The Games,
Within The Game
Remember growing up and
playing the games of your youth? We did not
have Nintendo or Sega to entertain us. We played Hide and Seek, Freeze Tag and
countless board games. For me the best games were sports: wiffleball, baseball,
basketball and football. Sometimes we only had 4 kids playing, that was enough.
Fifty years later many of us still have that inner child, we are exhilarated
when we are able to come out to the ballfield and play. This write up will
center around games, see if you can recognize the games and terms associated
with playing the games of your youth.
Visitors, Team “Hungry
Hippos”, this was the team I played on, (insert your own joke here).
Home, Team “Scrabble”,
these guys scrambled and turned base hits, into runs.
No team had a “monopoly”
on scoring. The Hippos started out with an early lead. We threw a “Yahtzee”,
double 3’s, in the 1st and 2nd inning. The Scrabble team
connected just enough base hits together, to keep the game close. They scored 1
run, in the first, and 4 runs in the 2nd. After Two innings the game
was 6-5, in favor of the Hippos.
The next two innings
belonged to the Scrabble team. While the Hippos were playing “checkers”, the
Scrabble team was playing “chess”. They outscored us 6-2. They captured our
queen in the 4th inning, scoring 5 runs. Vandenberg started the
4th with a triple; Book, Hapeman and Rivera then all singled and Hamilton grabbed the rook.
Actually, Tommy hit a HR over the rook, to deep right field. The Hippos were not
collecting many marbles, we only scored two runs in those innings. After 4
innings, the score was Hippos: 8-Scrabble: 11.
Both teams threw up a
goose egg in the 5th, neither team could “Connect Four”. The Hippos
finally had a “Clue” on how to get things done in the 6th. Matta, Skidmore, Zelazny, D’Herin and Hite figured
out that “Colonel Mustard, committed the murder in the Library, using the lead
pipe”. We also figured out that we needed to hit and score some runs, we put up
3 runs, to tie the game. In the bottom of the inning the Scrabble team couldn’t
spell Cat, even if you spotted them the “a” and the “t”. They were shut out.
After 6 innings, the score was tied at 11.
In the last 3 innings,
it was a race to get to “GO” to “collect 200 dollars”. The Hungry Hippos were
the “bankers” in those innings, outscoring the Home team 9- 4, until the bottom
of the 9th. The Hungry Hippos used
their "get out of jail free card" in the 7th. We hit “Free Parking”,
scoring 5 runs. Hicks, Rad, Jacobson, Matta (SF), JD, Skidmore, Zelazny and
D’Herin jumped in the “monopoly race car” and sped around the board. We were
shut out in the 8th, but in the ninth we “rolled doubles” and landed
on “Boardwalk”. Rad, Matta, JD, all “built homes on Boardwalk”; Skidmore (HR)
and Zelazny (Triple) added “hotels”. We were so close to winning, but we had to
survive team Scrabble’s bottom of the 9th ,to secure the win. The score going into the bottom
of the 9th was Hippos: 20- Scrabble 15. That spelled “Trouble” for
the Home Team.
Team Scrabble had a plan
to “capture our flag”, like in the game “Stratego”. Their plan was simple, score
6 runs in the bottom of the 9th and win the game. They started out poorly,
recording an out. Then Rivera got the dice rolling with a single. Hamilton
“took over a continent”, like in the game “Risk”, when he hit his 2nd
homerun of the game. Needing 3 runs to tie the game, the Scrabble team was still
very much alive. Shirer and Essenmacher were the next two batters and they
played a mean “pinball game”, reaching base on hits. However, team Hippo sunk
their “Battleship”, when we retired the next two batters to win the game. Final
Score: Hungry Hippos: 20- Scrabble: 17. “Sorry”.
Leading
Gamers For The Hungry Hippos:
Hicks: 3/5.
Rad: 5/5, two
doubles.
Jacobson: 3/5,
Triple.
Matta: 4/4, SF, Triple
and Double.
JD: 3/4, SF.
Skidmore: 3/ 5,
HR.
Zelazny: 5/5,
Triple.
D’Herin: 3/4.
Leading
Gamers For Scrabble:
Rivera: 4/5.
Hamilton: 4/5, 2
HRs.
Shirer: 3/5.
Book: 2/3,
SF.
Write up by Nick Matta
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