Notes: Did something else happen?

Manager completely distracted
By Beth Sass / hereforthesass.blogspot.com

SEATTLE -- Here for the Sass Manager Beth paid very close attention to all the Sass players until about midnight, CDT, last night. At midnight, Sassian Michael Cuddyer hit a grand slam to tie the game, and made everything that happened before or after completely moot, in her eyes. She is fairly certain some good stuff happened, and some bad stuff happened, but was at a loss to say what.

“Michael hit a grand slam! Did you see that? He did! He really did! With two outs! He got a HIT with the bases loaded, and it was a home run,” Beth said. It went on longer, but the press just wandered away, laughing.

Gold stars: After seeing how well the cupcake give-away motivated the Sassians, Beth decided Wednesday morning that she would give gold stars to any player showing a quality performance. The giveaways are completely arbitrary, and depend on Beth’s attention span, giving Sassians an extra motivation to do something truly memorable.

Fortunately, Beth had already handed out her gold stars for the evening when Cuddyer hit his grand slam, making pitcher Julio Mateo the only Sassian who could’ve been deserving of a gold star not get one.

“He beat the Twins, anyway,” said Kat, who took over the gold-star doling after the eighth inning, “So that is not worthy of any gold stars.”

Michael was pleasantly surprised when he returned to the dugout after the game.

“For sure, I knew I’d get a gold star for that home run. I already had a gold star for the RBI double earlier in the game, so grand slams obviously earn one. I was totally shocked to see my entire locker covered in them, though,” Cuddyer said, pointing at his locker.

Other winners of gold stars were pitcher Kristin Benson, who was the only starter of three to earn a quality start, although he was tagged with a loss, due to lack of run support while he was pitching. Jermaine Dye went 2/3 with a walk and a solo home run, earning him a gold star, and Carlos Guillen went a perfect 2/2 with 2 walks and a stolen base to earn him two gold stars.

Caught ya! Jermaine Dye skipped into the dugout after his solo home run on Tuesday night and poked fellow outfielder Adam Dunn in the ribs. “Caught ya!” he said.

Jermaine and Adam are now both tied for team lead among Sassians with 18 each. When Michael hit his grand slam later in the game (has that been mentioned yet?), he came into the dugout and poked fellow outfielder Juan Encarnacion and said, “Caught ya!” Michael and JEn now both come in second place with 8 home runs each.

“It’s great to see these guys hitting so well,” said shortstop Carlos Guillen, who has 7 home runs and is in third place, “It’s great to see all of us hitting as well as we are. The friendly competitions are definitely worth it.”

Trade proposal: The Here for the Sass team had to break their promise from earlier this year, when they stood firm on the ground that they would never make a trade with BFL Commissioner SBGF. However, Beth and Dawn announced that they had proposed a trade with SBGF. The trade currently stands as Carlos Silva and Frank Catalanotto for pitcher J. Putz.

“A normal person would laugh at the trade and reject it. We fully expect to be fined and suspended for at least five games,” Beth said, still giggling.

A concern is that a package of Mrs. Guillen's cookies has been included in the trade.

"People will do anything for Mrs. Guillen's cookies," Dawn said, "I was concerned when Beth included that in the trade, but she explained that it was a package of cookies, not a whole box. That was a bit of a relief."

If SBGF happens to be on drugs when he reads of the trade, and accepts it, Beth will likely end up on the DL in shock. In that case, Kat will take over responsibility for keeping the team from doing something they shouldn’t.

Tonight: Tonight Beth does not have a starting pitchers scheduled, and she really doesn’t expect to use any relievers, either. Her plan is to grab six lucky fans entering the stadium and making them pitch. She’s hoping that Bobbi attends, to have at least one quality pitcher among the group.