Winston L.A.’s Fall Ball Season Recap 2013

With a tragic regular season record of 4 wins and 6 losses, 2013 marked Winston’s first losing softball season that I can remember. In fairness, we were in a transitional state, under new management by Ali (the “Witz”) Rabbani, who graciously took over after we bid farewell last season to our long-time leader. There were some shining moments worth mentioning during our losses, including Doug (“One Man Show”) Hewlett knocking multiple homeruns in one game, and last week our newest and most spirited recruit Monique (“MoYo”) Moncayo slamming her first homerun since joining our team. 

We didn’t think we had a chance at playoffs. It’s like the great Jim Mora once said “Playoffs, You’re talking to me about playoffs? Are you kidding me?!” In fact, a few games ago when our opponent, Sidley Austin, was taking too many pitches, Drew (the “Unicorn” a/k/a/ Droopy f/k/a/ She-Drew) Robertson chided: “I don’t know why they won’t swing, it’s not like either of our teams are going to the playoffs.” I was startled and stung by that statement--would this be the first time I can remember that our Winston team did not even make the playoffs?

Well it turns out the Unicorn was misled, as even with our worst record ever of 4-6, we did manage to squeeze into the playoffs. As the third-seed, we faced second-seed Hinshaw Culbertson in round one, who had an impressive record of 8-2 during the regular season. While Hinshaw kept the game close for the first three innings, if they thought they were going to win on walks they had another thing coming—Jen (“K-Dodge”) Dodge shut them down. Jason (“Wild Thing”) Vaughn was catching everything hit remotely close to short stop—and made multiple double plays to Ian (“Sambas”) Eisner, who made all sorts of crazy plays at first base. And Rob (“Wheels”) Estrin made a monster catch in left field to save a few runs. Final Score: Winston: 15---Hinshaw: 12.   

Onto the championship game!

We faced Allen Matkins—who had just slaughtered their opponent in the first round, and was undefeated in the regular season with a perfect record of 10-0. Their pitcher puts more spin on his pitches than one might have thought possible in high-slow-pitch softball. They had that extra outfielder and six men. Also, I personally lost the coin toss, which could have at least given us home field advantage. But despite all of this weighing against us, our team stayed tough on offense and defense. We were playing better than we had all season when it counted. We began to realize that we might actually pull off the greatest upset in Landau League history. But Allen Matkins was playing strong on all fronts as well. They got “lucky” robbing several of our batters of hits, and had four sluggers who ripped homeruns to stay on our heels, chipping away at our lead all game. By consistently scoring our own runs and making clutch outs, we managed to stay a few runs ahead until the last inning. We just needed to hold them…

For the last four years it has been routine for us to go undefeated in the regular season and then choke in the playoffs, which repeatedly included winning one playoff game, only to then lose the championship. Now here we were, just humbled (and lucky) to even be in the playoffs. Could we come at it from another place—the underdogs with a pathetic record—and finally win the championship for the first time since December 2009? Could the new low key management of the Witz return us to glory?  

We did it!  With more awesome plays in the infield, we shut down Allen Matkins in the bottom of the seventh. Final Score: Winston: 13---Allen Matkins: 9. Winston & Strawn won the Fall 2013 Co-ed Landau League Championship! This is only the SECOND time in Winston softball history that we have achieved this, and only MVP of the game Unicorn and I were on the team in 2009 when it last happened. With the new management and the return of exciting rookies like One Man Show and MoYo, I can’t wait till next season!  

Pictured from back left to right: Crush Ya, MoYo, K-Dodge, Wild Thing, Sambas, Wheels, the Witz; pictured from left to right: Mermaid, the Unicorn.