- Smasher Dynamo
- Oct 16, 2008
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Eternal Commissioner of the Super League. A new avatar. A new age, of the same old embittered Smasher that failed to escape the bonds of the SL, FM3, Johnny Hopp and Eri Yoshida "The Knuckle Princess". "The flames of Smasher's ire scorch the skies... Igniting St. Bellhorn's funeral pyre."
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Super-League XVIII, Smasher League Division Series: South Bolton Eazy W's vs. Khartoum Doom
The following contest, scheduled for the best three-out-of-five games, is a Smasher League Division Series matchup, with the winner advancing to the Smasher League Championship Series. Introducing first, from Bolton, Lancashire, they are the former seven-time Television Champions, the former six-time Hardcore Champions, the former three-time European Champions, the former two-time Larkin-Downing Champions, the former two-time Intercontinental Chmapions, the former Heavyweight Champions, and the former United States Champions. They are also the former Skyhawks Memorial Division Champions and the former three-time Smasher League Champions. They are the reigning seven-time Norris-Smythe Division Champions, and the Super-League XIII and Super-League XIV, and they are the only team to compete in every season of the Super-League. Ladies and Gentlemen, the South Bolton Eazy W's! And their opponents, holding home-field advantage, and fighting out of Khartoum, they are the former Hardcore Champions, the former Television Champions, the former Canadian Champions, the former Intercontinental Champions, and the former two-time Super-League Tag Team Champions of the Universe! They are also the reigning five-time Mark Bellhorn Division Champions, they are Slug Lyfe 4 Lyfe, the Khartoum Doom!
Game 1: South Bolton Eazy W's @ Khartoum Doom (Series Tied 0-0)
Don May posted:
W'S HOLD ON, TAKE GAME ONE 6-5
Khartoum- Slug Lyfe has vowed to win at least one game in this series.
On the plus side, they'll have two more chances to pull that off before they get eliminated.
It's difficult to understand the success of the W's on a certain level. Most other teams have some formula for success that is comprehensible, even to the lay person. The Panderers, for example, succeed due to being carefully engineered to make the most out of the limited talent they have. The Bombers, forged after many seasons of failure, are suffused with talented players, mentholmoose's paranoia and self-doubt having reached such levels that he has turned his team into a dreadnought in hopes that a powerful enough team could not be turned aside even by the most incredible misfortune. The Doom are built around the power of Slug Lyfe, designed to beat down their opponents, while their defensively superior infield ensures that their pitchers don't suffer too much.
But what of the W's? Certainly, they don't have the raw power of a team like the Doom. Their lineup is good, probably one of the better ones in the Smasher League, but it's not overpowering. Their rotation has a good 1-2 punch of Cy Young and Pete Alexander, which can be devastating, but then descends to inconsistent starters like Wanderlei Bolton, Randy Johnson and Jack McDowell, and their best reliever, this season was none other than Eri Yoshida. That's not a recipe for success in theory, but the W's, using a similar formula, have won two Super-League Championships, both over the late-era Somali Pirates, and reached the finals one other time besides.
Today, the W's, they stayed the W's. Facing a motivated Doom team in Khartoum, they came out firing, scoring three runs in the first two innings. But the Doom scored four in the same timeframe, and were looking to lock the W's down, especially knowing that the W's bullpen has been a sore spot. But the W's would not be denied, and scored three in the sixth, and leaving the Doom down two runs. That should not have been a problem, given just how bad a lot of the W's relief corps had been during the regular season. But outside of a solo shot by Babe Ruth off Paul Assenmacher, the W's were able to weather the storm, and ended up winning 3-2, taking home-field advantage in the process.
"If you think you can't count out Slug Lyfe based on one game, you're loving crazy, and if I knew where you live, me and Slug Lyfe would get a table, put it in a pickup truck, because that's the easiest way to transport a table like that, and then drive over to your house, knock down the door, bring in the table, set up the table, listen to you beg for us to not put you through a table, and then put you through the table." Babe Ruth said after the game, Bonds and Mantle flanking him. "So, where the gently caress do you live, because I've got 80 beers, a pickup truck, and the license to DUI, baby!"
