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1994-1996
Joey
Creighton and Scott Carmichael were always "stat studs"
in grade school. Not really to anyone else, because being obsessed
with stats is surprisingly not looked up to often at that age. But
they were studs to themselves. They'd spout numbers at you whether
or not you wanted their company, and they'd be proud. However, one
day, they were in the Creighton's backyard, doing their normal thing
(no, not that...playing wiffleball) when it dawned upon them:
Hey,
we should tally our numbers while we play!
So
astonished that they hadn't thought of this earlier, they quickly
tried to make up for lost time as they started their first-ever
"league." They recruited Joey's younger brother Terry
out of convenience and brought in Joey's other friend, Nick Seiler.
They picked out a ball (and let's be thankful these young and naive
minds made such an intelligent choice) and once the summer of 1994
began, so did the league.
Oddly
enough, the "field" they played in (actually a backyard)
required some fine-tuning of rules. There was a large pool that
ate up almost half the area, so they decided to incorporate it.
Instead of suffering from heatstroke (or stumbling and possibly
breaking your neck while dodging the pool) by running the bases,
they decided to swin the bases. It was a novel idea as the Chico
temperatures climbed above 110 degrees. They instituted one fielder
along with the pitcher. They made a set spot where you could pitch
from. They designated the homerun boundaries. Then they started
playing.
Simply
put, it was fun. As a result, they did the same thing the next summer,
replacing guys where others left and tinkering with rules to make
the game as fun as possible. In 1996, the third season, they decided
to bring in outside talent and invited some fellow high school baseball
teammates out to the field. Nate Stuempfig, Matt Holmberg, and Luke
Carriere became mainstays as the league experienced its best, most
competitive season. A little runt named Casey Sylvester came out,
sucked, but loved the game. They (finally) started keeping pitching
stats, as the world found out with concrete proof that Scott Carmichael
was indeed pretty damn tough to hit.
However,
at the end of the season, the Creighton parents broke the news cold:
they would be moving to another Chico location, where crack-addicted
no-lifes weren't as abundant to perform the weekly robbery. Still,
at that point, Joey and Scott had built an empire of sorts. They
figured it was invincible, and decided to try and keep the league
going at the new locale. They had no idea what was coming.
1997
1998-2003
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