Opening day for our A League team, The Minds That Splatter, was Thursday, a.k.a Tax Day (for most people), facing The Fighting Yiddish. We were running shorthanded, so Jarod and I showed up in streetclothes ready to play. Our defense: P: me C: Dmitri Ivanov 1B: Troy Carlo 2B: Sam Fasulo 3B: Phil Gnatowski SS: Teddy Cheung LF: Jarod Kohr CF: Jeff Wiltse RF: Mark Hulliung We started out pretty well. It was our first game, and yet we played nearly flawlessly defensively, for the first few innings anyway. We put six runs on the board over the first two innings, on *two* three-run, inside-the-park home runs in which all three runners were 20 feet apart or less. The Yiddish are a pretty good hitting team, but things were going well for us defensively, we were able to hold them to only four runs through the first four innings. Things unravelled for us in the fifth inning, however. We made three errors, by my count, and we just missed a difficult catch or two, so instead of three outs, it was like giving their offense six or seven outs to work with. I take partial responsibility for this, as pitcher. I mostly was putting the ball where I wanted for the first three innings. Between the Yiddish not getting good metal on the ball and our defense making the plays, we breezed through those innings. For whatever reason, I lost it in the fourth. I could throw a strike if I wanted to, but I had no control within the strikezone. Considering the relative ease of hitting a slow-moving softball, this was a bad state of affairs. What had been a comfortable, 11-4 lead after four innings was now in jeopardy. Sandwiched between the handful of errors we made in the fifth were a couple of long drives by the Yiddish. One guy on their team hit the dorm about halfway up in the fourth, and very nearly did it again in the fifth, except that one of the trees in left-center knocked it down. If that isn't proof that recycling is good for us, I don't know what is. The Yiddish batted around in the fifth, but fortunately, they did so having scored "only" six runs. Thanks to the 55-minute time limit, that was the last inning, with the final score, Minds 11, Yiddish 10. If they *had* tied it, we would have had another chance to hit in the bottom of the fifth. Momentum was not on our side, so I was glad to get out of there without needing our last at-bats. I like their team; they were easy-going and they were a good match for us. As luck would have it, we play them again for our regular-season finale. I expect the rematch will have playoff implications. Gold Star of the Day goes to Dmitri Ivanov. Playing in the first softball game of his life, Dmitri went 2-for-3 with three RBI and two runs scored. I will explain to him some time what an "RBI" is. Also, Dmitri gave me a ride to work earlier that day. The Minds' next game is on Tuesday at 5:30 against Da Pimps. -Tapu