2010: Earthquakes, Icelandic Volcanoes, Eclipses - Oh My!

been a wild year and we going out with a bang - earthquakes in Iran and Japan - torrential floods in California (and a bit of rain here too, eh?) - the moon running blood - blizzards despite global warming - tea party shenanigans...is the world coming to an end?...depends who you ask. i'm sure many of our newly-elected washington folks are rootin' for the rapture.

but unfortunately, we can safely say that Na Pahu Piha softball in 2010 is over - and i'd say 'twas not a bad one...we won 10 games, nearly swept the division 2 championship for the year, and didn't have to forfeit a game

plenty more Na Pahu in 2011. see you then

12/8: Bubble Boy

It's official - Hemant needs a bubble.  In his defense, he is a trooper and played through the pain, going home with the equivalent of a golf ball on his forehead and his leg - with the latter oozing some sort of puss. However, his injury rate is rapidly approaching his batting average. Maybe next season in addition to the league fees we all chip in to buy him his own bubble, i'd bet a softball would fit in them holes.

Na Pahu fought through a tough double-header schedule on a wednesday night - facing the division 1 runner-up and the division 2 champion - with the "weeknight" hangup. Although I would say it was some of the best softball that the city-wide softball league has seen in awhile.

In the first game against the Outcasts (Matsuno) Na Pahu had 2 home runs and was knotted at 5-5 after 5 innings...unfortunately, the bad guys were able to plate one during their last at-bat....me thinks it may have been the first time we haven't gotten mercy ruled against these guys (see 5/21/2008, 10/29/2008 blog posts for representative examples)

Final Score
Outcasts (Matsuno) 6
Na Pahu Piha 5

Game two was a rematch of the Season 7 division two championship game - you know that one where On The House denied us a three-peat. dem buggahs! not much to really comment on this game - pretty consistent division two softball play on both sides. On The House charged out to a 6-3 lead and Na Pahu crept our way back into it. down one in our last at-bat, Steve was heads up on the base paths and more or less stole home as they were putzin' around after the second out of the inning. saved the day for Na Pahu as it looked like we were done for and we came out with a tie. mo bettah than a loss - and given the reaction from a few of the competitive folks on OTH...it felt like a win.

Final Score
On The House 6
Na Pahu Piha 6

12/3: The Winds of Mo'ili'ili

they say it is windy in wyoming, but wyoming had nothing on mo'ili'ili this past friday night. Na Pahu found itself in a blustery matchup with our good friends Public Assistance and a chance to even up our record for the season.

a quick three-n-out on defense and we had an all-star lineup that looked poised to post a quick 8 (at least) and put the game out of reach in our first at bat...a solid leadoff was followed by a solid letdown - an droopy 3 out-er onto king st.

PA plated one in the third and Na Pahu answered right back with a quick one and seemed ready to blow it open with two on and coach promptly dinked it back onto king st. for another dirty 3. some officiating shenanigans and the remnants of coach's 2-out 3-out dump from the prior inning and PA was in good shape with a 3-1 lead after four innings, on pace for the fastest game in softball history.

inning 5 and Na Pahu finally came alive - i guess the allstar lineup just needed a warmup round because the scorebook got a lot darker the rest of the way...and Na Pahu cruised back to 0.500 for the season

Final Score

Na Pahu Piha 10

P-ass  5

while we deeply missed the presence of our inspirational leader...jefe was nice enough to share a photo from the wedding he was attending in America South.

11/19: Frosted Tips Strikes Again

move over public assistance Na Pahu has found a new arch-nemesis in Sofa Kingdom - who seem to be good folks with the exception of one who plays true to the team name (say it one syllable at a time). Our second battle with Sofa Kingdom this season  played out fairly similar to our first - just Na Pahu played the comeback role this time.

