If it's too hot to play, why did you join a summer league?

With Zoombie attendance in the high 10s, we were ready to come back from a 2 game losing streak. We received an email from the GSA early on gameday to see what our thoughts were on the heat (temperature was supposed to reach 35C or 308.5 Kelvin that day). Te conversation went something like this:

GSA: "uh are you guys concerned about playing in the heat?"

Zoombies: No.

GSA: "a couple of our players are concerned"

Zoombies: Are you guys coming to the field yes or no.

GSA: "we've had a lot of cancellations and we don't really .... (blah blah blah)... chicken nuggets ..... (blah blah blah) ... extra mayo ... (blah blah). "

Zoombies (alex): "it's softball. we spend half the time sitting in the shade anyway"

GSA: "ok we'll try to make it lol"

It was gametime, and GSA shows up with 4 players, prompting an instant forfeit. The Zoombies had won. The beer was ours.

We decided to split the Zoombies into 2 groups (Alex, Shauna, Gerardo and Andrea awesomely volunteered to play with the GSA, thanks guys), and the game was on.

All zoombies played really well with epic hitting as usual, great defense too. On the GSA team, the only players that were actually scoring runs and making outs (not making out) were of course the borrowed Zoombies.

I strongly believe that the final score doesn't matter, because in the end we got to have a good time and play with ourselves.

Next game on Monday Jul 19 vs. Canadian studies. Stay tuned.

Bar Flies Set The Bar Too High. Bar flies 22 - Zoombies 14

The weather was against us. Massive rains for much of the day almost cancelled the game, but abated in time for the epic encounter with the bar flies. Field conditions were hot and wet, and as the game sheet noted, the weather was "Daveless".

The bar flies were short women, and Zoombies were due for a loyalty test, so with the bait juicily laid "any women want to play for the bar flies", the traitor among us was revealed..... Camille! Now we know who not to trust with our pseudo-random lineup generator.

The Zoombies came out slowly and the bats were ineffective. The Bar Flies knowing they had a difficult game against the undefeated Zoombies came out swinging, hitting a lot of long fly balls many into the wood for doubles and triples which the Zoombies helplessly watched. In the middle of the fifth the Zoombies realized how dire of straights we were in, down 13-3, and started what could have been the biggest comeback in Zoombie history. Scoring 4 runs in the bottom of the fifth, and then applying the mercy rule of 7 runs in the 6th the game was in sight! However the bar flies could not let the free pitcher slip away and scoring 6 in the 7th and shutting down the zoombie bats. 22-14 final.

Special thanks to Justine for finally making it out and popping some huge hits. Colin brought the authentic baseball experience with chewing tobacco. And Camille sacrificed her Zoombie experience to the game could go on.

Highlights:

• Gerardo sacrificing his body, assisting with his mouth to make an out at first. He's gonna like he had a bar fight with the bar flies.

• Marc with an epic save coming from centre field to right, and making the out while Cynthia screamed "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!"

• Brent had a perfect night at the plate going 3 for 3 with some big hits

• Cynthia "visualizing" her at bats lead to huge power hits.

Pierre McGuire's Monster:

• TERI EMRICH! In our 6th inning rally Aaron hit a ball to short top and was racing to first, Teri screamed at the top of her lungs RRRRUUUUUUUNNNNNNN!!!!!! This resulted in Aaron beating the ball to first and several zoombies needing a change of underwear.

Look for a big rebound next game.

No mind games here. Psychology 5 - Zoombies 12

After receiving a large number of "can't make it to the game" emails, team captain taco was not sure we would gather enough players for a full team. Fortunately, a few players made the extra effort (including driving for 6 hours whilst being hungover, and hopping on the O-train after some afternoon beers) to make it to the game. We had a couple of first-times as well (Gerardo and Brent) who didn't disappoint.

The Zoombies played fearlessly inning after inning doing what they do best: intimidating and crushing the opposing team's hopes for victory. The Zoombies were up early in the game and kept the lead for the rest of the game. As usual, our final score was in the double digits for our 4th win in 4 games. If my math serves me right, that's a 100% winning record for us thus far.

Game Highlights:

*Mark stepping up his defense in center field with a couple of awesome catches, amazing throw-ins which no doubt prevented bad stuff from happening, and pro-level base running which helped get us a few extra runs. Well done dude.

*Roz had some great stops at short stop and covered a bit of third base as well. No errors, nailed the throws to first consistently. But honestly, nobody expected less from our top ringer.

*Shauna showed 500% improvement over passed games, with HUGE hits and like 25 RBIs. She also got a guy out at second. No big deal.

