The Chemist Always Wins

Idiot Nation.

You all know what I'm talking about. 2004. The biggest come back ever. Kevin Millar's Jack Daniels shots. Pokey's flip. Mientkiewicz's own hidden ball trick. Johnny Damon's hair.

The players involved in the Red Sox' 2004 World Series victory had the most chemistry, camaraderie, togetherness, stick-to-it-iveness, goofiness and team-wide buffoonery that I have ever seen in my sports viewing lifetime. But you know what? It worked perfectly.

All those guys trusted each other and they would have gone to Hell and back for anyone, even for Curtis Leskanic. (Maybe they would have left Nomar there to rot, but you get the point.) These guys had the ultimate chemistry going.

I think the Sox were down 15 games-to-one in a best-of-31 series, Millar still would have said "give us game 17, then we go home for eight more, then we win all those, get to game 31 eventually, and you never know what'll happen... Don't give us the chance..."

Millar was a whack job then, and he still is now, but that's almost what a team needs. We'll call him a "loosener-upper." His job is to, when shit gets tight around the clubhouse, give himself a wedgie, make a joke about the second baseman's facial hair, make everyone laugh and that reminds them just to play baseball.

We have one on the McKay Club, and his name is Brad Gerbus. He's our Kevin Millar. We could be getting no-hit and losing by 10 runs, but he'd be out there, laughing it up, making some insane out-of-deep-left-field comment that had absolutely nothing to do with baseball and talking about some sexual experience from a few years ago that he can't fully remember. The guys is a goof. But aside from that, he's a very good baseball player and he keeps us loose and he contributes to that chemistry that can never be fully explained.

I mean, how do you think the Colorado Rockies made it to the World Series in 2007? Sure, they got hot, but they were able to run it off because their team was so closely knit. They all trusted each other, picked each other up, everyone had confidence through the roof and there were no cancerous players in the club house.


The Yawkey League is no different. In order to win, you need (talent, obviously. and) that close knit group of guys that has been jelling for either four months or four years, doesn't matter to me. If there is trust, mutual respect, an even level of confidence throughout the whole team and an eagerness to win, success will follow close behind.

I just have a quick story before I get to the Pitcher and Hitter of the Week awards. (if you're reading this, thank you for not scrolling down to the awards section.)


I was talking to a former member of the McKay Club today. He plays for the Malden Bulldogs and wears number 4. Well, he does now. At the beginning of the season, catcher Joey Eugenio had the number and actually sacrificed it to him (for a bag of chew in return) since he had been in the league a lot longer. It was a show of class, a show of reverence and respect and it no doubt helped the chemistry on the team.

When it came to pitcher and catcher of the week, it just happened that the two guys that won are good chemistry guys, guys who sacrifice, and who understand what it means to win and lose as a team.

I could use a lot of superlatives and adjectives to describe the way Adam Del Rio pitches. Nasty is a good one. Del Rio, after having surgery on his knee last season to repair a torn ACL, has come back this year and shown the league what he is made of. It's not quite plutonium, but something very hostile and deadly.

"Donkey" Del Rio, as his coach and players like to call him (because he just acts like a donkey, apparently) is the first YBL pitcher to make two appearances on the bump in one week and win the POW award.

Del Rio made two starts last week -- against the Brighton Braves and Medford Mad Dogs -- and dazzled in both. Last Tuesday the 17th, The Donkey muled his way to five innings of one-hit ball against the Braves. No hits through four, then a "blooper" to start the fifth. He didn't walk a batter and he struck out 10 Braves. He got the win, as the Bulldogs plated five and held Brighton scoreless the rest of the way.

Later in the week, on three days of rest, Del Rio took the mound against the Medford Mad Dogs and led his breed past Medford's in a decisive 14-1 drubbing. The Donkey once again went five innings, giving up four hits, one unearned run, and one walk. He didn't record a strikeout, but when your team plates three runs in the first inning and 13 after three, the idea is to let the other team hit the ball, so he did just that.

Total for the week: 10 IP, 10 K, 1 BB, 5 H (four singles) and two wins.

Del Rio moves to 4-0 in four starts this season, accruing 23 K's in 22 innings, while walking only four batters and having a 0.63 ERA. Goodness gracious, those are gaudy numbers.

While on the topic of things of a gaudy nature, Tony Iafolla is doing his best to tear the cover off the baseball right now. In medias res an 11-game hit-streak, the Brighton Brewers catcher and team stalwart has been swinging his best bat in the last week.

The Yawkey League All-Star played in four games last week (the Brew Crew won three of them) and put together a line usually only seen in MLB 2K8: 7-for-15 (.466 ba), 9 rs, 7 RBIs, 4 bb, 2 2b, 1 3b, 1 hr and a slugging percentage of .883. Now that's carrying your team to victory, if I've ever seen it.

The 11-game hit-streak is just as impressive as the last week of games for this Brighton beast. The Brewers clean-up hitter has flaunted a .463 (19-for-41) batting average during the streak and has racked up five doubles, 12 RBIs and 16 runs scored. Want another impressive number? Only six times has Iafolla struck out during the streak, and never more than once in one game.

Now only if one of these teams could knock off Somerville....