"It's that sort of thinking that has cost us so many playoff series." Ted Williams, leader of what has become known as Slug Lyfe Wolfpac, a splinter faction of Slug Lyfe, arrived to crash the press conference with his clone of Mickey Mantle, "You're focused on beating up the fans, throwing them through tables, and not on the game."
"Listen, Teddy," Babe Ruth was uncowed, "I think that," Ruth looked to his side, where his own Mantle was waiting, and then at the other Mantle, "Wait, what, how are you doing that?" He asked Mantle.
"What do you mean?" Mantle asked.
"How are you in two places at once?"
"The other one's a clone." Mantle said. "He's like me, but instead of having a good time and drinking a lot of beer, he's some loser who just follows Ted Williams around."
"He also doesn't die from cirrhosis." Williams added.
"Cool kids aren't afraid of liver failure!" Mantle shouted back.
"You've failed me." Williams said to Ruth. "You've failed this team."
"I hit two dingers!" Ruth protested. "That's two more than you and your stooge Mantle. Hey, I did my part. Yeah, we lost, but that's not important, I got some dingers in. We keep hitting dingers, the wins will come. That's what's important. That, and beer, and beating people up for starting poo poo with Slug Lyfe."
"We can't afford to lose this series!" Ted Williams said with a surprising amount of anger. "There are consequences for failure, Ruth! You'll see that, though, in time." Williams and Mantle left.
"The gently caress is up with that guy?" Ruth asked the other two members of Slug Lyfe. "Anyway, time to get those 80 beers, and that pickup truck. I don't know exactly who was counting out Slug Lyfe, but let's drink a few beers and just pick a random house and put the guys living inside it through a table, that ought to set things straight." Bonds and Mantle agreed, and followed Ruth out of the press room.
Meanwhile, Adam Dunn had plans of his own. "As you guys might remember, back in the day, I tried to get a barbecue food truck business going during the playoffs. It didn't really pan out. Sanitary problems, or something. Besides, barbecue is played out, what the people want is Caribbean food, that's the future of the food truck business."
ForeverBWFC walked in, and was confused by Dunn's latest venture, "Ah, Dunn, I was not aware that you knew anything about Caribbean food."
"Looked it up on the internet, I think I got the hang of it. I think ceviche is going to be a big seller out of food trucks. People like fresh food, and there's nothing fresher than ceviche, right from the sea to your plate, served in a citrus-y marinade, or whatever a marinade is if you're not cooking it."
"What?"
"The fish in ceviche is usually served raw." Dunn explained. "I figure that should be too hard. I mean, Bolton is right by the sea, right? It's in England, everywhere's right next to the sea!"
"Bolton isn't." ForeverBWFC clarified the geographic location of the city in which Dunn had played for nearly ten seasons. "Didn't you notice the absence, of, well, a large body of water?"
"Huh. Really? Well, back to the drawing board." Dunn left, already thinking a new venture.
ForeverBWFC then took the podium, "I don't have much to say about the game. It was a good team effort, and if we can win this series, I feel like this team really would have a chance to win its third championship. And, I don't know about all of you, but I think Bolton deserves another championship after all these years. I think we can win this series. After all, with all due respect to Slug Lyfe, as well as this new Slug Lyfe Wolfpac, the Doom are not known as postseason warriors for whatever reason. We can win this series, and I think we will, when all is said and done."
Game Two will take place in Khartoum, where the Blue and White Niles join as one as they flow to the sea. Pete Alexander, the W's best starter, will take the mound for Bolton, while Stephen Strasburg, somehow the second-best pitcher on the Doom, tries to even the series before it goes to Bolton.
GAME NOTES
-The W's have more power than you might think. They ended up in a tie wih the Crows for the third-most home runs in the entire Super-League behind the Minnesota Commission and the Oklahoma City Bombers. The difference between them and the Doom is that while the Doom's dinger potential is concentrated in the middle of their lineup, the W's lineup is essentially entirely made of guys with mid-range power or better.
-I also just realized that the Crows ended up with the best ERA in their division. That seems crazy, right? I guess, though, that HulkaMatt has solved at least some of his pitching problems.
