Just when you think you have a team figured out, they go and change their entire gameplan, and come up with a change in form.
Though it’ll obviously take more than one win to claim ‘form’, the way the Vancouver Canadians won today’s nooner against the formerly dominant Eugene Emeralds indicates that, if they can’t beat a team swinging hard, they’re capable of beating them with a little Rope-A-Dope.
For those who don’t know the term Rope-A-Dope, it stems from the boxing tactics of one Muhammad Ali in a fight against George Foreman that is remembered as ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’.
As the fight loomed, conventional wisdom said Ali had no chance against the hard-hitting Foreman if he allowed the big man to catch up with him. Pundits suggested Ali would need to be light on his feet and dance around the champ, waiting for a late-round opening, if he was to have any chance at all.
Ali had other plans. When the bell rang, he did the exact opposite, standing against the ropes and leaning back, allowing Foreman to take big shots at his body, while ducking and weaving anything thrown at his head. Foreman readily charged in and went to work, landing big hits continually.
But Ali was able to take a body shot well, and by keeping his head back and letting Foreman punch himself out downstairs, by the 5th round Foreman had a big lead on the scorecard and not a drop of gas left in the tank.
That’s when Ali turned on the offense, peppering the big man with jabs and eventually knocking Foreman out in the 8th to regain the World Heavyweight Championship belt.
The Vancouver Canadians form of Rope-A-Dope, as seen today, was as follows:
- Protect the heart of the strike zone only
- Let the pitchers try to hit the corners and assume they’ll miss a lot
- Swing at nothing that isn’t down the middle
- Get a lot of walks
- Panic the defense and take advantage of their mistakes
The result? 9 bases on balls, only 3 K’s, and five runs on four Eugene errors.
That’s smart baseball, right there.
And it makes sense. Right now the C’s couldn’t hit fresh air in a wind tunnel, so why beat yourself up every night trying to push back the tide? No more whiffs, no more chasing… let the pitcher earn his K.
Of course, you also need good defense to make such a plan work, and the C’s demonstrated that today, largely due to the athletic ability of one Dusty Napoleon at first base [seen left, from last year]. Occupying the cold corner rather than his usual catcher duties, Napoleon not only pounced on hard grounders, he was turning double plays. By the end of the day, the dusty one had racked up a 3-2-3, 3-4-3, and a 4-6-3 - a great haul for any one-bagger.
His teammates responded in kind, with everyone gloving every grounder and catching every catch without an issue, while the pitching staff did their jobs in keeping the hard-hitting Ems close.
Napoleon was also in on the scoring (three times), though he didn’t register a hit all day. Ditto Dante Love, who touched home twice without notching a base hit. In fact, the only guys to score runs for the C’s today had no hits on the board when the game was over.
The bottom of the 4th was the epitome of how the C’s tackled today’s outing. Love opened with a lead-off walk, then Dusty followed him with a walk of his own. Jason Christian was in on the act (he was 1-1 on the day with two walks) as The Fundamentalist sac bunted the runners over to put them both in scoring position. Up comes Jeremy Barfield, and The Stairmaster swats a pitch to left field, scoring two as Bobby Verbick threw the ball from left field to Kamloops.
Wonderful stuff. Thinking man’s baseball. They put the opposition under pressure and never let off.
Well, never until the following two hitters, Rodney Rutherford and Jareck West, who both struck out to leave Barfield stranded.
Baby steps, eh?
Eugene wasn’t going down easy, however. They notched single runs in the 4th, 5th and 6th innings, but Emperor Napoleon wasn’t going to let this game go without a fight.
Top of the 6th, bases loaded, the C’s have just conceded a run to be down 3-2, when a hard grounder comes Napoleon’s way. He gloves it, hurls it home to stop another run scoring, Dante Love makes the out and spears a return throw back at The Duster and rips out a double play that gutted the Ems when they looked most in control.
And the C’s did respond in the bottom of the frame, and what a surprise, it opened with a Dante Love walk once again.
