Trash Talk Lifts Tequila Mockingbirds Over Plan B
By Patrick Curran
Posted at 9:06 p.m. on June 21, 2012
(Patrick Curran/CQ Roll Call)
Many athletes practice the trade of trash talking, but few have truly mastered it. One of them was present on the National Mall tonight.
Inspired by the incessant heckling of right fielder Holger Kuessner, the Tequila Mockingbirds (6-2) withstood a late rally from Plan B (1-5) to post a 14-13 House Softball League victory tonight.
“We have our secret weapon — we call him ‘German Steel,’” Mockingbirds captain Stephen Peranich said of Kuessner. “He keeps it light on the sideline. He’s talking smack the whole game. You need someone who … keeps you focused on having fun.”
Plan B (not a reproductive rights group, simply an offshoot of an unaffiliated team called ‘Plan A’) got off to a quick start, taking a 3-1 lead through the second inning.
Unfortunately for their pink-clad opponents, the Mockingbirds finally woke up in the top of the third. After three home runs and countless one-liners from Kuessner, Plan B was staring down a five-run deficit that would only widen over the next few innings. The home team blamed some of its struggles on the oppressive heat.
“In the heat … you need to keep it together physically as well as mentally,” Plan B leftfielder Ed Schmidt said. “I think mentally, we were all there as far as chemistry goes, but physically we couldn’t keep up in this heat.”
James Mann and Michael Stakias knocked in two homers apiece to lead the victors. The Mockingbirds will hold bragging rights for the next year in what has become an entertaining rivalry.
“Not only did we fight the Germans in World War II, but we beat [the Mockingbirds] last year,” Schmidt said. “There’s a lot of rivalry, a lot of intensity, a lot of angst.”
