Weekly Dervish Update: Musical Edition

I'm going to make this one relatively quick, because I don't have too much to say. The Dervishes played The Rocks two consecutive times. We really wanted both of these games, not only because we didn't want to suffer the ignominy of an 0-12 season, but because apparently the Rocks were talking shit in the stands during our first-week drubbing at the hands of the similarly lamenamed A-Town Nugs. A tale of two weeks (with accompanying music!):

Week 1

(Hit play, then read. Except you should check out the guy at 1:18. He would definitely be a Dervish groupie.)

Victory! If I had to come up with one sentence to best describe how we felt as this game unfolded, it'd have to be "Where the fuck did this come from?". Playing the undefeated Rocks (who Nate oh-so-cleverly dubbed "The Walks" due to their baffling refusal to swing the fucking bat), we couldn't have hoped for much. To this point, we had generally hit and fielded like a blind softball team might hit and field if you took away their BeepBalls. But our bats inexplicably came alive, and our fielding was good enough, as we swapped our clown shoes for cleats and triumphed, 23-8.

Highlight: Some might point to our 14-run outburst in the first inning during which we batted around twice and yelled "Yeah!" a lot. But my personal favorite moment came when our first baseman Tim "En" Garde attempted to slide into second base but instead performed a maneuver that looked like a cross between a fencing thrust and that scene in Bambi where he's trying futilely to walk on the ice.

Safe

Lowlight: Our umpire was a dickhead. There are not a lot of things sadder than when Bambi's mom dies, but an old, double-knee-braced umpire who compulsively injects himself into the game with unsolicited commentary and crotchety stipulations just might bum me out more. Seriously, fuck that guy.

Is the music still playing? Hit stop. John Philip Sousa's boisterous songs of American triumph have no place in week 2.

Week 2

(Once again, click and read.)

Oh yes, friends, we were riding high. But we knew that if we didn't do it again the next week, the first win would feel hollow. That didn't stop us from losing, though. We fell 19-9, though the game was actually closer than the score might indicate. The Rocks had a couple of players who weren't there last week, though I'm not necessarily claiming that shenanigans were afoot. I am, however, claiming that the new players were fucking assholes. Their new shortstop dropped a double play ball and proceeded to scream at the umpire, claiming that he dropped it during the glove-to-hand transfer (he didn't). Their new left-centerfielder slid into every base cleats high, even if there were no outs to be had, claiming he was "just tryin' to scare ya". We weren't scared or impressed. So in a span of two weeks, they went from Rocks to Walks to Cocks. And from losing to winning. Funny how that works, I guess.

Highlight: I'm tempted to just go with what makes me laugh again (walking into the complex, Nate was looking at a scoreboard and walked directly into a trash can, knocking it over. It was both awesome and a bad omen.), but the highlight has to be Cody Ray hitting two long home runs in the losing effort. It was so impressive that after the game I told him he could date my sister. Yeah, he was already dating her. But still. Also noteworthy here is a spectacular diving catch by left-centerfielder Matt Hockett. Also also noteworthy is that our team has two players named Matt Hockett, and they are in no way related. That is insane. How many people do you know named Matt Hockett? It's not that common a name. My name is way more common than that, and it would still blow my goddamn mind to meet someone named Shawn Davis. I'm not sure how I'd react: I'd either join arms with him and jump around gleefully for 10 minutes, or I'd push him out of a tree in a fit of insecurity like Gene in A Separate Peace (terrible book).

Lowlight: Plenty. But like Rowlf, I'm prone to crying jags, so let's not talk about it anymore. In conclusion,