OTTAWA-Facing their season’s toughest challenge, the fun bunch would once again be without their hall-of-fame shortstop steve “field marshal” saunders—still hobbled with back pain. They were playing the Athletics tonight. A team that brought new meaning to the term “win at any cost”. Good-natured and jovial—when they were winning—they turned into nasty, snarling, pit-bulls when the chips were down. With “field marshal” still unable to hit, field or run they would only have his stellar pitching and astute coaching to help them in this battle-in-the-making.

Causing further consternation was the season debut of Richard “wild thing” Bujold. Always entertaining and sometimes proficient, he would do his best to fill the large hole left by “field marshal’s” absence. Also coming to the team’s aid would be mark “polygon” pintar who agreed to play when glen “the wrangler” rankin and clark “pound em back” lawlor couldn’t make it as well.

But the biggest spotlight would be on ryan “man-o-war” matishuck. Given the green light, he would be attempting to fill the shoes of the 33-year veteran all-star “field marshal” at shortstop. A tall order indeed.

After three innings things were going reasonably well. The score was 12-6 for the funbunch. Meghan “marathon” Saunders had shocked the athletics when she beat out an infield grounder with her blazing speed to be called safe by “polygon” as she sprinted through first base, her feet barely touching the ground. Leah “the round runner” Morrell made a stunning play when she knocked down a hard grounder at third then proceeded to pick up the ball and gun down the runner who was charging to first. “wild thing” naturally was keeping things interesting at second base. Easily distracted, he was having trouble focussing on the game as he chatted, joked and guffawed with every baserunner and infielder within earshot. Adding to the merriment, he somehow managed to kick , drop or juggle just about every ground ball that came his way—seemingly to the tune of his trade mark circus music.

Just as things were sailing along, the fun bunch inexplicably took a nosedive. Offense evaporated. Defense disappeared. Three straight zero run innings by the fun bunch while the Athletics proceeded to score nine runs and all of a sudden the fun bunch were down 15-12. All of a sudden we had a ball game. With the sun in her eyes at first Kathie “daredevil” Adare struggle to reel in wayward throws. The pressure was getting to the fun bunch infielders as they failed to make a single double play and were having trouble with their accuracy. Adding to their woes the Athletics were putting on a batting clinic with surgical placement of their hits to inflict maximum damage

As the game had started late, the fun bunch had only two innings remaining to set things right. As if on queue, they scored five runs in the next inning including a massive blast to the base of the outfield fence by “bullseye” and a leadoff double and badly needed run scored by “wild thing”. The defense dug deep to limit the Athletics to only 2 runs in the bottom of the inning highlighted by a great shoestring catch by “sweetspot” in the outfield to end the inning. The game was now tied 17-17 going into the final and “endless” inning.

The eighth inning couldn’t have started any better with “marathon”, “wild thing” and “bullseye” all getting on board. The Next batter “sweetspot” drove in “marathon” and “wild thing” and advanced “bullseye” to second. This had all the makings of a monster inning. The Athletics, feeling the pressure, were getting surly and drilling the ball back to pitcher “field marshall” who was none too impressed.

Then the unimaginable happened. Emiliy “big time” Belanger popped up for the first out. Scott “boom boom” saunders, with a chance to drive in two more runs with a homer, popped up a fly ball to mid field. Like a slow motion horror show, “field marshal” watched as “bullseye” took off from second with the ball sure to be caught. Running as if a trance, she didn’t respond to “field marshal’s” shrieking until she rounded third. Coming out of her stupor, she finally heard “field marshal” screaming at her to get back to second. But it was too late. The Athletics had caught the lazy fly and had picked her off. The nascent rally was quashed at a measly two runs.

Up 19-17 with the Athletics coming to bat, the fun bunch would need a stellar inning of defense to maintain their fingernail’s grasp of this win. Sadly, that would not be the case as the first two Athletic batters easily got on board and then their show-boating, two-gloved shortstop came to bat and launched a home run over the right field fence to win the game 20-19. The winning street was reset back to zero.