Blitzball is back on November 4th, and for this fifth iteration of the plastic-on-plastic classic we’re watching storylines ranging from oldheads trying to remain relevant to Dansanity to Kmac’s fashion choices.
Has the game passed Baggage by?
The Warehouse was built by two men - Jimmy O’Brien and Jake Storiale. In Blitzball Battle 1 they were the men to beat. This was their house, their competition, their vision. It took two former big league pros in Trevor Plouffe and Vinny Rottino to edge them in the final. Jake was in a league of his own with the bat, totaling 8 RBI. Jimmy added 5 RBI of his own whilst allowing zero runs despite facing 17 batters. Baggage didn’t win the title in the inaugural showdown but it seemed clear this was still their sport.
Here we are two years later. If you don’t know the story you have missed true sporting cinema Blitzball Battle 2: Jolly Olive gets his only hit of the tournament, a walk-off homerun to eliminate Baggage. Blitzball Battle 3: A check swing walk-off homerun by Joez McFly dooms Baggage, again. Blitzball Battle 4: Dan Rourke sends a 48-mph splitter to the boundary wall for another walk-off that sends Jimmy collapsing to the floor. As chaotic celebrations ensue an electrified Peter Moylan bellows from the booth “Jimmy the loser again!”.
Team Baggage’s problems go beyond the walk-offs. What was once a two-headed pitching attack now relies heavily on Jomboy. While he is still capable of accurate and canny pitching, Jimmy’s arm is fighting a losing battle with time. Jake’s red hot bat from BB1 is also a fading memory; Jake the Snake still has some bite but we’ve not seen venom for some time as extra-base hits have dried up for Team Baggage.
So, the question has to be asked: is Team Baggage still a competitive force in Blitzball? These are old dogs surrounded by hungry new pups, like the We Got Ice boys, Jimmy Knorp, and Drew Davis. No one is a bigger critic of Baggage than Jimmy and Jake, and one has to wonder if BB5 goes like the prior four are we going to still see these war-weary generals putting themselves on the frontlines?
Can Jack Doyle finally lift a Blitzball banner?
The Warehouse was built by Baggage, but only two men live and breathe its dusty air every day: We Got Ice. Zo and Jack are almost synonymous with Blitzball at this point and, though Zo has toiled to become a force of his own, the team rises and falls on Jack Doyle’s otherworldly pitching. A two-time Cy Young/Plastic Surgeon award-winning pitcher, no one has nastier stuff than Doyle. No one has more variations. No one has more movement. No one has more trickery. But despite all the acclaim have we actually seen the best of Jack Doyle on the mound?
In the four Blitzball Battles to date We Got Ice have made only one final appearance despite having the consensus best pitcher in the Warehouse. In BB4 they were bested by Love Yas in an offensive shootout, 10-6, with 6 of those 10 runs coming off Doyle’s tired and erratic pitching.
Much of the pitching spotlight may be on Zo and how much damage he can avoid whilst achieving his quota of outs each game, but We Got Ice needs a clean and clinical showing from Jack Doyle befitting of the Plastic Surgeon title. We don’t need to see the full circus act, just a complete tournament of Jack missing bats and leaving opponents flummoxed.
Dan Rourke is an insane person
All the players in the Warehouse are my children, and I love them equally. But every now and then I have a flicker of an intrusive thought. I suppress it every time, but it comes back: Dan Rourke might be my favorite Warehouse competitor. Our introduction to this lunatic came in Blitzball Battle 1 when he was a late stand-in for Jimmy Knorp on the one-and-done team MLW Snakes. And what did we get? A gum-chewing, jeans-and-boots-wearing, headband-topped, foul-mouthed, out-of-his-shoes-swinging nutjob. Love at first sight.
Now here we are in BB5 and Rourke is married to the man he stood in for, the insanely talented Jimmy Knorp. The jeans and boots are gone, the swing has been shortened, but is it a different man we’re seeing compete? Not really. Dan Rourke is still everyone’s favorite wildcard. Sure he’s worked and refined his game, but the same nutjob will still be coming up at the plate on November 10th in The Woogas opening game, with Rosey in the booth rubbing his hands together ready to heckle and crack wise at whatever idiosyncratic madness we see unfold.
