THAT WHICH DOESN’T KILL US…
Cannons Collapse in Seventh Inning of CNMSBL Semis, Left Wondering “What if…?”

Manchester, CT (AP)—Nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is credited with the quote, “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” Neitzsche’s notion of eternal recurrence expounded in The Gay Science (a Michael McGann must-read) and Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the belief that the life we lead does not simply end at our deaths but will repeat over and over again for all eternity, each moment recurring in exactly the same way without end. Those who embrace and are encouraged by this idea love and value life and the implicit importance of living in such a way that one could wish for constant repetition, while those who retreat from it in trepidation have not yet learned to do so. All things happen for a reason—God’s will? Fate? Cosmic tumblers clicking into place?—and if one learns and draws strength from these occurrences, both positive and negative, then one can move forward from life’s ultimate successes and failures rather than being simply satisfied or stuck in a state of constant sorrow. Sometimes things happen that seem pointless and painful but in reflection it is understood that without overcoming obstacles an individual, or in this case a team, may never have realized its full potential or will power. Initially it is hard to take anything favorable away from the Connecticut Cannons crushing 7-6 defeat at the hands of the Winsted Rifles on Saturday at Manchester Community College. The CNMSBL A Division finals and a date with destiny in the form of the much-hated Marlborough Athletics was just one strike away but all that changed with a single Billy Dee Williams swing of the bat in the home half of the last inning. The hardball heaven experienced by the seventh seed in opening round action had become a horrific hell in just thirty pitches and the dream of a Championship had to be put on hold for another year. But the question begs to be asked: was the 2008 season all for naught? On the surface it may appear so but once said surface is scratched it becomes obvious that the golden opportunity missed will undoubtedly lead to many more opportunities in the future. Manager Matt Celio’s words from Cannons World Headquarters on Saturday evening reflected this forward thinking: “Turn the hot stove on high because the 2009 season starts today. We'll be better next year from the get-go, that’s a promise. Every ’08 Cannons roster invitee is under contact through the 2010 season so we’ll all be back to exact revenge from the Rifles and our other opponents. [Tom] Luby and [Bill] Gills are excellent in-house additions and all we really need to win from April through August next season, bolstering our roster and completing the Cannons vision of a championship-caliber contender. This is by far the most talent we’ve ever assembled and we had many if not all of the pieces necessary to win today but another year of seasoning, plus plenty of time at [Drew] McDowell's training complex, will make us instant favorites in the CNMSBL A Division tomorrow and for the foreseeable future. The rest of the league is on notice.” The Connecticut Cannons are not corpses so it can indeed be assumed that the team will rebound and redouble its efforts in eight months, for the entire ’09 campaign and the hall of fame hereafter.

Despite a disappointing performance against the A’s last Sunday (a 7-0 loss), Connecticut was just one of three teams still in contention for the coveted Clinton Trophy and a first-ever CNMSBL A Division crown for the Town of Newington entering play on Saturday. Through perseverance—as it had done in 2006—the cerise-clad club proved to CNMSBL prognosticators and pundits that no playoff picture is complete without the primary color-crimson of the Cannons. The team, poised on the precipice of something truly monumental, played with according passion against its divisional rival from Winsted. Connecticut scored three first-frame runs against Rifles ace Danny “Taxi” DiVita as McDowell singled, Bill Balcerzak worked a walk and Tom Clark doubled home both runners (Clark would later score on a dropped pop to center off the bat of catcher Kevin Quinn). Ageless left-hander Mike Patenaude, pitching for the fourth time in two weekends and adamant that “offense is going to win this thing,” took his customary perch on the mound baffling Winsted’s batters through much of the early going, allowing his first hit of the day, a third-inning double by ninth batter Cogsworth Lussier, while facing just eleven Rifles through three complete. After stranding a runner ninety feet from home in the previous inning, the Cannons offense was at it again against DiVita in the fourth as Quinn led off with a