Na Pahu was down 12 - 3 after 3 and was not playing very motivated softball....a big two-out rally in the 4th leveled the playing field with Na Pahu crawling back to within a run at 11-10....with the final inning call, Na Pahu went out and slopped it up to to allow four big runs and set up a 5-run deficit for the last at-bat. A typical end of the game rally followed with the winning run at second - only for coach to hit a hard line drive right at second base which turned into a game ending double-play. bummer, eh? Frosted tips was pumped, and in classic form, made sure everyone in mo'ili'ili knew it....so as they say:

"A tie is like kissing your sister" - Eddie Ederlatz

Final Score 

Sofa Kingdom 15

Na Pahu Piha 15

However, unfortunately for Na Pahu, upon further review of the score book the day after it would appear that Na Pahu actually came up short

Final Score (after further review)

Sofa Kingdom 16

Na Pahu Piha 15

"If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing your grandmother with her teeth out" 

- George Brett

...so there you go - although it could have been worse - like if the potential post-game fight between rob and frosted tips went down - fortunately nobody let that happen - although if it did happen i would imagine it would have gone done something like this.

11/10: So Close...Yet Not

A rather unenthused, slightly hungover na pahu crew congregated on Wed for what we expected to be a lackluster performance. Much to our surprise, na pahu opened up with a good inning. HMSA countered with one of their own. The unavoidable na pahu defensive inning took place somewhere around the 4th inning. Then, trailing 3-8, Doug opened up with an infield homerun. With 1 out and runners on 1st and 3rd, Sean knocked a whopper over the fence!!! Unfortunately, it was the side fence, giving us 3 outs. A good defensive stand kept the bad guys at 8 and though we started our inning with one out, we came out strong. Doug knocked another monster into the outfield and was nipping at Lisa's heels as he came home, making it 6-8. Then we did what pahu does best......get more outs to lose the game.  It was a good hint of a rally at the end and the crew was fired up, but we faltered once again. At least the other team were'nt dicks.......but they work for HMSA, GODDAMN IT!!!!

10/22: Akua

eight seasons into Na Pahu softball have shown that adequate (or at times excessive) pre-games can lead to interesting match-ups on the field....tonight proved no different.

Na Pahu was short wahine but got by with a little public assistance - mahalo to our favorite pseudo-nemesis.

me thinks we played the game under Akua - the second of the four Hawaiian full moons - and Akua means God/Goddess as well as corpse, devil, and idol (...according to the internet and it has never been wrong before)...which can be the only explanation for what transpired.

in the context of Akua...

our assorted pre-game poisons had Na Pahu either feelin' like Gods/Goddesses or directly speaking with God from the top row of the mo'ili'ili bleachers....no doubt trying to avoid the pain of a looming division 1 matchup....unfortunately, we took the field and played like corpses. D dropped some steamy dumps on the mound and Datswutshesed had plated 10 before we even got an out. vintage Na Pahu. by the time we were able to scrape together 3 outs they had dropped a foot-long on us...not very pleasant.

Chuck played the role of devil...challenging my coaching abilities during the first inning, saying that i was stupid for taking the home side, b/c the game was already over and we hadn't even batted - wtf? although i guess he had a point.

Unfazed ('err...completely dazed?') Na Pahu chipped away in the first with 3 quick runs to make it a respectable - for Na Pahu - 12 to 3. A surprising hold in the field and some bang bang bang from the bottom of the order and we got a 12-9 score after two....a huge 2-out over the fence foul sealed 'shesed's mouth for two more innings allowing Na Pahu to creep up at 12-11....at which point chuck bellows the '...10 more minutes' basically saying this is our last chance.

the bats came alive and some voodoo from the bench allowed Na Pahu to put together a chunky 15 minute beatdown seemingly ending it as an unbelievable comeback win for na pahu at 15-12....but chuck reared his devil horns and sent us out to make us earn the win....a task that we were NOT up for.

A quick 6 from the bad guys had us hanging our heads looking at a 18-15 deficit.

lest you forget the full moon - Na Pahu claws back with some mucho gusto from the newbie chunk of the lineup (4 in a row to be exact)...ties the game at 18-18 and who, of all, is gets the idol award for game winning hit? come on - guess? no, seriously? well...not that serious...

full moons are scary.

Na Pahu Piha 19
Datswutshesed 18

Sloppy and Choppy

our game against ka'alawai was not all that different from a session in her waters.

we knew it wasn't gonna be pretty, but headed out there and enjoyed ourselves anyways. A few newbies got to experience the ride - and a few of the regulars got tossed around a bit. An early 9 run hole proved to be a bit too much to overcome, but a pair of na pahu homeruns made things at least moderately respectable.

ka'alawai 13
na pahu    5

...clearly the most intriguing part of the night proved to be the post-game gig that team frano scored.

 ....maybe we can squeeze a guest blog post out of them?