-Yoshida is still the best reliver the W's have, which is cool, even if part of it is that the rest of the W's bullpen has been so dire that Yoshida couldn't help but be the best.
-The Doom only drew one walk. Going forward, they'll need to do better than that, since they don't quite have the contact-hitting chops to get by without more walks than that.
Box Score
Game 2: South Bolton Eazy W's @ Khartoum Doom (SLA Leads 1-0)
Don May posted:
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM, W'S CRUSH DOOM 12-6 IN GAME TWO
Khartoum- If the Doom are going to keep their vow not to get swept, they will need to pull themselves together, and fast.
At this point, there doesn't seem to be a lot of question as to who is going to come out on top of this series. After all, the W's smacked the Doom around twice in Khartoum, and now have two games in Bolton coming up, with the final game in Khartoum having little home-field value for the Doom at this point.
This game was never all that competitive. The Doom's pitching struggles had led them to put Strasburg in this key position, and the W's made that look like a very, very bad decision, as they simply blasted him, scoring six runs in the first three innings, and surviving a predictable bullpen implosion to take a commanding 2-0 series lead in this best-of-five series.
For obvious reasons, that led to a lot of recriminations in the Doom locker room, with tensions between Slug Lyfe and Slug Lyfe Wolfpac reaching new highs. "You know, when I was in charge, and no one was questioning me, I don't remember having these sorts of problems." Babe Ruth said after the game. "I mean, we kicked a lot of rear end, and drank a lot of beers, and then kicked more rear end, and then drank a lot more beers, and then kicked more rear end, and then everything gets a little hazy, but I guess we just drank even more, and then blacked out. And that was pretty great! That's what this team is all about. Drinking beers and kicking rear end."
"But we're losing, you clod!" Ted Williams exploded. "We are losing. We are going to get swept! We are going to get swept right out of the playoffs, and we're going to get swept by the worst team left in the playoffs! How are we supposed to show this entire league that we have entered a new era of blood and dingers if we can't even beat the W's?"
"Who says that we can't beat the W's?" Ruth asked.
"Historical precedent?" Ted Williams was in no mood for Ruth's self-assuredness. "Math? Basically all empirical evidence? All of these would be pretty good indicators that we can't win!"
"But who dingers harder, us or them?"
"Them." Williams buried his head in his hands. "They hit more dingers in the regular season, and they've hit more dingers in this series."
Ruth hadn't known that. "Right. Well, whatever, which team has more dinger spirit, though?"
"There's no such thing as dinger spirit!"
Ruth playfully elbowed Bonds, "Look at this guy, not believing in dinger spirit. What an rear end in a top hat!" Ruth laughed in Williams' face, "Are you saying that you don't believe that there's a force beyond time and space from which all dingers flow, and who gives power to those who believe in it? The power to hit dingers."
Williams was taken aback by this revelation. "What?"
"The dinger spirit. It's what gives us our power." Bonds repeated.
"Is dinger spirit some sort of euphemism for steroids?" Williams asked, trying to wrap his head around this latest insanity.
"No. But a lot of people got confused about that. They said 'Barry, how the hell did you put on a poo poo-ton of muscle in your late 30s in suspiciously little time. And I told them that I had accepted the dinger spirit into my heart, and it had given me the power to defeat all of my opponents."
"Dinger spirit?" Williams stared at Slug Lyfe, paralyzed by his overwhelming fury.
"Yeah, and those nerds from Bolton, they don't have nearly enough belief in the dinger spirit. They're all like 'Oi, blimey, we've taken a bit of tumble, I think, here down by the barbie.'" Ruth said in an accent that was difficult to classify, but was evidently supposed to be British. "Plus, they're all about that Game of Thrones poo poo, talking about being from Lannister or whatever."
"Lancashire." Williams considered whether or not it would be better to just murder every member of his team and just start over. "Bolton is in Lancashire."
"Oh, is that what's it called, I don't watch that show, I don't really know what the names of those guys are." Ruth said. "Hey, can we wrap this up, I need to drink 100 beers. So I'm going to go drink 100 beers."
"We can't afford to lose Game Three, Ruth. We just can't." Williams said.
"Whatevs!" Ruth and Slug Lyfe left to go get drunk.
