[IRISHMAFIA]

A quick story here.

A few years ago, in Carlisle, PA, Sunday morning started off with a great game. Our association had always entered two teams, one more serious than the other. Never, and I mean never, have these two teams met on the field as players.

Well, the luck of the seeding which was determined by Saturday's bracket play, the two teams, the Blues Brothers and Gene's Automotive were slated to open elimination play.

Here is this nice, older gentleman, who comes out to umpire the first game on Sunday morning. He walks onto the field and requests captains for ground rules and the coin flip. Well, both teams walked out to the plate area in unison. The umpire asks what is going on and was informed that both teams were from the same association and have never played before, so this game was for serious bragging rights in Northern Delaware. At the time, an umpire from each team offered to lend him a coin to flip. Both of them were National Championship coins.

You should have seen the look on this guy's face. You could tell that he would rather be anywhere else on the face of the earth than where he was at that moment.

You could feel how tense everyone was. No one wanted to make that "big" mistake that would allow the other team and advantage. I believe the final score was 4-3 with Gene's Automotive winning, but it was a pretty good game for slowpitch.

BTW, when the game was over, everyone went out of their way to thank the umpire. He seemed pretty glad just to get off the field unscathed.