double down the left field line, Mike Weber squeezed a seeing-eye single between third and short and Mike “Liut” McGann, so named for his butterfly saves on balls to the hot corner (“I like being on my knees,” quipped the third baseman), came up big with a run-scoring single to left. After a Jason Maule walk with one out loaded the bases Weber wound up at home because of a passed ball that bounced by backstop William DeVanney but Connecticut couldn’t push any additional runs across as McDowell and Balcerzak were retired to end the threat. Patenaude hit a hiccup in the home half of the fourth as Paul “Have You Ever Seen a Grown Man Naked?” Graves doubled and Dane “Employee of the Month” Cooke was issued a base on balls but a ground out to Balcerzak at short ended the threat and the Cannons escaped with the 5-0 lead still intact. In the seventh, Clark scorched a one-out single and Leo “El Gringo de Santo Domingo” Dionicio followed with a base hit to put runners at the corners. Quinn cracked a sacrifice fly to center—that at the time seemed barely-needed insurance—scoring Clark with the sixth Cannons run. Patenaude, nearly perfect through six, walked an irritating Graves on four flips to start the seventh and Cooke chipped in with a single to move a runner into scoring position (only the third Rifle to reach second safely on the afternoon). As Winsted willfully worked umpire Nemo Disney, an infield pop-up to Don Armatino allowed Connecticut followers to collectively exhale its bated breath but Howie Longhi’s subsequent single loaded the bases putting pressure back on the Cannons pitcher. Patenaude responded by striking out pinch hitter Garrett Leifert on three pitches to put Connecticut one out away from its first A Division Finals appearance. But the baseball gods had other intentions as Al Boucino followed with a two-strike knock past a diving McGann placing Winsted on the board at 6-1. DeVanney dinked a ball up the middle for a RBI and DiVita dropped a one-and-two dying quail into right field out of the reach of Andy Borst to score two more as Graves chided his club: “Anybody who makes the last out is gonna get beat like a red-headed stepchild” (DiVita’s foul ball deep down the right field line couldn’t be corralled by McDowell continuing the craziness). Williams, two for his last twelve against Cannons pitchers yet apparently averse to an a**-kicking, stepped into the batters box against Patenaude (6.2 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 2 K, 2 BB) and deposited a one-strike offering into the right field bleachers for a three-run blast, a nine mile no-doubter, that capped the improbable comeback and catapulted the Rifles into the Championship while conversely causing coronary episodes throughout a crushed Cannon Nation. All the promise of the previous six and two-thirds innings disappeared with one potent poke. Devastating, mind-numbing and shocking were just some of the words uttered by players after season-stopping reality started to settle in. Make no mistake about it: Winsted earned this victory, Connecticut did not gift wrap it. Granted, a game and a golden opportunity were lost but the enduring belief that the Connecticut Cannons will bounce back shows the will to win that exists in each and every Cannons player.

With Nietzsche’s teachings of eternal recurrence as a guide, the words CANNONS FOREVER! have never been more meaningful: the team’s play is perpetual, something far more significant than a single postseason Saturday. Mental scars may be left and will without question take time to heal but they add character and the Cannons will undoubtedly emerge stronger for having played and lost this game. Balcerzak buys into this philosophy whole-heartedly: “Regarding the future of the team, we aren’t going to forget his game and we are going to come back stronger next year. In the grand scheme of things how we respond to this adversity is really all that matters. We expected to win against Winsted on opening weekend, after the Fourth of July break, in Game Two of the Playoffs, in the semifinal and every time we will play them down the road we’ll expect the same. The only thing that has changed here is our resolve as a team. All things seem difficult before they get easy. All past failures are over the second you cut them loose.” Death is the only thing that takes away from one more chance and the Connecticut Cannons are alive and kicking. The collective pulse pounds and when the heart beats with a purpose, no task is ever too difficult, no goal too great. 2009 regular and postseason success will fulfill the philosophical ideals behind Cannons Baseball: be the most talented, closest knit, best run team in the CNMSBL then quickly and ceaselessly you’ll be kickin’ “A” and takin’ names. See you next season!