Thanks to Daniel for helping us out since we were short a few players.

Next game is on Thursday June 24th vs Barflies. Stay tuned.

Legal studies, lawyered.

Legal studies showed up with only 5 players, but fortunately team Biology was practicing on the field before the game. Bio lent Legal studies a few players and the game was on. As usual for the Zoombies, phenomenal hitting, extra bases, and good defense put us ahead early on in the game. Final score was 17-4 for our third win in three games.

Game highlights:

-The ladies represented this game. 50% of our team was female this time and 100% of the girls played awesomely. Props to Cynth for her biggest hit yet and Andrea for finally hitting her stride with 2 singles and a double.

-Solid hitting by Derek who batted 1000 this game.

Game MVP: Aaron for batting the cycle (a first time ever zoombie cycle no less)

We have a couple of weeks off, with our next game taking place on June 18th vs. Psychology. They call themselves the Mad Batters and while I haven't thought of a joke for this yet, believe me, I will.

Culture Club falls 14-1 to the swift Zoombies

Another win for the Zoombies, this time against Culture Club. Some zoombies had their first game today, thanks for coming out guys (Derek, Rikki, Shauna, Cynthia).

Honorable mentions:

Roz - She was a wall at third base preventing many potential disasters. After one of Roz's amazing plays, one player asked "When did we go pro?". We also thank Roz for coming out for "just one beer".

Aaron - This guy keeps hitting GIGANTIC hits to right field. This time he was just inches away from clearing that green monster. Don't worry buddy, you'll get it next time. Aaron was also unstoppable on defense.

Rikki - Her first time at bat in 18 years, she hits a double. No big deal.

Alex (a.k.a the pitcher killer) - 3 doubles, great pitching. Here's a picture of Alex sprinting to first. NOTE this picture was taken with a 4000fps high-speed camera, and Alex still showed up blurry. I guess this is why we're called the zoombies, not the slowbies.

Game MVP: Mike. Epic double play, solid hitting, and intelligent base running. Also mega props for him showing up even more than some of our ottawa-based players. Mike played in his PJs. Here's a picture of the classic post-game Zoombeers.

Next game is Monday against Legal Studies. Stay tuned...

Pregame: Game 2 - Culture Club

Last season, the Zoombies fell 8-6 against Culture Club. As one player pointed out, the captain (read: David) was not present, leading to what I imagine was a free-for-all of players running around without any sense of direction. Well guess what. I'm here this time, so let's go out and show the Culture Club team who has more culture... or clubs... or something.

UPDATE 1: Mike points out that we actually faced Culture Club for the last game of the season last year. The outcome of that game was much more awesome.

Some pregame stats: I received 9 out of 16 responses within 1 hour of sending out the call for participation email. Amazing considering the first game I received only 2 email responses. That's a 850% increase in email respondability.

I've also tweaked my pseudo random number generator (PRNG) to output better lineups. See you on the field. Game starts at 6.

Game 1 Results

Physics loses, Zoombies wins. That's just how we roll.

The game started off with the Zoombies playing some amazing defense, along with powerful hits and aggressive base running. This led us to mercy the Physics dept in the second inning, taking a lead of 13-4.

The next few innings were slow but had some interesting defensive plays by newly-acquired team members Andrea and Mark. Physics wasn't giving up that easily, scoring 2 runs in the 4th inning making the score 13-6.

The fifth inning had some unfortunate defensive errors, allowing for Physics to mercy the Zoombies and tie up the game. It was on.

Marc led off the 6th inning with a base hit, followed by a sacrifice hit by Camille which moved Marc up to second. Dave (literally) stepped up to the plate and hit a home run, bringing Marc in for 15-13 lead. The Physics offense was shut down at the top of the 7th finalizing an epic win for the Zoombies.

Big props to Colin for some sweet pitching, Teri for some solid base hits, Aaron for an almost home run over the green monster, Andrea for some good first base action (see what I did there?) and to everyone else for clever base running and good D. Well done guys.

Next game is Thursday May 27th vs Culture Club. Let's beat them too. Just saying.

2010 Season Starts Tonight

Zoombiefans it's that time of the year again. Tonight is the first game of the 2010 softball season. We play against the Physics department which brings back memories. Hopefully we'll get to play the full game this time.

Lots of new players joining the Zoombies this season. We welcome Colin, Amelia, Camille, Daniel and Andrea for their first game. We also have a special visit from Mike all the way from Whitby, who just couldn't miss game 1.

Stay tuned for the post-game analysis...