Among the collection of team sports, one unique characteristic all base and ball varieties share is the lack of a clock. Instead of a timed game ending when the clock reaches zero, in base and ball sports a game runs for a defined series of contests, innings, and only when the last out is recorded in the last of these innings is the game over. At least this is the case most of the time, yet there is another way for a game to end. During the last inning, if the team last up to bat can come from behind, or break a tie, to take the lead, the game immediately ends. In baseball this is called a walk-off, exemplified by the walk-off home run where a batter scores the winning run on a home run, trots around the bases, and walks off the field victorious. The feat is rare in baseball, rarer still in Tapey Beercone, yet one player stands above the rest by accomplishing it twice.
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Tag: Season 3
6 for 6: A League NOT Their Own
A League NOT Their Own, The Buckettes and the Greatest Game Never Played
The great game of Tapey Beercone has a rich history. It began with school boys who, after completing their studies only just this side of honestly, needed a way to fill their day. As no sporting equipment was available to them, their ingenuity led them to a stick in place of a bat and a pinecone serving as a ball. Thus Piney Pinecone was born. Just as everything else, what is born must also grow. As the young men grew so did the game.
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Stat Chug: The Statistical Anatomy of the Rooster-Dragon
Stat Chug: A specially brewed stats based draft.
The Statistical Anatomy of the Rooster-Dragon: Dissecting the Dichotomous Nature of One of Tapey Beercone’s Most Intriguing Players
When last we left off here at Stat Chug, this author presented a graph depicting the batting characteristics of the Regular Players of Tapey Beercone as they compared to average. This showed that no player compared close to average, with the possibility of one exception. Here’s what that graph looked like:
Recurring Players Compared to Average on Four MetricsThe one player close to average was Chris “The Rooster”/”The Dragon”. But as we will find, on closer inspection Chris is anything but average.
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News: Annals Updated after Labor Day Games
Over Labor Day Weekend, a two game series of Tapey Beercone was played on Sun-Scorched New Gordon Field. The games ran the full spectrum of Tapey Beercone play. From the highs of a bases clearing double resulting in a five run inning, to the dismal fact that one game saw three beer spilling fouls charged.
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From The Annals: Barnstorming
Tapey Beercone was created in a fit of intoxicated inspiration among a group of friends know collectively as the Buckos, who now preside as the governing Regents of the Sport. These events took place on one of many “Buckos Trips”, epic excursions taken by our group or a portion of it. And so it would followed, as the Annals of Tapey Beercone unfolded all the games took place on these storied Buckos Trips. And at the same time the sport developed, adding written rules, traditions, and statistics, all taking place on Buckos Trips. But eventually this wasn’t the case, and the question became as to how to handle these games?
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6 for 6: Pitching 101
Pitching 101, How a Rookie Pitcher would Re-Write the Book on Pitching with a Beercone.
Through the first two and a half seasons of Tapey Beercone, just eight persons had ever played the game. Of those eight, a core of six, the Regents minus Ryan, constituted the vast majority of player appearances. Within this tight core of players, the characteristics of play became fairly uniform. Sure, every player had their tendencies, and their unique idiosyncrasies, but on the whole the game would look very similar regardless of who was as bat, and who was on the mound. However, as Season 3 turned over to its second half at the start of 2014, the sport entered a phase of rapid player expansion.
Over the course of just two short months, the player pool would expand from eight, to nineteen! With the growth of the player base would come a divergence in playing style, as no longer were the players all rooted in a common tradition dating back to the Piney Pinecone days. This tail is about one of those players; a pitcher. A pitcher who had his own unique style and delivery, a pitcher who would ride that uniqueness all the way to being named season 3’s Pitcher of the Season.
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From the Annals: The Longest Game in Tapey Beercone History
A typical game of Tapey Beercone is 6 innings long and lasts about three to three and a half hours. For various reasons some games take longer, sometimes the play is slower, other times breaks are taken between innings. Still other times the inebriated state of one or more of the players causes delays.
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6 for 6: Breakdown
Breakdown, The Improbable Rise and Fall of The Master.
I’ve tried to write this story a half-dozen times, in as many different ways. I tried to craft a “Brian and the Boz” style comparison piece in one version, and attempted to create our own “This is Spinal Tap” in another. This tale manages to break out of every box I attempt to put it in, and I suppose that’s appropriate for the subject matter. The “Breakdown” in question is about more than a single player, it is about the game as a whole. This story is about Tapey Beercone going beyond what we expected for the first time. It is about the shattering of our understanding of our roles in the continuing life of this game. This is our Heroic Epic, our Odyssey, our Gilgamesh. Herein, I tell the tale of “The Master”. His Rise, his fall, and how he changed the game forever.
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Photos from the 2014 Winter Classic
In December of 2014, nearly 12 months after it started, the players returned to nearby Lotus Park to complete the “Quake at the Lake” game. The final 5 plus innings played on that day filled in as the 2014 Winter Classic.
Below you can view photos from the album or head directly to the album.
Photos from Panorama Promontory Park – February 2014
In February of 2014, seven players, including two rookies, “The Professor” and “The Rainbow Warrior”, played an exciting game of Tapey Beercone at Panorama Promontory Park. The game was close throughout, and ended with an exciting perfect last inning to close out the game. The game was game 1 of what would later be deemed the Great Basin Series.
Below you can view photos from the album or head directly to the album.
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