‘Twas less than a year ago when the boys of Thetford’s Towing extinguished a four-run deficit in the bottom of the seventh inning to rally and win Game 2 of the Oneonta City League men’s softball championship, earning a sweep of the series against the top-seeded Copper Fox.
The boys from Thetford’s finished the year at 16-2, earning their first Oneonta City League crown and first title since being Blinky’s back in the old Brookside Softball League in Delhi in 2001.
‘Twas a great year indeed.
New faces. Old faces. One helluva team.
But, as they say, as a season end and a team wins a championship… it goes into the record book and we move on.
Indeed that is so.
Tonight (weather pending) is when the boys of Thetford’s open the season in hopes of a repeat championship. There’s some new things to this team — including a co-sponsor in Legend’s Filling Station. There will be a few new faces and we’ve had to say goodbye to two key members of last year’s squad (one enlisted in the Navy; the other moved back to Florida).
Alas, Thetford’s/Legends will continue on.
The league, after being slightly down last year (entry fee was doubled last season…ouch!) is on an upswing with eight teams. Even better? One division. That means the playoffs will be eight teams. To win it will require winning three series, which makes it even better.
We open this evening against a new squad named The Fuzzy Dogs.
Yes, I seriously wrote that.
I’ll hope this team of fuzzy canines isn’t some loaded squad, as I’d hate to lose our season opener to a team that seems to be better named after a kid’s show. That being said, we’ll see what happens. After all, we haven’t done much as a team yet (which is the norm) and hopefully we can quickly shake off any rust and get back to playing some top-notch ball.
The week runs 14 games over seven weeks and then the playoffs commence.
Hopefully, when it’s all said and done, we’ll be lifting another trophy and saluting our sponsors and players. We’ll know by mid-summer, that’s for sure.
And as game time creeps closer, it’s like it is every year. Some excitement and wonder as to what the season might bring. But we’ll be ready, I’m sure.
Play ball!
Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.