Jimmy Knorp has taken to the Warehouse like a duck to water, and is a popular MVP pick for BB5, so what are we going to see from Dan Rourke in support of the burgeoning superstar? Whatever it is, I'm going to love watching it.
Pitching is a game for two
In BB4 pitching rules were relaxed so that each player was only required to record a minimum of two outs, whether in the field or on the mound. But in the end the final was played between the two teams with the most balanced pitching partnerships: MacFlurry Power and Hookline Sinkers. Many teams suffered high-profile struggles with one half of their duo being a pitching liability, but the top two teams punished batters from the first pitch to the last.
For MacFlurry, Kollin Stone pitched a shutout across the whole tournament with lethal efficiency on his way to claiming his first Plastic Surgeon award. So good was his performance that he somehow kept the loudest man in the Warehouse, the maverick that is Kyle MacDonald, in his shadow despite KMac posting fearsome pitching figures himself. The victorious pair allowed only 9 hits and 1 run in 5 games, winning all their playoff games by 1 to 0.
Whilst not quite as brutally efficient, ‘Old Man’ Dan Canobbio and Drew Davis were likewise a formidable pairing bringing a left and right-handed attack in which either man could do the business. With labrador-incarnate Davis comes a wiffleball bag of tricks, and from Old Man Dan batters must contend with difficult left-arm angle and challenging inside/outside movement. This combination carried Hookline throughout the tournament even as their bats often struggled to find the ball.
The counterexamples in BB4 are numerous: Del Caribe with the beloved Joez McFly and his once infinite ERA; Forgotten Rotten with Marshall Plouffe coming off his sofa having never held a blitzball; Love Yas with Dalton Feely completely unable to find the zone; madman Dan Rourke sending the ball any which way for The Woogas; We Got Ice with Zo DeMalia not seeing any payoff for all his pitching practice; and even Big Papi himself Jake Storiale getting battered for a league-worst 11 runs on the mound for Team Baggage.
Warehouse Blitzball is an evolving sport, and we usually see amended rules for each iteration. Unless we see more pitching rule changes we can certainly expect to see the battles of these unfavored pitchers once again being the major storyline throughout BB5. Will the double pitching threats of MacFlurry and Hookline thrive again and will any teams be able to join them and present dual-pronged attacks?
Old! Old! Old! Old!
Crowd favourite Old Man Dan Canobbio returning to the concrete is a blessing to us all; we haven’t seen him on our screens since he flew the Jomboy Media nest to work on grand new ventures. We can certainly expect to see some tipped caps and appreciation shown to the venerable elderly gentleman. No one will be happier to see him than Drew Davis, though, and he will be hoping they can go one step further than last time out and claim a banner.
Is there room in the booth for Rose, Moylan, and Moylan’s ego?
Chris Rose and Peter Moylan are one of the several cherished booth combinations that carry us through our epic Warehouse journey, and perhaps the most celebrated of all. A new dynamic is in play though. After Moylan stepped down from the ivory tower of commentary to compete in Ball in Play 2 and carried Love Yas all the way to glory on a strained hamstring, will there be a power shift in the booth? Will Moylan carry new perspectives? Will his inflated Antipodean ego prove too big to handle for Rosey? Or just it just be two middle-aged dads talking about their fat asses and their joint pains while commenting on a bunch of younger guys throwing themselves after a ball on a concrete floor?
KMac’s passion for fashion
We’ve seen capes, masks, unnecessarily large cups, mustaches, mutton chops, and eyeblack. One can only wonder what grand fashion statement KMac is going to make this time around, especially as reigning champion. Smart money would be on a crown being involved but really I’m not sure any money could be described as smart betting on KMac’s wardrobe. But as long as he is adding accessories and clothes rather than taking them off, we’ll be alright.
 | A guest post by
|
Great article!
Rourke might be some's favorite, but he became a warehouse villain for questionable play during Captains' League Floorball