Cannons News and Notes: Connecticut batted .261 as a team in postseason play, down from .295 in the regular season (opponents batted .273 and .270 respectively); McDowell led or tied for tops on the team in eight of thirteen offensive categories during the ’08 playoffs: at-bats (14), hits (6), home runs (1, with Maule), runs (3, with Clark and Maule), runs batted in (3, with Clark), batting average (.429), slugging percentage (.714) and on-base + slugging percentage (1.143); Maule is the team’s all-time leader in playoff batting average (.606), on-base percentage (.667), slugging percentage (.909) and on-base + slugging percentage (1.576)…he has not struck out in thirty-nine postseason plate appearances with the Cannons; Dionicio is the team’s all-time A Division leader in playoff at-bats (37); Patenaude has pitched in exactly half of Connecticut’s postseason games since 2004 (twelve of twenty-four) accounting for almost exactly half of the innings pitched (57.1 of 115)…he has tossed twenty-five strike outs and allowed twenty-five free passes in ten career playoff decisions (5-5) during that same span; since the team joined the A Division in ’06, Clark is the postseason leader in ERA (4.61); Cannons’ pitchers have allowed opponents to hit .331 in ten A Division playoff games while the team’s batters posted a .311 average over that same frame; Connecticut’s Weber was quoted on Sunday as saying, “The thought of new uniforms is one thing that will help me get past this game and through the off-season.”…the team is currently considering any and all color schemes though navy seems to be the front runner (McGann still prefers hunter green...or pink); Clark wondered why the Cannons’ Assistant Manager has missed so many team get-togethers recently due to an unspecified “illness:” “What's Web got, West Nile virus?”; C Steve Markie was in attendance for the first several inning of the Winsted game (perhaps the “Good Luck Steve” should have stuck around); Team Canada (sponsored by Labatt’s) featuring Balcerzak and McGann downed Team U.S.A.’s Clark and Celio two games to one in Thursday’s darts rematch at The Spigot (Celio spent much of the losing effort on the phone with his “Pineapple Express” buddy Borst discussing Saturday’s defensive alignments)...Balcerzak wore his Incredible Hulk t-shirt (circa 1979) earning BB the new nickname “Bill Bixby”; Disney said of his shrinking seventh inning strike zone: “As an umpire you have to change your zone like that late in a game. If not, the other team isn’t going to have a chance to come back.”…the league is accepting applications for umpiring positions immediately; Dionicio’s buddy Nelson de la Rosa stopped by M.C.C. on Saturday to keep score for the Rifles…“The Dominican Dreamboat” is feverishly working the waiver wires to sign P Juan Checo: “I know how much Coach [Celio] loves Dominicans and this new recruit will be a great addition to the Cannons. I’m tired to be the only Dominican on the team, probably in the whole league. But with Juan I can talk trash about all the blanquitos right on [their] faces and [they] will never know!”; Patenaude is once again exploring the possibility of penning powerhouse catcher John Hepple to a lucrative multi-year contract this off-season; Celio, McGann and former Cannon Craig Perrier (now the batting champion of the Boston Braves at .433) spent Monday evening drowning their sorrows at Plan B and the Wood-n-Tap; regular season Champion Marlborough dropped the opener on Saturday afternoon (6-4 in eight innings) then demolished Winsted—struggling through their seventh game in nine days—on Sunday (15-1) to capture its first CNMSBL A Division postseason crown; Cannons management is looking at two dates (6:30 p.m. Saturday, September 20 or Saturday September 27) for the annual End-of-Year Extravaganza at The Webers in Newington…dinner, drinks, Cannons Jeopardy! and the Cannons Awards are all on the agenda…clear your calendars for the fun-filled festivities! CANNONS FOREVER!