Motor City Woodpeckers Schedule

The Peckers are starting to come together as they notched the 2nd win for the franchise.  Some of the highlights include a play by Dino "Hops" Telang robbing Hall of Famer Will Bryant that came immediately after a double by Dino "Wonderboy" Telang, where he confirmed for us that Hall of Famer Will Bryant wears number 22.   What his beef is with Hall of Famer Will Bryant we don't know, but after the game Hall of Famer Will Bryant must have still been steaming as he didn't shake Dino's hand.  Unlike him but who knows as the entire Angels team refused to shake the hands of the Woodpeckers afterwards.  Geesh guys it's only a game.

The youth movement has been paying dividends as Mike Carter, Terry Weathers, and Dino "the kid" Telang should start bringing their birth certificates to prove they're old enough for the 42+ league as they all paced the squad with their standard 2 hit performaces.  Dave Lentz spent most of the game on the trainers table but still managed 2 RBI.  Another well called game by Brian "don't call me Lou" Costella, where again he reminds us "c'mon guys, I don't know who's on first. I'm the catcher and my last name ends in an A not an O and it's BRIAN OK ??  Brian, not Lou, assisted two more outstanding performances as Eric Davis finally got around to coming to a game and pitched a solid 6 innings only giving up 3 ER.

Gary Alstott came in to make his early case for the Firemen Relief Award, not just because he's built like a little fire hydrant but with just a 4 batter 3 strikeout performance.   Nobody has yet to inform Gary we don't have any awards but if he keeps pitching like this we're gonna create one that's for sure.

For a 3rd game as a franchise the team chemistry is going great, there's just some minor hurdles to overcome as in todays hostile political environment we should just focus on how someone plays and their nationality should be left out of things.  Just because Alberts didn't turn a double play ball it was quite offensive as the bench was yelling out, "YOU RUSSIAN....YOU RUSSIAN".  Come on guys, we're all adults and should be able to get along better than that.   Along with the Angels nobody on the Woodpeckers would shake Alberts hand afterwards either.   "So it's gonna be like that huh" ?  Alberts was heard to mutter as he put on his ushanka and pulled a bottle of vodka, hammer, and sickle out of his bat bag, got into his lada granta along with more undistingusable mutter sounding like, "lowsy comrades...", and left the park by himself.

Woodpeckers are awaiting a response from the league on their request to move Saturday mornings game vs the Bombers to up north somewhere as it appears most of the team will be up there on Saturday.

The game wasn't as bad as it appears as they heavy favorites The Bombers got 5 in the 4th and 2 in each of the 2nd and 7th innings.  While the peoples champions Woodpeckers left the bases loaded twice and multiple other innings 2 on, but failed to push any across the plate.  Even with a 9-0 solid victory and the Woodpeckers on their best behavior, AGAIN the opponent REFUSED to shake their hands after the game.  

Woodpeckers couldn't catch a break as they opened the game with 3 hits while not getting a single baserunner.  Huh ?  We're going to need to start bringing security cameras to the games to figure out exactly how The Bombers were robbing all of the hits away.  Peace and Telang fell victim to some sort of smoke and mirror tricks while the center fielder for the Bombers somehow ran down Terry Weathers flyball and caught it around the Farmington Hills border.  It has yet to be proven he caught the ball that Terry hit and not just pulled one out of his pocket on his way back to the facility, we'll start having the ball marked when Terry goes to the plate.  

Big giant shoutouts go to Joe Peace and Mike Guider for taking it for the team.  Joe suffered through some of our worst defense against a big hitting team but never backed down when we really didn't have any arms available. Even so he recorded 7 big strike outs to keep the game reasonable. Mike Guider took on the challenge of catching for the first time and simply played the position as if it were a hockey game and he was in goal, and it worked out for 5 innings, at which time a much thinner Mike Guider waved the white flag which brought in Alberts just so everyone could see first hand just how good of a job Mike had done.  Thanks Mike.  Dino finished it up and added another position to his resume as he's almost got them all down now in this early season.  

Jeremy Cheveraliereralleyier banged out his first hit since high school by way of using his legs, congrats to Jeremy !

Now steps forward the winning teams version of the alternative facts (**since this is written after White Sox summary**).  Opening statement begins with, "your honor, everything the White Sox presented in their summary is bulls*&t !"  Thank you.

While the White Sox were searching around into the sky like the Muppet Show trying to figure out where the narrators voice is coming from, the talented and skilled Peckers of Wood were dodging baseballs left and right in the early struggles to deliver the pitch in the general location of home plate.  Being the amazing sportsmen that the squad has been all year, it did not seem right to continue to accept walk after walk, and the brilliant minded (and strikingly handsome) manager put himself in the best possible position to have the opportunity to hit the ball, this unfortunately was batting left handed from the right handed box as all 4 pitches were indeed thrown behind him.  The visting team concedes that it was an unusual effort and can accept that some may not have appreciated it, while at the same time EVERYONE can understand what the visiting teams batter doesn't appreciate...and that's 4 pitches thrown behind his back !  For the love of God can't yah just hit Alberts on the first pitch like everybody else ???

Humor aside, pitching off the Ford Field mound aint easy !  We salute all those that make that effort.  

Once the White Sox got their defense settled in it was time for the Lentz show and what a show it was.  For 3 innings the only tarnish was a hit batsmen.  With the 7-0 lead this appeared to be a good time to over manage and attempt to steal defeat from the jaws of victory and that's what just about happened.  

