Saturday night I had a dream that I saw a UFO, experienced missing-time phenomenon and missed our our next kickball game at 7 p.m. Tuesday 9/28 vs. Ctrl/Alt/Del.
Under the name Dangerous Machines with a different captain, they played with us in the Smurfs Division in the spring. They were previously known as The Lighter Side of Betty Ford and have a lifetime record of 9-16-2.
We played Dangerous Machines twice in a row on June 14 and 21. The first time, it was a meeting of two teams that had not won a game yet. We should have won, but defensive blunders led to a painful 10-6 loss, and their first win of the season. The following game we finally broke through. Here was the legendary inning in which we hit 10 consecutive singles to the pitcher with two outs, scoring 7 runs. I still don't know how we did that, but Jennifer deserves credit for starting it. We ended up with an 8-5 win -- our first.
The important thing is that we finally learned how to win on that day -- it was something we were always capable of, but we just had to do it -- and we haven't lost in four games since. Meanwhile, we have gotten demonstrably better.
The Machines changed their name to Ctrl/Alt/Del and have gone 3-1 this season. They have a slightly different roster and I don't know if we can count on hitting 10 straight singles to the pitcher again (but when in doubt, a hard drive into the pitcher's shins can work wonders). I still want us to practice a strategy of "careful agression," because someday we're really going to need that style of play, but in order to hit for power you also have to keep your eye on the ball.
Oh yeah, and let's keep the acrimony to a minimum. These guys are pretty nice, although one of them mocked us on June 21 when we had our first-victory celebration on the field, which was ironic since they had their own player pile-up one week earlier. That's okay -- here comes the tiebreaker.
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