Stars 6 Badgers 3

Today’s SGR brought to you by Fundamentals. Is your performance letting your team down? Is your game not quite what it used to be? If so you could use baseball’s latest craze, Fundamental from your good friends at Ronco! Fundamentals is the answer to all your baseball problems. Just tear off a piece and place between your cheek and gum and you’ll instantly feel the soothing sensation of Ronco’s secret recipe of 12, not 11, herbs and spices. Yes your senses will tune to the rhythm of the game as you channel the spirits of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, or Ebby Calvin 'Nuke' LaLoosh (Ronco is still working out some quality control issues.) You will see and feel baseball in a new way, kinda like how Neo sees the fabricated digital life the machines have created in the Matrix. Don’t try diving into someones chest though. That wont end well. Order now and you’ll receive a copy of our best selling handbook “The Basics” where you’ll learn the three strike rule in three easy steps, and the SGRs favorite, the mysteries of the infield fly rule. Satisfaction is just a phone call away. Call now to order your supply of Fundamentals. Now available in easy to swallow gel caps. (Offer not valid in Maine or anywhere there are laws against fraud. Taxes may apply. Shipping and handling extra. Sold under the brand name ”Règles pour les Idiots“ in Quebec.)

Yes it’s that time of year when the Stars take the ‘fun’ and the ‘mental’ out of fundamentals while simultaneously adding additional ‘doh.’ The start of the baseball season has a way of turning that old adage ‘the mind is willing but the body is weak’ on its head. Winston Churchill might have said ‘thinking is the easiest part of baseball, except all the other parts,’ but he was too busy kicking Nazi butt so never got around to thinking about baseball. Too bad.

Here’s a quick primer of some of the most important things to remember about baseball to tide you over until your order of Fundamentals arrives:

1. You throw the ball
2. You hit the ball
3. You catch the ball
4. If you lollygag you are a lollygagger
5. We’ve got a twelve game road trip starting tomorrow. Bus leaves at 6 in the morning.
6. Measure twice. Cut once.
7. Runners on third with less than two outs should tag up on an outfield flyball
8. Candlesticks make a nice gift
9. You back up the player trying to catch the thrown ball, not the base
10. You put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up

Some guy made a fortune writing a book called everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten. He either didn’t think life is very challenging or he went to one heckuva kindergarten. If only baseball were so simple. There’s so much to try and remember. Baseball is governed by a massive rulebook covering everything from whether a baserunner can steal on a foul tip that gets caught in the catchers chest protector on a Thursday away game before dusk, to why lefthanders should never play shortstop. Well, actually it doesn’t say anything about that, but it should!

On top of that you got all the unwritten rules, the conventional wisdom, and more recently sabrmetrics, all trying to tell you the right way to play. It’s tough to try and remember all this and stay focused. Especially since you’re having trouble keeping from pulling your hips out too early because you can’t get the broad out of your head even though you are breathing through your eyelids.

With all that to think about the Stars beat the expansion Surrey Badgers 6 to 3 at GPF on Saturday. BIG KEN pitched 5 glorious innings in his 2018 debut on the hill holding the Badgers to just 2 runs, 1 earned, on 3 hits, while striking out 5, walking 1, and beaning 1 just for fun. As he put it, “I’m smarter, faster, better, and smarter than last year. Did I include smarter?” Physio took over after that for the final 4 innings allowing just 1 unearned run, while striking out 3 Badger batters. Five boo-boos by the defense, but a great 5-4-3 double play in the fourth to help shut down a potential rally. Stars collected 8 hits on the day. IKat and Tup each went 2 for 4. Physio hit a bomb deep down the RF line for a double and a RBI in the sixth. Crash only got on the basepaths when he got hit, but still managed to crash in 2 RBIs.

Simpy was hitless at the plate, although he didn’t commit any errors or allow any hits on the day.

What do you know. The SGR mail bag received its first letter of the 2018 season. This letter is from a Mr. B. Lar from Ladner, BC. It’s nice to see that the people of Ladner have learned how to write. I guess they were serious when they recently changed the town motto from “Smart as a Potator” to “Ladner: Now with Schools.” Mr. Lar writes: “Dear SGR, In a situation where the home team is leading 6 to 3 in the bottom of the ninth with two outs and a runner on first base and the batter hits a line drive that’s caught by the pitcher and the runner has left the base without tagging up and is a good 30 feet away from first, shouldn’t the pitcher  take his time and wait for the first baseman to get back to the bag and is ready to receive a throw, rather than firing the ball right away at near light speed causing the first baseman to drop the ball, fall to his knees, and fumble around trying to find the ball and complete the force play all the while looking like a drunk man searching under a streetlight for the house key he dropped because it was too dark on his porch where he actually dropped the key?” Dear Mr. Lar, Normally the SGR would agree with you. Fundamentals and all. But in this instance the opportunity to see your first baseman humiliate himself by not being able to make a simple play causing much merriment among teammates and giving the SGR a chance to receive a Pulitzer Prize by puting the incident in print overrides the blatant disregard for the fundamentals. The SGR rules in favor of the pitcher. Mr. Lar is responsible for all court costs. SGR adjourned!

The Monarchs of Richmond return to GPF on Saturday.

GO STARS!!!