October 9, 1999 WiffleFest '99 Dover Generals, meet the Tri-State Terror...
Our second game was a fast wake-up call. We played a two-man team that had an unbelievable pitcher. Taking a few pitches and waiting to walk wasn't an option. Not only was this guy accurate, but the speed he put on the ball was intense. His pitches would go through the hole for a strike and then keep sailing for another few yards. Amazing. We could barely see the ball let alone hit it. We lost pretty quickly.
	We stood at 1-1, one game away from elimination. The schedule showed that we were supposed to play some team from Massachusetts, who was one loss away from going back up the turnpike. Chances are we could've beaten them, if we had the chance. Turns out there was a little finnageling of the brackets and we ended up having to play the number one team in America- the Tri-State Terror. This five man team shown in the picture went 96-16 in 1999, winning a slew of tournments. We were pretty psyched to play them. We had nothing to lose. We were going for the experience and to tune up for the 2000 tournaments. This was going to be the best preparation we ever could have asked for.
When the Tri-State Terror began pitching, we simply could not follow the ball coming down the plate. It was coming down too fast and too hard. For a while we weren't swinging, simply because we had no choice. One of their teammates, Frank (shown here in the picture), began getting angry at us. He began yelling, "Swing the f***ing bat!" We ignored him and continued to play our game. The barrage of expletives failed to cease and our crowning moment came when Doug cranked a grand slam out of the stadium. It was an awesome moment. We weren't winning, but we weren't sinking either. We were going out with a big, fat exclamation point.
	There was a twenty-run mercy rule after two innings, but we managed to force a third inning. I think that's when they began to take the game a bit more seriously. Who were we to force a third inning against them? We lost the game, but we didn't lose our pride. We lost any repsect we had for the Tri-State terror, or at least for Frank (even though he apologized for his comments after the game). The rest of the team was actually cool, especially Kenny, who gave us some pointers on pitching and told us how addicted these guys actually are.
We drove back to Hopatcong happy that we won our first game and still tingling over our chance at playing the greatest team in the country. It was definitely an experience and was a perfect stepping stone for the future. Give us time...

1 - 2