ForeverBWFC had business of his own, asking Eri Yoshida to accompany him to the press conference. "Yoshida, I wanted you to come, because I had a question for you. Why did you choose "Lucky Man" by ELP as our song?"
"It's about a guy who's lucky, and I think the guys who do the song are British or English? Or Scottish? Is Bolton in Scotland?" Yoshida looked at ForeverBWFC expectantly. "I always wanted to go to Scotland!"
"It's not in Scotland, we're nearly fifty kilometers from Scotland! That's a three-day journey! In any event, the song ends with the so-called 'lucky man' going off to war and getting shot in the head. You can see why that would make me a bit apprehensive." ForeverBWFC explained.
"Oh. I didn't actually pay attention past the first minute of the song. But, hey, I mean, you probably aren't going to get shot in the head. I mean, Slug Lyfe doesn't use guns, they put people through tables!"
"Nonetheless, the man in the song is not really lucky. Things do not end well for him. I grant you, in the contest of the Super-League, where mortality constantly hangs overhead, and where every division name in the other league makes reference to the inevitability of death and destruction, the W's are supposed to be the one constant, the only team that persists in the face of oblivion. From a purely thematic perspective, I don't think it's a great fit."
"Huh. Well, I'll pick something better for next round. Assuming we get there, of course." Yoshida shrugged.
"I don't think we're going to lose three straight. I intend to win this series in Bolton." ForeverBWFC was determined not to come back to Khartoum until next season.
Game Three will see the series shift settings to Bolton, where it has been overcast for the last 907 days and counting. ForeverBWFC, with the big 2-0 series lead, will send out Wanderlei "The Off-Brand Axe-Murderer" Bolton to try and ice the series, while Monte Ward will try and keep the Doom's season going.
GAME NOTES
-Stras got strikeouts, but couldn't keep the W's off the board.
-Keith Foulke shows just how fragile the W's bullpen can be. Granted, the W's were leading 10-1 at the time he entered the game, even giving up five runs in that situation is hardly a problem, but if there is a close game in the series, you have to give the edge to the Doom.
-The W's keep getting a lot of dingers from a lot of different players. That is likely to only increase once the team heads to Bolton, with its cozy right field.
Box Score
Game 3: Khartoum Doom @ South Bolton Eazy W's (SLA Leads 2-0)
Don May posted:
DOOM STAY ALIVE WITH 6-2 WIN
Bolton- It might be all the Doom get in this series, but at least it's something.
With a 6-2 win, the Doom managed to fulfill their vow to win at least one game in this series.
Granted, one has to wonder how good a win it really was. After all, the W's used Wanderlei Bolton, who had been completely inconsistent in his rookie season, as both the Super-League main offices and the W's staff tried to unlock the power of the newest cyborg pitcher in the Super-League. That has led to some great performances by Bolton, but a lot more bad ones, and today's game was one of the latter, as the Doom were able to, with some effort, admittedly, overcome Wanderlei's power, and score six runs off him. John Ward, providing some stability on the mound for the Doom, held the W's to just two runs, and neither bullpen allowed anything to change that margin, as the Doom took their first game of the series 6-2.
"We didn't win this game because of any dinger spirit." Ted Williams noted bitterly. "We won this game because of my reorganization of the infield. Bringing in Morgan and Smith made Ward that much better on the mound, and that was the key to this game. The fact that Morgan was the only hitter on our team to hit a home run just proves that."
"WRONG!" Babe Ruth screamed. "You're wrong! The Dinger spirit is all around us, Teddy! it wants us to succeed if we open our hearts to it!" Ruth, clearly, had been drinking a great deal. "But there you stand, just pretending like the power of the dinger isn't controlled by some magical force that we don't understand. And the dinger spirit is going to make you pay for that."
"No, you're right. Clearly, that's how we won this game! Because a magical spirit appeared and caused us to win. It couldn't have been because our pitching and defense were able to carry us for a game!"
"Pitching and defense? Wazzat?" Ruth slurred. "That doesn't sound right. How the gently caress can your pitching score runs, we got the DH in this league. That's loving stupid, pitching and defense don't score runs, and you need runs to win! Yer crazy, Teddy!"
