Twins at Cleveland. Twins 4, Hubrists 2.
It's a little known fact that the Greeks actually played a form of baseball during the ancient Olympic games known as "Bakbal." The sport bore striking similarities to the game today, except that it was played nude and instead of tagging players out, fielders had to wrestle them to the ground. During the wrestling matches, any kind of move was considered fair game, except for biting, scratching, and wee-wee pulling.
Bakbal was added during the Olympiad of 748, a few decades after it was invented by bands of goatherders looking for new ways to compete after the tragic synkronized swimming accident of 802 B.C. The game quickly evolved, with square pieces of stone replacing baby goats as the three "baks", and after a league-wide effort to speed up the game, the practice of the teams stopping after each "Homer" to make a ritual sacrifice to Apollo was eliminated (afterwards, the hitter simply expressed his gratitude to the gods by pointing up toward Mount Olympus).
The championship round of the first Olympic bakbal tournament saw the meeting of two rival teams, the favored and storied Mycenaean "Twins" and the upstart Cleveland "Hubrists." In previous games, the Hubrists had beaten the pants off the Twins (or would have, had they been wearing any pants) in both the bakbal point totals and in the base-path wrestling matches. During one noted match, Hubrist Travis Hafner picked up Twin and erstwhile stable boy Lew Ford, tossed him in the air, then threw him on ground, jumped on his back five times, and executed a flip on the dismount. The move was considered so revolutionary that it launched the sport of rhythmik gymnastiks, although after a few years officials substituted balls, hoops, and ribbons for Lew Ford.
As a study of the contemporaneous blog "Batphrodite" reveals, fans of the Twins were rather saturnine coming into the tournament finals. Much more was at stake in the game than the Olympic laurel, for they knew the Hubrists and their fans would become intolerable if the Hubrists won again.
Most people were puzzled the Twins chose to start retired water-cart puller Terence Mulholland, affectionately knows as "Geras," as "pik-tur" that day, given that in his previous starts, Geras had been, metaphorically speaking, chained to a cliff while an eagle ate out his liver. And certainly during the first "epoch," when Geras had runners on first and third bak with nobody "nek," it seemed the game was going to be an unfortunate repeat of the previous days' first-epoch "ass-whupping."
But good ol' Geras showed he still had some life in him yet, and after the second epoch, he began to pitch like the fabled Mycenaean pik-tur Johannos Santanapopadapolis (without all the strikeouts or the tremendous hotness). The Hubrists pik-tur, meanwhile, seemed like he was ready to throw in the toga early, walking batters with the alacrity of Zeus crashing an all-female symposium. But, tragically, every time the Twins came to the "platter" with "runners in scoring position," the batters turned promptly to stone, their faces frozen for eternity in a mask of horror. Why? Could it have been the fault of the Hubrists' mascot, Golly the Gorgon? Or could it have been simply the fault of the legendary offensive lugubriousness of the '48 Twins?
Truly, it was a painful game to watch for Twins fans. Again and again, their star hitters came up with run-scoring opportunities but were transformed into hideous statues and had to be dragged off the field by the Herculean grounds crew. By the sixth epoch, they only had one animate player left—Jose Offermanos, a Minotaur-breeder from the Trojan foothills. So with two on and two nek, Offermanos walked up to the platter. Twins fans could barely watch—they'd seen this tragic drama before, but Offermanos surprised everyone by lining a nice double to the eastern field fence, giving the Twins two points and tying the game.
The Hubrists, they were ready to come back—if only old Geras would let them. But ah! Their ambitions were thwarted—nothing would work for them, not ritual sacrifice, not rally caps, not even a lead-off single in the ninth, for the great reliever BooBerrious came on and caused the Hubrists to sit down. Bitch.
It was then that the miracle happened. Was it the inspiration of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, or simply of Batphrodite, blogger of love? We cannot know. All we know for sure is, in the tenth epoch, the Hubrists beaned Lew Ford in the head (starting the ancient sport of Dodgeball which premiered two Olympiads later) and the statue of Cordel Koskos suddenly came magically to life! Reanimated, Koskos strode up to the platter, and, Boom!, he hit the ball to Thermopylae, to give the Twins two points. Then came on the mighty Twin closer, a member of the noble family of Choculous, to set the Hubrists down.
It was truly a great victory for the Twins, who had suffered much at the expense of these Cleveland barbarians. While the latter team had the better tournament record, the Twins ended up with the final victory that led to the "division championship" and title of "supreme baseball team of all time." Truly, the Bakbal tables had turned.
Posted by Batgirl at August 15, 2004 05:09 PMDarn Hubrists.
Posted by: James at August 15, 2004 05:48 PMThis had me giggling uncontrollably -
Thank you Batgirl -
What's Travis Hafner's beef with our Sweet Lew - Travis you big meanie - might it be "wee-wee" envy?? I don't know, I'm guess because as far as I know our Sweet Lew has done nothing to Travis.
Have a fabulous evening -
Well Wishes -
Wonder Woman
How could I forget - Yes - a Twins Win and my fabulous Batgirl items will soon be in my hot little hands =)
Posted by: Wonder Woman at August 15, 2004 06:02 PMDear Batgirl,
I think I'm inspired to watch some Olympic competition this evening. Thank you for yet another entertaining synopsis.
bubblemint
Posted by: bubblemint at August 15, 2004 07:07 PMSome of the Jamestown boys I knew in highschool, and two in particular, loved to pick on the Lew Fords of my school. Was Hafner one of them? That I confess, I do not know.
