SBL Notebook, Week 6

Best. Week. Ever . . . ? Hard to say for sure, but the week just completed by Josh Hamilton of the Texas Rangers – and more to the point, of the Pulverizin’ Pontiffs – has to rank with any this observer can recall. We do distinctly remember a Ken Griffey Jr. streak of eight consecutive games with a home run – it was July 1993, we just looked that up, and it tied a major league record last previously achieved by one Don Mattingly in July 1987. But Junior’s torrid stretch, and Mattingly’s before it, straddled two SBL weeks. The damage Hamilton inflicted on unsuspecting MLB pitchers, within the confines of a single week, must be something close to unprecedented in SBL annals. Beginning Monday, the binge-hitting (and drinking!) slugger launched a staggering nine home runs (four in one game, famously), more than all but three entire SBL teams managed for the week. He also drove in 18 runs, scored 10 and went 15 for 30. He might have had more than two measly doubles, if only he hadn’t kept accidentally hitting the ball over the fence instead of off it. Oh, and the worthless, lazy dog did not steal a single base! Trade him immediately! . . . One of the more amazing things about his week was that he walked only four times . . . like, what were these people thinking, pitching to this guy almost every time he stepped in? The least they could’ve done was stuck one in his ear hole a time or two. . . . Hamilton’s power surge lifted the normally mild-mannered Popesters (previously known as the Puny Pontiffs, after all) to SBL season highs in home runs (17) and RBIs (46) – and right into the thick of the American division race after a 5-1 week that catapulted them to third place with a 21-17 record, four games behind the front-running Zero’s and one back of runners-up Moaners. . . . The National division standings feature a familiar sight this week, after the Cherry Valley Bombers, the defending league champions, climbed to the top of the heap with a 5-1 week, displacing DamianUnited, whose 1-5 stumble knocked them three games back. . . . It was another week of excruciatingly close competition, with 20 games decided by scores of 6-5, 6.5-4.5 or in tiebreakers. The Godfathers notched three such narrow victories in a 5-1 week that continued their impressive recovery from an 0-13/1-18 start – they’ve gone 15-4 the last three weeks to escape the cellar, and, at 16-22 and nine games back, are inching their way into the NL race. The G-Daddies manager might want to remind his troops, during his next clubhouse pep talk, that the 2011 champion Bombers were 10-28 at this very point last season. . . . Four weeks of interleague play commence this week, with the NL champing at the bit to engineer a repeat of its decisive eight-week clubbing of the AL last year.