"I swear to god, Ruth, you lose this series for us, I'm going to have your rear end. You're pushing it. We should be kings, and you keep holding us back!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatevs." Ruth seemed unconcerned. "Serie's not over, we won, we just gotta win two more times, and then you can loving relax for a change."
"We'd better. Otherwise, you're a dead man. Ruth. You and the rest of Slug Lyfe."
Meanwhile, the W's were unconcerned, with Jack McDowell, not having the pressure of making a start in this round, spending his time trying to write a rock opera based on the history of the W's. "Well, as you know, with mrnoun gone, what with him and his team being swallowed in some sort of dimensional rift and all," McDowell referred to the events at the end of Super-League XVII, "There was no one around here that was really interested in writing long-form rock operas in the Super-League anymore. And I thought to myself, I've got a guitar, why not me?"
Asked if he was upset not to be starting a game in the series, McDowell didn't seem bothered, "I get what ForeverBWFC is doing with Wanderlei. And if that doesn't work, and based on this game, it might not, I'm here, ready to do my part. In the meantime, though, I'm still a guy at the end of the rotation, and that's good enough for me at the moment. Randy Johnson is ready to start Game 4, and after how well the Southpaws used him last year, I think he could really do something special tomorrow. Of course, the Panderers tried to use him in the tiebreaker, and it hosed them over, but, hey, there are no guarantees in life."
"Anyway, back to the rock opera, I'm trying to decide on how to structure the early seasons of the team, you know, before ForeverBWFC took over. I mean, really, the team never really did much before he came here. I think they won a division title once, but then lost in the first round. So, I think maybe that gets one song at the beginning, something about the primordial time, when the W's were made, only to be abandoned by their creator, before they were found by the man from Bolton, ForeverBWFC. I'm also not sure how much to emphasize their old rivalry with the Sonics. I mean, it was a big thing at the time, but Koop hasn't been around in years. It's hard to figure out what the people are going to want to listen to."
Game Four is another potential elimination game for the Doom. Randy "Big Unit, if you know what I mean" Johnson will start for the W's, who are banking on his left-handed power shutting down Slug Lyfe, while the Doom hope that Doc White's deadball game can keep the ball in the park in the Coliseum.
GAME NOTES
-The Doom finally drew a good number of walks, and won the game. Coincidence? It's possible, since they also got a bunch of hits.
-Carlos Beltran got a home run! That's great news...for the Doom, because everyone knows that no matter how clutch Beltran may be, it usually works out better for the other team.
-The W's Ruth somehow got a triple, probably thanks to huge expanse of land in center field that exists in the Coliseum. A ball could get lost in their for days.
Box Score
Game 4: Khartoum Doom @ South Bolton Eazy W's (SLA Leads 2-1)
Don May posted:
W'S CLOSE OUT DOOM WITH EASY 5-1 WIN
Bolton- Dramatic this game was not.
The W's scored two runs in the bottom of the first, and even had they not scored again, that would have been enough, as the Doom could only muster one run in nine innings against Randy Johnson and Eri Yoshida, striking out 14 times in the process as the W's moved on to the Smasher League Championship Series for the first time since Super-League XIV, when they won their second Super-League Championship.
"It's our year." ForeverBWFC said after the game, having confidence in his team. "If the Bombers win their series, I think we can beat them, I think we perform better in the clutch than the Bombers do. You look at that team, and they're good, they're very good, but no matter how many good players you add to that team, they're still the Bombers at heart. It's just who they are, and there's a limit to how far the Bombers can go. If the Panderers win, then, by rule, we'd have home-field advantage, and I think that they wouldn't do well in the Coliseum, because of it's dimensions. I think the Doom may have been the toughest test that we'd have to face, and we handled them well. South Bolton Eazy W's are going back to the top. I can feel it."
Meanwhile, the two factions of Slug Lyfe, with their season ended, no longer had any reason not to settle their differences with violence. Seconds after Babe Ruth took the microphone and prepared to speak on behalf of his team, Ted Williams and his Mantle burst into the room, with Mantle holding a spiked baseball bat, and both looking to inflict pain. "Let's dance, motherfuckers!" Ruth said, throwing down the mic as his Mantle and Bonds followed him into the fray.
