could see the steam coming out of the centerfielders ears.

Pat leads off the top of the 7th with what looks like a double down the line, Kenny was suppose to call it but he forgot to look (Lipatore I guess.) To these eyes it looked fair but suspect #2 jumps up and down and insists that it's a foul ball. No runs score.

John A leads off the bottom half and hits what clearly looks like a foul ball to right,( I was the closest man to it,) Eight, count them eight THUGS converge on poor Kenny and demand he make the call, fearing for his life Kenny calls it fair ( I can't blame him) and the game is over.

What happened today on Lower Shore makes Hal Chase and the rest of the 1919 Black Sox look like choirboys.

It may take awhile but the TRUTH will come out.  Like a pitcher is the only one who knows for sure if he meant to pitch inside or if he wanted to take the batters head off, somewhere in the subconscious mind of Crazy Legs Z. lies the real answer. Did that rightfield line really look like Andy. The evidence is CLEAR.

If it was up to this reporter , just on general principle I would call that 6th inning NULL and VOID and award the win to Cy Traficante.

I feel better now.