A not so perfect evening playing APBA with Chuck

I like playing APBA with my friend Chuck.  Maybe too much.  He has that friendly, good-natured attitude about him that makes you forget what you’re doing.  You could be having a great time playing a league series and lose all four games and then thank him for the effort. 

…and that’s exactly what happened tonight. 

Over Skype, Chuck and I played four games for our Illowa APBA League season.  His Hitmen quietly out-pitched and out-hit my Thunderchickens and before I knew it, four game were up and I hadn’t won a game yet. 

But I’m not going to dwell on that.  I will talk about Game Three. 

How would you feel if your starter pitched a complete game with 0 ER and struck out 14 batters?  Wow!  Pretty good, huh?  That’s exactly what Stephen Strasburg did for me against the Hitmen. 

But you know what?  It wasn’t enough because the Hitmen had Cole Hamels (AX)going and he did something I’ve rarely seen in APBA play.  With Hamels on the mound, it was 27 up and 27 down.  A perfect game. 

Hamels struck out four in his complete perfect game against us.  I was keeping an eye on his progress pretty early.  I knew that despite his perfect game, Strasburg still had a shutout going through the eighth inning.  The game was still tied!  Unfortunately, Jose Tabata E-8ed with Alexei Ramirez up in the eighth inning and that was followed by a Chase Utley homer, the first two runs of the game.  We went 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth to preserve the perfecto. 

Chuck says he was unaware of the perfect game when the final pitch was thrown.  Typical Chuck. 

The Hitmen come to Thunderchicken Park on Saturday to finish our May series.