Pulling Lentz for a young untested rookie proved to be too much of the spotlight on a young Blick and the Sox were too eager to take advantage.  Instead of just being up here for a cup of coffee, the Peckers through the coffee pot and him while sending him back to the farm in a gypsi uber.  

Once the Sox got rolling there really was no stopping them.  They scrapped all the way back with just the 2 remaining bats that the team had left in their arsenal.  A tremendous pitching performance in relief by Gary Alstott was challenged by the clever strategy of the home teams manager who decided to catch up from a 7 run defecite with full swing broken bat bunt after bunt.   

As the two squads completed 6 innings we were all tied 7-7 and now we could get down to some baseball, which the Woodpeckers were fortunate to end up on the winning side of.  

Mark White got his season rolling strong as he had a big 3 for 3 night with a stolen base and rbi.  Curt McNamara, the RBI machine, came back from a 2 game absence as if he never had a game off stroking in 2 more RBI.  In addition to the big pitching performance from Lentz he also contributed 2 hits and probably some of the missing RBI from the team book.  Brian Costella, Dino Telang, Jeremy Cheverealoreanalea and Joe Peace were in attendance.

Woodpeckers discovered that the rumors are indeed true, the White Sox refused to shake hands at the end of the game, making it every game this year that they've done so.  Wow, it's just a game guys.

To drive up attendance be sure to come out for Thursday nights game as it'll be Mike Carter Guest Manager Night !  Also means it's 2 for 1 night, for every 2 tickets you pay for you will receive a ticket to the game.  Uhhh, credit card processor is down so we'll have to work with cash only folks.  Mikes special guest will be Terry Weathers !  Which means it'll also be LADIES NIGHT at the diamond on Thursday !   (Ladies still pay full price but they can participate in the guess what cologn Terry is wearing event)

For refund requests or if you've been injured by wreckless use of TNT by cartoon charectors, contact Ari Lehman. 

It was a beautiful night in our nations capital with the moon brightly shinning on the Potomac and all of the memorials proudly standing tall for the upcoming day of events for our brilliant and handsome manager of the Woodpeckers.  Basically this writer has no idea what occurred at the game.  Simply going by the results one can only assume that the White Sox cheated, the umps cheated, everybody hates us, and blah blah blah.

Congratulations to the White Sox as the Peckers feel fortunate to get away with a split of the two games over the past 3 days.  

It's odd to find out that we lost as upon my return the scorebook shows 47 hits in 25 at bats, along with roughly 10 HR's and 30 stolen bases.   Hmmmmmmm, looks as if the boys were awfully liberal with their stat keeping while the boss was away.

The Woodpeckers expected a nice evening at the ballpark tonight and instead found themselves in the middle of a dogfight with an Angels team that put the fear into them each and every inning.  Some timely 2 out hits were the difference in this game where it felt as if the Peckers were barely holding on the entire time.  

A big time tip of the cap to Angels starting pitcher Dave Miller as it was definitely Miller Time that kept Woodpecker hitters on edge and constantly guessing at the plate.  Dave probably deserved 3 wins for the night as he threw 3 times as many pitches as his counterpart tonight while facing just 1 more batter.  The at bats didn't even begin until the count was 2-2.

As well as the opponent pitched, it's going to be Joe Peace all the glory as he stepped up with a moments notice for the start and gave an amazing 7 inning performance that was just what the doctor ordered.  The teams elder statesmen Willie Boyd again showed why nobody lets him just rest on the bench as his 2 out 2 run line drive hit to the hole on the right side brought in what proved to be the winning runs.  Big hits and timely base running was all throughout the line up as every at bat was a battle.  Carter, Weathers, Alberts, Lentz, McNamara, Telang all found their moments.  Brian Costella not only teamed up with Peace in calling an amazing game behind the plate but took charge at the plate himself by going 2 for 2.

Woodpeckers also had a guest appearance by Mr. Hollywood Doug Fry as he played his role of Moonlight Graham.  After the emergency call for relief pitcher went out, Doug walked in out of the cornfield and found himself in a huge at bat with the bases loaded.  His only at bat with the Woodpeckers and Doug came thru with a sac fly for the RBI.  Afterwards as he was heading back out into the cornfield someone was heard yelling out to him, "hey rookie...you were good".  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqtBn942ocg

The only way to describe this game is how a very good and competitive game was interferred with by 3 innings of a swarm of gnats where millions and millions of gnats just made it unbearable and it turned things into the baseball follies of poor defense until they moved on.  Rarely is 11 runs given up in 5 innings a great pitching performance but that's exactly what it was as 8 errors, on routine plays, spoiled the historic efforts of Eric Davis in his return from the IR list.

When the fairly routine flyball popped out of the glove of Mike Davis for his first error in 15 years in the MSBL the umpires should have shut down the game at that moment and returned the score to where it was before the arrival of the gnats.  They had left the field by the middle of the 4th inning and from that point on the Woodpeckers pitching staff only saw 1 batter more than the minimum as they retired 9 of the final 10 Braves hitters.  Final two innings from ace closer Gary Alstott slammed the door closed providing the spark for the Woodpeckers attempt at their tryumphant comeback that fell 1 hitter shy.  

Special mention goes out to a fantastic defensive effort from Dinesh Telang at 3b, apparently the Gnats were only attacking the taller players, as Dino made one monsterous stop after another.  Became so routine for him he even began using his legs for kick saves just to display his level of expertise.

Once again the Braves followed the examples of all the other teams so far this season and refused to shake hands with the Woodpeckers in their inaugural season in the MSBL.  Must be the way the league welcomes the new guys I suppose.