Shore Stuns Outlaws

by Chris Thomas

As many expected, it was a 5 game series. As not many expected, Jersey defeated the heavily favored Outlaws 4 games to 1.

We played the first 3 games (2 at Texas, 1 at Jersey) over the phone, after being unable to get netmeeting to work through a firewall. The final two, however, were played over netmeeting, and it was unbelieveable..... fast and furious.  It's not like we had T1 connections, either. Joe was connected at 33.6, I have a 56K, but could only connect at 41K that nite. I hosted the game, and turned off most of the options (well, everything but the small scoreboard, though I think we could have displayed some others without a problem). I took my homefield (detroit, field #14) and edited the bitmap in several ways using PaintShop Pro: First, 'cleared' it, which makes it all black; second, decreased the colors to 2 (even the b/w park had a lot more color depth than that); third, 'shrank' the canvas to about 10 pixels by 10 pixels. These changes left the bitmap of the field at 1K, instead of 278K. Since netmeeting likes to refresh the screen A LOT, 278K was torture, and even the 'all-black' bitmap i tried first (about 80K) was bad. This one, however, FLEW! joe would tell me to change pitchers, and as I made the change, he'd say "OK, I see it".... it was instant. And SO much fun. I'll play over netmeeting a LOT next year, I hope.  -

The series was as close as any I've ever played. I believe every game but the fourth was a 1 run game, and the fourth was a 2-run game. Every time I took a lead, he tied it the next inning it seemed. If he took one, I did the same. The only BIG lead of the series was game 4, where I scored 6 off of Clemens in the first(!), and had an 8-2 lead in the 9th. But a Bonds grand slam made it close, and I believe the game ended with the at least the tying run at the plate, as did every other game in the series. 

I'm glad I don't have ANY more games against the Outlaws. Tough team..... I really lucked out (or that virgin I sacrificed really made a difference). I got homers from just about everyone, at key points, and his WHAMMERS (Bonds, Olerud, Alomar, etc.) had tough series'. And getting a split in the 2 Clemens starts was huge for me. I was joking with Joe that now I'm hesitant to move to the DH league, since I'd be facing the Outlaws a bunch more times.  Anyway, this is too long already.... suffice it to say, Joe and I had a blast, netmeeting was great, the games were close, and the Outlaws are a tough team with an excellent manager. The Shore consider themselves fortunate to have advanced.