Yes we finished last. But that’s not the complete story. We had wins against two of the teams immediately above us on the table – St George & Bosco (Sky). We gave Dolphins a huge fright last week, coming within an out or two minutes of an upset win. And we also pushed the ultimate minor premiers, Bosco (Blue) in two of our losses to limit them to one run wins. Our second half was better than our first. We had fewer 10+ run losses (one of which when Shorty had a “donut” day with the bat.

The table above had me somewhat confused. If you add up the results on our rows, it comes to 15.5 (exclude the washouts – they aren’t played), but the games played count is 18. I had no issue with the games played, draws and washouts listed. For the rest we have to dig into the competition rules. The key seems to be what happens at the time of the regrade. For details read the Local Competition Procedures (2023/24) Specifically 2.08.4. Using those procedures, when we joined division 6 our prior history was removed and we started in the new grade with a 50% win percentage. Every team remaining in the grade had played 5 games, so we were deemed to have play 5 games. To achieve a 50% win percentage we were deemed to have won 2.5 games at the commencement of round 6. I’m unsure why they don’t allocate 2.5 losses as well. That would make the row tally make more sense 4.5 + 12.5 + 1 = 18 games played. Then add 2 washouts to accounts for the 20 rounds of the competition. My number-centric brain would be more comfortable that way. The unallocated 2.5 losses does make the losses column a little more palatable. At face value it looks like we had the 3rd fewest losses.

Unrelated to our last game, there was a discussion about Mike’s availability to play in the game prior to ours, which was 2 grades lower. The umpire ruled Mike was not eligible to play, though at some later stage apologised and acknowledged that his ruling was incorrect. I just read this in the Local Competions Rules (2023/24):

7 SUBSTITUTES
7.01 In the event that a team is one (1) or two (2) players short, it may play substitutes. A
substitute is a registered player from a different CSMLBA affiliated club. No substitute may
play in the infield without the permission of the opposing coach / manager. Substitutes may
not be from a higher division. Substitutes must bat in the lowest position(s) in the batting
order. All substitutes must have their division and club with which they are registered noted
on the result sheet and line-up sheet alongside their name(s).

Emphasis is mine. Apparently, the umpire was right. Who knew that was possible?

The hardest washout to accept is the week when the sun is shining when the ground is closed.

Artist’s impression of rain falling on Bonnet Bay

Perhaps the Assn or ground keeper or whoever made the decision to cancel the game game thought playing Sharks at a waterlogged location would give them too much of an advantage – “them” being an aquatic creature. Or perhaps the advantage was because their home ground, Sylvania, is often referred to on these pages as The Swamp.

Regardless of the reason the ground was closed for our game and the one before us, we don’t get to play. Not sure how they hope to get it playable by the time of the 3 o’clock game. 3 o’clock just happens to be close the time BOM is predicting today’s rain to start. But we know BOM is pretty good at saying what the weather is doing or what it has already done, but it is definitely fallible about what the weather will do. The future is the future and it makes it own mind up. So maybe the 3pm game will go ahead. Who knows.

Enjoy your Sunday – absent a game of baseball.

Next game: Bosco (S) v St Pats at Heathcote on 10:00 Sun (10/12)