Completing the final third of our regular season, we experienced the full spectrum of outcomes. In week Seven, entering with a 3-2 record, we went the distance against the Yard Dogs and came out 12-11 winners after seven innings. I took an oh-fer, though I did reach on a fielder’s choice and later scored. The Yard Dogs were an unknown team in our men’s Rec 1 league, but we’d heard they were a ‘comp’ level team in Ignacio, a town around 25 miles southeast of Durango.

Oh, but we stumbled against our toughest opposition in week eight. The Covenant Builders (known as Young Life/Rhino Linings in our 2004 season) had been coming off a near-upset loss to Coors Light immediately after our squeaker over the Yard Dogs. Everyone was watching that game--we Wankees included. But apparently we didn’t learn the most important lesson of all--field a full team. Covenant were a solid bunch of players with no weak spots in their lineup. Our lineup wasn’t finalized until shortly before the first pitch and Covenant had no problem trashing us, 19-6.

But we bounced back in week nine, capping the regular season with an emphatic win over ABC Welding to finish 5-3, and a couple notches down from our 7-1 slate last year.

And through it all were our fans! Though I can usually count them on just ten fingers, they make plenty of noise and have gotten us through some nasty games. I have to mention the ringleaders of our bleacher circus--Scott’s daughter Dana and her friend Sarah.

Not only do the duo chant "M-V-P!" each time I come up to bat (I was picked the team’s unofficial MVP in 2004), they make sure to up the volume for us all, unafraid to let our opponents know who they know will win--even if we don’t. And many times they’ll blame a Wankee loss on their coffee intake.

They drink more, they cheer louder and we play better. Or they don’t drink enough, they don’t cheer as hard and we struggle on the field.

If you’re reading this, you undoubtedly have a couple fans like that. And we all know that without the crowd’s roar, the game would be so much boring.

So to Dana, Sarah, Lucas DeBolt and all the "cranks" out there, a salute to you from this Wankee catcher, who now presents his final edition of "Walking With The Wankees."

This is the end of a summer as I knew it, loved it, and recorded it--postseason style!

July 13, 2005--EVERY DISH DAWG HAS ITS DAY...Just not today. We opened our league tournament run on Fort Lewis College’s Aspen Field against the Prime Source Mortgage Dish Dawgs. Our bats provided close to 15 runs of support to send us into the second round.

July 13, 2005--ONE RUN, AND DONE AGAINST COVENANT... After a lightning delay interrupted our first game, stalling things for a half-hour, we didn´t get started until nearly 7:45.

At the start of the season, our shortstop Amos Soignier still remembered our last 2004 postseason encounter when we fell in the ‘if’ game 10-9, in seven innings. He still shouldered the blame for a bobble that produced the winning run for Young Life/Rhino Linings.

After building a lead, the red-clad Covenant Builders completed an improbable comeback in the bottom of the frame, winning 20-19. And our goal of avenging that one-run defeat in last year’s final would have to wait.

July 20, 2005--SENDING HUCK FINN BACK UP THE RIVER...Remember Val Kilmer as ‘Doc Holliday’ in the movie "Tombstone"? Remember his "I’m your huckleberry" line as he attempted to get into a gunfight?

That scene near the end of the movie kept re-playing in my mind each time Scott DeBolt got up against Huck Finn Exxon in our first elimination game. Scott was the biggest ’huckleberry in our 23-15 shootout victory.

We never trailed in this one, leading 4-0 after one, 5-3 after two, 9-4 after three, 17-6 after four and 18-7 after five. And leading with his bat as well as a solid glove at third base was Scott, who shot up the Huck Finn pitching for a 5-5 day. He cracked 3 doubles, a single, scored four times and also belted a homer.

John Bernazzani took the mound for us again in Randy’s place and pitched a marvelous game. Our defense was practically spotless except for the eight-run Huck Finn rally in the bottom of the sixth.

And our bats! Oh the bats! It was a top-to-bottom attack. I hit 2-4, not so well obviously, but did score three times. Randy Linscott, our first baseman, was playing hurt too--but hit 4-5 with three runs. Amos hit 4-5 with a triple, Wanger hit 3-4, Patrick went 3-5 and late addition Jake Yost--added just in time to play the minimum two regular-season games to be tournament eligible--had a 3-4 day and scored three himself.

July 27, 2005--A QUIET BRAND OF CHAOS STILL SPEAKS LOUDLY...We were missing Gil and Randy Egner. We popped up too many times again. But we still had a chance to win in the bottom of the seventh.

Behind John Bernazzani’s pitching and some great defense by our infield, we had shut down Chaos in the final three innings. The only problem was, Chaos’ Bill Zimsky had an answer for every one of our attempted rallies, and the Wankees 2005 season came to a close by a narrow 7-4 score.

THE END OF THE LINE....Chaos was eliminated by Durango Liquor in the next game, 15-3--a rematch of their second-round winners’ bracket game--and Ronnie Rivera’s bunch went on to swipe two straight in the finals from Covenant Builders to take the men’s Rec 1 crown.

We officially finished fourth, which in hindsight wasn’t so bad, given all the games we played without a full roster, and the close games we won that could have been lost. But now there’s only nine months until May 2006 and another weird-and-wild Wankees’ softball season!