Gerry was a Season 3 rookie who first played Tapey Beercone during the Season 3 close out series at The Ranch. Slight and unassuming in stature, Gerry has earned outsized grandiosity within the sport. Even prior to his first game, he made an immediate positive impression on the Buckos by choosing Tecate as his beer contribution to the trip (Tecate is known throughout the Buckos Nation as the Cheap-as-Free import beer of choice). He then immediately went to work impressing the group further with his play on the field.
During his first game, Gerry proved himself to be a solid all-around player. In that first game he went 6 of 11 with 2 extra base hits, both crushed fly balls hit far and deep. Even more remarkable, he could drink like few others, putting down 10 beers in just a 5 inning game. These exploits earned him his moniker, and “The Stud” was born.
But during the day long hiatus between matches of that season ending series tragedy struck. Conned by “The Dragon” into accompanying him of an all day hunting hike, Gerry’s body was laid to waste. As the unsuccessful hunt came to a close and “The Dragon” marched back into camp, “The Stud” was in shambles. Barely able to lift his feet a foot further, he collapsed on the cabin floor, a convulsing husk of his formerly stupendous self.
In the games that followed, first the season ending new year’s eve game, and second Season 4’s opening day game, Gerry was unable to muster an encore performance to his opening act. By the end of that 3rd game, he was forced to sit on the sidelines playing catcher, and could barely summon the strength to swing a bat. Some questioned whether “The Stud” they had seen days earlier was real at all. And it would take them year’s to find out.
But that day would come. Over 3 years after he last played, Gerry returned to Tapey Beercone during the Season 5 Beerpope Day Weekend series also at The Ranch. Forever impaired by the ill fated hunting trip, it took Gerry time to find his form in the first game of the series. But during that game he rediscovered his swing, converting to a one handed tennis forehand swing made popular by other players such as “The Rainbow Warrior”.
By the start of the second game Gerry was once again a force. Able both to golf a pitch mere inches above the plate or tomahawk a pitch thrown over his head, he exhibited supreme contact abilities and range at the plate. In that second game Gerry was nearly perfect, and he made just a single out at the plate. And his skills as a drinker never left him either: His 19 beers consumed during the series was second most among all participants.
“The Stud” was back!
And back in a big way! Gerry rode his new found swing to great success all through Season 5. Both his season batting line of .711/.725/.763, and his BPI of 1.52 were third best among all players. And along with solid player as a pitcher and inspirational appearance at the Season’s Major Events (including being named Best Dressed at the 5th Annual Oregon Invitational) Gerry was selected as the recipient of the Season 5 Jim Siemen’s Award of Excellence.