Ipu Piha (Sofa Kingdom game pt II)

a view of last week's game from someone who was actually there...courtesy of guest blogger

It was the latest game in Pahu history with a 9:40 start time. Some kind of timer malfunction pushed the Pahu Stadium lights back one hour. 9:30 gametime vs. HiTel. The Pahu family was sparse with only Jefe, Stephen, Rob, Meaghan, Jamie, and Devan on hand. Our new nemesis and last season champs, On the House, was partying major at the bleachers pregame and a very drunk sparkplug from their team, that Rob named Spitfire for the evening, was determined to recruit enough players for us to play. Even Rob couldn’t believe how drunk she was, and HE had already committed to not driving after the game (his truck remained at Pahu Field for at least 2 more days).

We finally got enough help and had 2 players from On the House and 2 players from Public Assistance join the Pahu family for the evening. And based on the pregame, Ipu Piha should have been the team name for the night. (Ipu means bowl and Piha means loaded)

Pahu came out swinging and took a 16-1 lead after the 2^nd inning with 5 runs in the 1^st and 11 runs in the 2^nd. Devan brought the smoke on the mound, struck out 3 in HiTel’s first 2 at bats and kept them to 1 run. Then the pregame Ipu Piha crept up on #420 and the pitching fell apart. Inning 3: 2 walks led to 4 unearned runners with the Wahine follow-up-walks and HiTel scores 8 more. Pahu gets a few more runs for some security, but the pitcher went from a little too high to cottonmouth blind. Pitches were going behind the batter, over chucks head, falling 10 feet short, all over the place. After giving up another 2 walks plus 2 wahine follow-ups and a few hits the lead was in serious jeopardy with Pahu now up 19-15. Quoting Towlie with a claim of “I have no idea what’s going on” the pitcher pulls himself and puts in Jefe who gets the job done like he was peddling chicle to cross the border.

Ipu Piha wins 19-17

Sofa King Great!

Na Pahu Public House - a veritable division 2 all star squad - took the field against Sofa Kingdom to start off season eight. A 2 hour delay courtesy of the city&county light timers - Na Pahu Public House had no problem loosening up and stormed out to a quick 16 - 1 lead through two innings. A couple of Sofa Kingdom (aka Na Pahu) innings in the field and them Sofa Kingdom buggahs were back in action.

Luckily for Na Pahu Public House Rob blocked a last second field goal securing the 19-17 victory for the good guys.

Season 8: OctoPahu

Season 8

Dynasty ..... CANCELED !!

Season Seven - Division Two Championship Game

Na Pahu came out fighting but quickly settled into a lull and played like we had been here before - almost like we expected to win...unfortunately, On the House were hungry for their first title. A "Na Pahu" inning set us back and all looked lost. However, down 8-5, 15 mins after Chuck yelled "10 minutes" we got one last chance to make it a game and Na Pahu arose from the dead to notch an exciting 3-run inning...tying it up. Solid defense in the field sent the game into extra innings. In the first extra frame Na Pahu came up empty and On the House managed to squeeze in a run with two outs to claim their first title. Good for them...enjoy it while you can - next season we take it back!

Na Pahu Piha 8
On The House 9

stay tuned for season 8.

All you want to do is ride around....

Season 7 Playoffs - first round matchup with Public Assistance - normally a walk in the park, but we are fresh off a loss to them suckas. we were light on numbers and weren't sure we'd be able to field a full lineup. it didn't look too promising.

however, during warmups a screeching howl shook isenberg...and as soon as rob rode in on his white stallion - i knew we were on our way to the championship game

a typical Na Pahu P-ass game. close throughout - a little slop here, a little slop there ... a blown call here, a blown call there - tie game through 4. then our recruit from american samoa blasted a 3 run homerun to secure the victory for the good guys in orange.

so the cosmos have realigned and we put public assistance back in their place...at home waiting for next season...and na pahu marches into the championship game looking for the three-peat.

Na Pahu Piha 8
Public Assistance 5

Breaking News !

Hit the snooze button Na Pahu

after a tough game against the D1 champs Niele, Na Pahu gets a well deserved break before the playoffs...time to clear our heads for a bit and strategize our back-to-back championship defense

we return to action in September...so stay in game shape and get ready for the three-peat

Hang your head in shame!

