On the first Saturday in October, I played in the San Francisco city Wiffle Ball tournament. Ten teams. Eight straight hours of Wiffle Ball. I rocked my 100% nylon Brussels high-school jersey, and my nipples are now chafed. It was worth it.

Here is the recap.

The day started as one would expect of a municipal Wiffle Ball tournament. Namely, with mock intensity, good-naturedness, and team spirit.

45 minutes were spent setting up the shit. The shit included a two-way Wiffle Ball backstop, strike zones made out of construction-site A-frames, and spray-painted pitching rubber and home-plate outline. Cones were also set up. It was fucking awesome.

The first game, we draw a Jeff Spicoli-looking guy and his friend WiffleJamieMoyer. They were ringers. They were one of three ringer teams in the tourney.

These particular ringers came down from San Mateo. WiffleJamieMoyer is a landscaper and built a Wiffle Ball stadium in his backyard. So they, in the parlance of our times, have played hella Wiffle Ball.

And it showed. They killed us, 12-3. WiffleJamieMoyer had filthy stuff, including a knuckle-curve-eephus that crossed the plate behind your head, then darted back over the plate after it passed you and hit the inside of the strike zone target. He threw it often and effectively. Unhittable. I felt guilty for exhibiting false intensity before the tournament. I took off my blingy gold chain after the first inning, because I didn't deserve to wear that shit against such formidable competition.

Sometime in the middle of this first game of the tournament, the intensity -- and I'm talking across-the-board in the tourney, not just in our game -- went from mock intensity to the intensity it was mocking. Shit got hectic, and everyone wanted to win. There were arguments. Teammates stopped talking to each other after errors and strikeouts in key situations. Just-for-fun imitations of David Ortiz's point-to-the-sky and Roger Clemens's yelling-and-fist-pumping after a strikeout turned into real emotional outbursts.

It is at this transitional stage that I ran into the forest and thicket to catch a fly ball that would have otherwise been a home run, acquiring leg wounds that would leave me hobbled for four days. Fuckin' shrubs.

Still thinking about how surprisingly bad we sucked at Wiffle Ball, Golz & Moynihan moved on to the next game. We drew a guy who talks a lot about being an awesome pitcher and he says he plays a lot. His teammate Kirk is the tournament bookie, and also a scrappy, banjo-hitting lefty.

We worked some walks, and both of us started hitting. We eked out a 8-5 win. We had to win the next game to even have a shot at advancing to the playoffs.

The next team we played had uniforms. They had a cheering section. They also used sandpaper to scuff up the balls, which was legal in this tourney. They were 2-0. Screw that fancy stuff. We were locked in. Golz was throwing some wicked stuff on the mound, and we continued to work walks and hit. We won 8-5.

After some number-crunching, it was determined that we had clinched a playoff spot. The wild card. We were the longest shot of the four teams in. We don't play Wiffle Ball so much, and that morning was actually the first time Golz & Moynihan had ever stepped on a field as a team. Even for practice. The other three teams, on the other hand, had been playing together for at least a few months.

So as it turns out, we have to play the same team with the uniforms and the sandpaper again in the first playoff round. No contest. In an experimental start, I had the knuckleball working. I just kept lobbing it, fat down the middle of the plate. And they could muster naught but lazy pop outs. We blanked them 6-0. It was fun. We were gellin' like Asics, as master of ceremonies Metal Face Doom would say.

And we were takin that gel to the finals.

Meanwhile, in the other division, two of the ringer teams were battling it out. Dueling no-hitters through 5. This one guy threw a pitch that defied every law of space and time known to world scientists. It is hard to even explain it.

It broke about 5 different times in the span of 35 feet and appeared to change speeds mid-flight. Unreal and unhittable. Somehow, the other team got to him for a run. 1-0 final, ringer team from San Mateo.

And so...

For all the marbles ($100 cash prize), it comes down to a rematch of the first game of the day for us, a game we were trying hard to forget because we lost 12-3. Did I mention we came into that game confident and arrogant? Because we did. And we got the shit kicked out of us.

They schooled us that morning. And it wasn't looking much better through the first 5 innings of the 6-inning championship game.

Their pitcher, WiffleJamieMoyer, had us off balance all game long.

But my boy JASON GOLZ pitched the game of his life, painting the corners with cut fastballs and sinkers and getting them to chase some 8-foot breakers off the plate.

We worked some walks and loaded the bases in every inning through the 4th and just couldn't get any runs home. It was like WiffleMoyer fueled off of the emotion of having the bases juiced with ghost runners behind him. He finished us off time and time again with the magical sucker-knuckle-eephus. It was devastating.

Also devastating was the fact that WiffleJamieMoyer helped his own cause by jacking a three-run shot down the line in left to take a 3-0 lead in the second. They plated another run in the top of the 5th to take a 4-0 lead. With only a couple hits between us, and only six outs to get at least 4 runs and hold 'em off, it wasn't looking good for me and my boy Golz.

But that's why they play 6. It ain't over till it's over, mawfawkaz.

Bottom of the 5th. Leadoff walk. Seeing-eye single. Golz muscled a little nubber that fell in. Bases juiced again, which was actually looking to be our Achilles' heel.

But what's this? A single fisted down the left-field line. 4-1. We're on the board.

WiffleMoyer was getting rattled. He began missing his spots. The eephus-knuckler was starting to miss the inside corner. Golz was patient and worked a walk, pushing home another run. 4-2.

Yo, we can do dis.

Slider outside. 1-0. Knuckle-eephus juuuust misses inside. 2-0. Filthy screwball looking. 2-1. Knuckle-eephus misses inside. 3-1.

He doesn't want to walk me.

They're playing me to pull, which is smart because I've been pulling the ball all day. Jeff Spicoli-looking-guy is perhaps the best fielder in Wiffle Ball history. He is fast as lightning, and has hands made of soft, soft gold. If he played in the '40s, a good nickname for him would have been "Sweet Ambrosia."

He's in a prevent defense, heels on the forest line/home run marker to turn any potential home-run ball into an out. He has already robbed two otherwise-home-runs in the game from just being good.

And on this 3-1 count, WiffleMoyer throws me a riser outside. And the secret that was not revealed until this pitch hit my bat is that I hit with power to the opposite field.

They should have walked me.

I deposited that shit in the right-center forest. A laser. Jeff Spicoli-looking guy couldn't even catch up to it, and he can run at the speed of light.

Grand slam. 6-4.

We went out quietly the rest of the inning. I think that's because we realized we still had work to do.

And Golz just stepped up and closed it out ridiculously.

1. Nubber ground-out. 2. A walk, I think. 3. Maybe a single? I'm still trippin off that shit. 4. Backwards K on some bendy fast ridiculousness. 5. Game-ending, championship-clinching strikeout swinging on a floaty riser.

It was awesome. We had no business winning this thing. None. But here is a pretty good way to start October:

Golz and me are both $50 richer and, on paper, the best Wiffle Ball players in San Francisco.

And we're just getting started. Bring it.