Fans don’t always get the walk, but it’s a great skill to be able to extract a free pass from a pitcher. Not only do you get to base guaranteed, but you also put a bug in the pitcher’s ear so that he’s not just trying to get the hitter out, now he’s worried about you perched over at first base, ready to run. The fact that you’re even there just pisses him off, and a pissed off pitcher makes mistakes.
Like an attempted pickoff that whizzes past the first baseman and gives the runner a free trip to second base.
Impossible to rattle over the last few days, the Emeralds were now starting to wobble, so when The Duster smacked a grounder at Eugene first baseman Shane ‘Ghostworld’ Buschini, of course he second guessed himself and bobbled it.
A new pitcher came in, as Alexis Lara (I loved her work in Dynasty) replaced Matt ‘The Definition’ Means, and I’m going to give a massive shout out to Jason Christian [seen right] here… he freaking WORKED the new pitcher to draw a walk and load the bases.
Way to keep the pressure up, Fundy.
Jeremy Barfield wasn’t entirely down with the gameplan, so he grounded into a run-scoring double play (we’ll take it), and though Rodney Rutherford is to hitting what John McCain is to youthful exuberance, the pressure on the new pitcher saw him give up a balk, bringing The Duster home to give the C’s a one run edge.
And then, yeah, Rutherford grounded out to end the inning. The sun rises in the east, life goes on.
On the mound, Ryne ‘Thumb’ Tacker had reduced his ERA considerably with a solid five inning, two earned run effort, and though Matt ‘The Shoe’ Fitts surrendered a run in his only inning of work (thus maintaining consistency with his previous efforts), Ben ‘Kirkwood’ Hornbeck managed to get a hold in his 0.2 innings of relief to get the C’s out of a potential jam in the 7th.
And then, just when the Emeralds may have got ideas about coming back, the C’s sent Jose ‘Goose’ Guzman in to close. Thank you… and g’night!
To make sure of the win, the Canadians replayed the earlier innings in the bottom of the 8th, with Dusty freakin’ Napoleon drawing ANOTHER lead-off walk, The Fundamentalist moving him to 2nd on a base hit, and who should drop a sac bunt but the freaking Stairmaster!
Panic ensues in the Eugene camp, and first baseman Shane Buschini makes yet another error, allowing The Duster to score a run.
Of course, Rodney Rutherford then struck out. It’s not his fault. If they’d put a bloody bell in the ball, the poor kid might be able to hear it coming. I mean, it’s great that a blind kid can even get this far in the game, you know?
So the Goose strikes out two in the 9th for the save, and the C’s send 3000+ folks home happy on a beautiful Sunday, for though they didn’t see hits, they saw a team that WANTED TO WIN and was prepared to PLAY SMART to get there.
I know I’ve been hard on these guys this year, and I don’t take back anything I’ve written about previous performances, but this was solid. This was great baseball. This was playing to strengths, showing patience, and building a real sense of dread in the opponent without the need to swing for the fences.
Sure, chicks dig the long ball. But the A’s dig good at-bats, wearing down the pitcher, putting pressure on the defense, and making the bad guys work double hard to get your out.
Great game, C’s. Especially the ‘meat of the order’, Dusty Napoleon, Dante Love, and Jason Christian. They may have gone a combined 1-5, but they also managed to record six walks and five runs between them. And they can get the credit for at least three errors as well.
I’m a fan again. But please, someone get a bell for Rutherford.
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NOTES:
Lyndon Little put together a great piece in The Sun about Rick Magnante’s decision to take the reins Sunday and manufacture a much-needed victory with small ball and risk-taking. Magnante said he basically lets the guys play for the first seven innings and only then starts pulling tactical moves, but after the poor form to open the year, he’s decided to get stuck in. Good call, and it makes sense that such a dramatic switch in tactics would stem from the bossman grabbing the wheel.
Clearly, despite my blustering about poor form and lack of talent thus far into the season, with the entire NWL West struggling, it won’t take much to climb back up the table, and there are still a lot of games to go for these guys to find their feel around the wooden bat game. Maybe a win such as this is just what they need to stop choking the grip and play the kind of ball they were drafted for.
And when that happens, I’ll be the first one to put my hand up and say "You proved me wrong."
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