One step closer to the laurel crown of victory!
Posted by: Mimiru at August 15, 2004 07:08 PMBlessed Batphrodite!
If you keep this up for the entirety of the Olympic Games, you will please this classics major very much! But if you don't, well, I'll understand too.
Posted by: Andrew at August 15, 2004 07:12 PMDear Batphrodite,
This "Olympic" thing has gotten to you, hasn't it?
I must say, though, that I dig the ancient Greek thing. Bakbal forever!
Platonically yours,
elderfelder
"they knew the Hubrists and their fans would become intolerable"
Today's game quieted numerous Hubrist fans in my neck of Olympus, that's for sure. Thanks, Mr. Koskie!
Posted by: Cyberspud at August 15, 2004 09:26 PMI'm gonna have to go with Jason on this one. Brava.
Posted by: mskeen at August 15, 2004 09:28 PMoompa!!!!
Posted by: Steve-O-Wonder at August 15, 2004 10:56 PMToday's Olympic results:
JAPAN 12 Italy 0 (7 innings*)
NETHERLANDS 11 Greece 0
Australia 1 CUBA 4
Taiwan 0 CANADA 7
*Olympic baseball has a mercy rule.
Twins notes:
Smitty did not pitch for the NED team.
Brett Tamburrino was 0-3 in LF for AUS,
Trant Oeltjen was 0-2 and HBP with 1 SO in CF for AUS.
Milk-shooting-out-of-my-nose funny. Oh and in case of a ballot, I'm all for naked Legovision...in the interest of historikal accuracy of course.
Plutarch's ancient blog obviously has glaring omissions.
Posted by: Bat bandwagoner at August 15, 2004 11:33 PMMore fun info about our Twins in Athens:
Trent considers Al Newman to be the most influential person in his career. He was born in 1983. He's taking a break from Quad Cities (A).
Brett was born in 1981, counts Kirby Puckett among his Idols, and is probably very happy to be away from Fort Myers (A).
Alexander Smit was born in 1985 (!) and is taking a break from Elizabethton (R).
My baseball cheering will go: Australia, Netherlands, Canada, All others, Cuba. AUS has two Twins minors and is Balfour's team. Canada is Morneau's team.
Posted by: amr at August 15, 2004 11:34 PMBatgirl,
I loved this post. Could we have some more recaps set in different eras? The Old West? The future? Victorian England?
Posted by: cricket at August 16, 2004 10:24 AMSophecles would be proud! Truly another great blog that makes up for the fact my orange juice was shuffled to the back of the fridge and frozen this morning, so I had to go without. (a tragedy of Greek proportions!)
Twins can all breath deeply this morning, relax, and go take out frustrations on the Yanks!
Posted by: Soccerfan at August 16, 2004 10:33 AMAh, finally a day that I could face the morning paper with a smile! Little did I know that that smile would only widen upon reading Batgirl. Thanks for all the time consuming research - I find I have so little time to review historical sporting events these days so I appreciate your commitment.
A couple of points your masterpiece brought to my mind. First and foremost, when do we get a picture of the lovely Batphrodite? The name alone evokes visions of untold loveliness. Its hard not to imagine a sassier version of Valerie Kaprinsky!
Next, it sounds like the Koskos statue actually came magically to life after an ugly flailout in the 2nd epoch. The reanimation is said to have resulted in a brutal destruction of Geras’ old water cart as well as numerous shrapnel induced injuries in the crowd of onlookers and local goat herders.
Finally, now that Torii Gatherers’ face has been turned to stone, will we not have to see that goat turd eating expression anymore? You know, that one he made 5 times yesterday? That one that seems to say “ha ha ha, once again I failed to produce offensively but oh, well, I’m here for my defense and everybody loves me”. I hope so.
Anyway, great game, great blog, great way to start the week. Bring on Steinbrenner (if he can tear himself away from this seal clubbing work http://ydr.com/story/mike/32712/) and his little bunch of Merry Men.
Dave
>for the great reliever BooBerrious came on
>and caused the Hubrists to sit down. Bitch.
O Gods, I laughed right out of my sandals.
Posted by: Freg Nergstrom at August 16, 2004 12:15 PMWooooooohahahahahahahaha! Snicker! Snort!
My longsuffering coworkers in adjoining cubicles are giving me funny looks because I couldn't (and can't) stop laughing.
Perhaps it's funnier because I actually have a Classics degree. (Liberal arts major--you want fries with that?)
Since another poster suggested other time periods, I now have vague mental images of a Colonists (Twins) vs. Recoats (Yankees) battle. With Sid Hartman as a lost and delusional Paul Revere.
Posted by: infield at August 16, 2004 01:05 PMHeh Bat-Girl,
Had to read the last three entries at one sitting and found them one funnier than the other.
Thanks.
tWINs.
Oh, Batgirl. Is there no end to your brilliance.
“The game quickly evolved, with square pieces of stone replacing baby goats as the three "baks", and after a league-wide effort to speed up the game, the practice of the teams stopping after each "Homer" to make a ritual sacrifice to Apollo was eliminated…”
I think I just pulled a muscle...
Posted by: TwinsGoddess at August 16, 2004 03:21 PMBrilliant!
Reminds me of one of my favorite baseball jokes.
Tomorrow night is Homer Night at the Metrodome.
First 14,000 get copies of the Illiad.
ba Ba Bum.
Posted by: ketut at August 16, 2004 04:41 PM