Bonds took a fall early, taking a hit from Mantle's bat before the other Mantle grabbed the bat away, and both men started throwing punches at each other. Williams, meanwhile, dove at Ruth, hitting a Thesz press and pummelling him on the floor, working out his long-simmering frustration, with punch after punch. Mantle and Mantle found themselves evenly matched, however, which, admittedly, made a certain degree of sense.
Fortunately for Slug Lyfe, though, they had numbers on their side, as Bonds finally recovered from the bat shot, and retrieved the spiked bat, delivering a vicious shot to Ted Williams' bat to get him off Ruth, who then delivering a beating of his own to the leader of Slug Lyfe Wolfpac. The tide now began to turn, as Slug Lyfe used their numbers advantage to pick apart Slug Lyfe Wolfpac, throwing Williams into the crowd of reporters, and focusing their attention on destroying the Wolfpac Mantle. Ruth shook his head a bit, to clear out the cobwebs, before telling Mantle to go get a ladder, and set it up in the corner, which Mantle did. As soon as he did, though, Prince Fielder, a long-forgotten former member of Slug Lyfe, appeared out of nowhere, and delivered a crushing spinebuster to Mantle, knocking him out, before get driven off by Bonds, who still wielded the spiked bat.
"Barry?" Ruth, seemingly oblivious to the interruption, called out to his teammate. "Get the tables!" Bonds nodded, and set up a table in the middle of the room. Ruth, meanwhile, tracked Williams down from the crowd, and continued the beating. After delivering a few more shots to make sure that Williams had no chance of getting up, lay Williams down on the table, and signaled for Barry Bonds to jump on him from the top of the ladder. Before Bonds could make the leap, though, Hank Aaron and Jason Giambi arrived, wearing the traditional pink and black shirts of Slug Lyfe, and flashing the thumbs up sign to Ruth, which seemed to mollify him, even as Aaron approached him with a folding chair.
Ruth was, therefore, quite surprised when Aaron smashed him in the head with the chair, knocking him out in a single blow. Aaron then helped Williams off the table, putting Ruth on it. Bonds looked on with a mixture of confusion and horror from the top of the ladder, only for Giambi to then tip the ladder over, causing Bonds to fall from the top of the ladder onto Ruth, and throw a table, incapacitating both in one fell swoop. Aaron and Giambi then tore off their Slug Lyfe shirts to reveal red and black Slug Lyfe Wolfpac shirts underneath, revealing their true allegiance.
What this shocking twist means for the future of Slug Lyfe and the Doom in, as yet, unknown.
As for the W's, however, they will await the winner of the Bombers/Panderers series. Because the series only went four games, they will be able to start Cy Young and Pete Alexander in Games One and Two, and get a total of four starts from their top-two pitchers, which promises to be a great advantage, regardless of whether or not they have home-field advantage in this series.
GAME NOTES
-Post-Mortem for the Doom: Why did the Doom lose this series? Well, as a first matter, it's hard to draw many conclusions based on just four games. After all, that's not much of a sample size. More generally, the Doom's biggest problem was the same as it was in the regular season: mediocre starting pitching. The W's managing to score 18 runs in the first two games, and while the Doom pitching did pick up in the back-half of the series, it's hard to come back from losing the first two games of the series, especially if they were home games.
-The other half of the problem is that the W's rotation posed unique problems for the Doom. The Doom were, for the most part, able to cope with Young and Alexander, racking up enough runs to win, at least, in theory, in the first two games. And they did win Game Three, even if Wanderlei did pose problems, and it's not hard to imagine a circumstance where they could have lost htat game badly. But in the last game, they faced Randy Johnson, who is the worst possible matchup for that team, since they use a lot of left-handed power hitters.
-That said, it's not that hard to imagine the Doom winning this series. If they can manage to score two more runs against the W's bullpen in Game One, they win that game. Game Two wasn't close, and they won Game Three, and then if the W's start basically anyone other than Randy Johnson in Game Four, the Doom can win that game.
Box Score
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Mar 7, 2016 07:02
