Talk of the Town decimates Wild Bunch in softball

Never-before-seen play

by Than Acuff

Soooo, it wasn’t the best game but the devil is in the details. While the Talk of the Town handed the Wild Bunch a 29-6 drubbing, there were some incredible plays.

One could tell it was going to be a rough game for the Wild Bunch as they were searching helplessly for gloves, bats and their player/manager Tony Wildman six minutes prior to the game’s start, while the Talk of the Town was on the other side of the field warming up. Toss in the fact that two of their players openly admitted they had never played before and it was obvious: This game was going to be “special.”

Gloves and bats were found and Wildman showed up just in time to get his nine—remember, there are supposed to be 10—players out into the field for the start of the game Thursday, June 13 at Tommy V Field.

The Talk jumped out to a 3-0 lead, then a 7-1 lead, then an 11-1 lead and then a 17-1 lead by the third inning including inside-the-park home runs from Erik Turbo Ervin, Robbie Vandervoort and Brian Kunes and key base hits by Kate “Irish Red” Killian, Kelli McGuire and Mariko Kusaka.

The Wild Bunch looked for some charity from the Talk when they asked if a guy could play as a coed, explaining to the Talk, “He’s British and never played baseball.”

The Talk, being the Talk, of course said yes. Because that’s what the Talk does, says yes. Except for when “Schwartzy” bartended back in the ’90s and the bar was three deep and someone would ask for three kamikazes, two white Russians and a host of other mixed drinks.

“NO FOOF!” was his common response.

After falling behind 17-1, the game was all but over but the Wild Bunch kept plugging away to score some runs and pull off some defensive heroics.

Vance Larder singled and scored when Greg Krause connected for a two-run inside-the-park home run. Sure, the Talk came right back to rattle off six more runs for a 24-3 lead but the Wild Bunch had more to give out in the field. Erica Young chased a fly ball down the right field line, diving and rolling to stop it in its tracks only to flip it in the air to Krause, who was backing her up. Krause took the ball and fired it a good 150 feet to home plate to get the Talk runner out. One inning later the Wild Bunch pulled off a never-before-seen 1-2-3-2 double play as well to tack on another amazing play to their defensive highlight reel for the night.

Eppy Sisneros did provide a few more runs for the Wild Bunch with a two-RBI single but there was nothing they could do to stop the Talk of the Town freight train as the Talk kept scoring to roll to the 29-6 win.