Na Pahu has flirted with this moment a few times in recent seasons, but the dreadful day finally came....A loss to Public Assistance.

Na Pahu last fell to P-ass in it's second game EVER. P-ass has been slowly upgrading their roster over the past six seasons - picking up essential pieces here and there, but really they just happened to play a solid game and Na Pahu VII came out playing like Na Pahu III

the game was close throughout and we rallied to tie the game in the sixth
...only to fall in the last at-bat (same as the first time we played them)

P-ass 7
Na Pahu 6

embarrassing - On the House replied accordingly..."Public Asssistance ? oooooohhh - yeah we lost to them ONCE too". such empathy

even our old friend Ozzie felt the pain...on the bright side - Elijah wasn't there to enjoy the moment - so that almost makes it worth it

Na Pahu Piha VII

Na Pahu Piha - Season 7

Back to Back Champions !!

2/26: Earthquake at 2nd Base

You know we were in for a big matzo ball of a game when the 8:34 game time aligned with the exact time the earthquake hit Chile. Yet the stream of crappy smack flowing from the other team made it clear that the only “Dat” they were able to “Get” came either in anabolic or alcoholic form. Fun started when the other team aggressively kicked Pahu out of our usual dugout, cuz de wanted dat, as they felt that was normal behavior for someone older than 9.

Blood spilled early and just kept coming. With Coach uphill skiing for cheese, and our Mexi-Jefe peddling chicle at a mariachi show, Pahu had to dig deep into the roster and bring in Big League Bases Loaded all-star Kristy, who came to the plate and smacked the ball hard, but spun her wheels in the dust like Wile E. Coyote and eventually bit it, gashing her knuckle. Band Aid #1. Pahu came out swinging in the second scoring 5 runs with solid cracks from Lisa K, Devan, Toby, Jamie, Mike, Kristy, and Joe. Pahu 5 – GD 0.

Pahu dominated defensively shutting Dem down allowing only 4 base runners and one run in the first 4 innings. More smack from the bad guys, several warnings from Chuck. The last out of the 4th came as Roving Rob pulled up a skipping rope and send it along to Meaghan, who proceeded to tag the runner out with her face. All attention turned to the (afraid but not injured) base runner that was riling around on the ground and freaking, but one by one Pahu realized that Meaghan was calmly down on one knee, covering her nose with blood running down both arms to both legs and dripping on the field. First responder Jamie was on the scene like a champ. Quick first aid kit from Chuck and we had Na Pahu Clinic on site, rubber gloves and all. After the blood was cleared and nose deemed likely not too badly broken, Band Aid #2 and game on.

Meaghan stayed in the game like a champ and returned to the field for the last inning, which was a classic Pahu inning. One out from the victory and we give up 6 runs. But before it’s over Rob saves his glove the pain and takes rover rope to the shin, which bounced between his legs like a pinball and left thread marks in his shin that still remain. Band Aid #3 came from a can.

Pahu looses 7-5, but at least we had Tsunami Saturday to inebriate and recuperate.

MVP – Meaghan

MVDr – Jamie

2/19: Kickin' It Old School

Na Pahu won’t let a championship get to our heads – we know where we came from.

We keep it real!

So for Season Six Opener Na Pahu took it back to the roots…2008-stylee against Ka’alawai.

First two innings were tight…1-1 game…then the all-too-familiar ‘Na Pahu’ inning hit (it has been awhile) – balls flew all over the place – coach conveniently lost track of the score – eh, call it 9-1.

...long story short – Chuck pulled the plug when it hit about 16-3, euthanasia.

Nostalgic game – hurt so good.

Na Pahu Piha VI: Ready to Rock!!

Na Pahu Piha
Season Six
Defend the Championship!

Na Pahu Piha 13
Public Assistance 3

1/27: Grill dat cheese!

magic was in the air - or maybe just chuck's swine flu germs? either way Na Pahu battled through a game in which all seemed lost - a few times over - and ended up with a monster victory to move on to the championship game.....
Championship Game:
Na Pahu Piha vs. Public Assistance

who you got? and how much you got on it?

1/8: Season 5 Playoffs

Na Pahu 2010 new years resolution: dominate
so far so good...Na pahu spared no mercy in round one with a near perfect game.

Na Pahu Piha 16
CCH 2

off to round two...i can smell a championship match up with p-ass...can't you?