 |
| League History: 1996 |
|
After his sophomore year of high school (ending with the spring baseball season),
Joey had actually managed to become friendly with a couple teammates despite his surly demeanor and obvious lack of
social skills. On the baseball diamond, none of this mattered apparently. The teammates (Matt Holmberg, Nate Stuempfig,
Joey Holt, and Luke Carriere) were intrigued by the thought of a poorly-run, uncompetitive wiffle ball league that barely
held any semblance to actual wiffle ball and involved swimming over running. They expressed interest, but for a few weeks,
Joey seemed oblivious. After yet another summer night spent rolling die and playing Baseball Stars, Scott suggested to the
commissioner that he should invite these new faces to the league. While Joey relished the spotlight in a league full of
nobodies, Scott was getting bored.
Eventually though, and to his credit, Joey invited these new guys out, and the result was a revolution within the
league. Nick Seiler's poorly-played services were no longer needed, Terry's not-yet-into-girls friend was told to hit
the bricks. Thanksfully, the cousins did not visit this summer either. The league was growing, and it was all thanks
to the influx of talent. Luke Carriere and Joey Holt were throwbacks, too good a hitters to care about their glaring
lack of pitching skill (oh yeah, the league finally started tracking pitching numbers this year). Matt Holmberg was an
interesting case in that he actually had more body hair than the already ape-like Commissioner. He struggled heavily
out of the gate, claimed to hate the game, finally hit his first HR, and promptly fell back in love. He could also pitch,
along with Nate Stuempfig, whose name was spelled correctly on the scoresheets exactly two times that summer. Nate never
got it going, finishing 4-32 with no HR's and no RBI's despite a textbook swing and legitimate baseball talent.
Scott Carmichael also brought in a talent, perhaps fearing the Commissioner would never get the balls to finally invite
the other four. Casey Sylvester was introduced to the league in 1996 without a big background of athletic success. He
wallowed in the bottom of the league for most of the season, batting only .221 (17-77) and allowing other hitters to hit
.365 off him. He was very raw (and rail-thin), but he showed promise. Plus, he loved the game despite his defficiences.
The only blurred spot on the year was the ABs of Joey Holt's little brother Stevie Stull. Brought along one day because
Joey couldn't find a sitter, Stevie was allowed to play and was expectedly overmatched as the league resembled earlier
seasons for a day. To his credit though, he poor numbers (3-20, 1 HR, 1 RBI) are still better than that of the proven
baseball talent Nate Stuempfig. Who did Stevie emasculate with his homerun? All I remember is that it was an opposite-way
line drive. Before checking the archives, I'm going to go on a limb and guess that Casey Sylvester was the poor man on the
hill. Let's go check...
Yep, I was right! Teamed up with his older, likely annoyed brother Joey, Stevie took on Nate Stuempfig and Casey. After
older brother hit a one-out, 2-run HR off Casey to make it 3-0, Stevie followed with a shot of his own. He ended the game
going 1-8 with 5 Ks.
Sadly, the league was caught off guard by bad news at the end of the summer. Due to the Creighton's being robbed for
the 8th time or so since moving into the crack-infested area of Chico, the field would no longer be available. The
Creightons were moving.
|
 |
|
|
 |
