In the final whiffle battle, demon frogs emerged from the darkness covered in chain mail with weapons held high. Revolver put up a noble fight, but in the end frog would dine with the gods, drinking blood from the coward opponents’ severed limbs.

A warrior stands amidst the serfs to send a message of things to come.

Revolver would cast their magic spells… only to realize frog’s immunity to such cowardice.

Teammates hold up one of their best after he is trampled by a rabid beast.

Luckily, the attack would only result in a ruined stocking…

…and a minor battle wound.

the mighty frog stands and summons any other feeble beasts to come and battle with the most powerful warriors in the land.

The final game of San Francisco’s Saucony Originals Summer Office (SOSO) Whiffle Ball 2008 season pitted last game’s triumphant winners and sulking losers against one another in a last-chance effort to earn inter-office respect– and oh how sweet is the scent of victory! With a guerrilla DJ providing the games’ soundtrack by blasting hopelessly mediocre reggae music from the top of San Francisco’s beautiful Dolores Park, reigning champions Frog Design Pizza on Fire and Revolver USA/Midheaven Sloth duked it out on the Winners field, while on the Losers field Hyphen Magazine CentaursSt. Elmo’s Fire and KQED grappled to see who would walk away victory-less.

Tensions began early when Hyphen, fueled by the better-than-electrolytes energy of Sparks, sauntered in wearing–yes–eyepatches, but KQED, no strangers to intimidation, were unshaken. Emboldened by their blue-shirted Elmo mascot, KQED sent the Centaurs home with heads hanging low in a mighty 6-3 win.

Meanwhile, Frog, who began the game one person short of a full team, encountered some trouble mid-game when their rookie starter, Dave Hoffer, lost a motherfucking toenail when a Revolver runner, in a haze of speed and adrenaline, slid into his foot. But Hoffer, never one to admit defeat, battled on, and, with the blood slowly soaking into his socks, he stepped back on to the field and led the green-shirts to a 10-8 victory over the tenacious and creatively dressed Sloth.

All enmities were brushed aside after the games however, and, with heads held high, the teams trekked over to the Beauty Bar to end the evening in a flurry of tequila shots. In all, the night proved to be a glorious celebration of unbridled athleticism and uncensored drinking. And if anyone in the San Francisco area happens to find a toenail, please bring it to the Frog offices directly….

More pics, less captions below:

The KQED crew whiffled once again, this time against the kids from HYPHEN. At first, we were scared of their sweet monogrammed eye patches, but they were NO match for us.

Debbie practiced looking tough and Ifanyi used his magical powers to levitate the bat:

Zaldy forgot his uniform but he’s still the MVP because he created our awesome logo, to be unveiled fashionably late at the CAPTURE THE FLAG match in a couple weeks.

Our victory was glorious!

But the real ACTION happened after the game when Elmo got crunk:

and this guy from the green team had to get his bionic foot patched up:

Despite the injuries, F-U-N was had by all — especially Elmo, who went home with this guy:

Were we upset the other team captured our mascot? Nope, there’s plenty more where he came from. See you in a couple weeks, FROG DESIGN, and beware:

ELMO’S FIRE GONNA GETCHA!

We have to give a big THANK YOU to Aaron and all the awesome bartenders over at The Beauty Bar for putting up with a bunch of whiffle ball jocks and serving us copious/responsible amounts of boooooooooooooooze.

They have this awesome Jim Beam and PBR special on Wednesdays where you get a shot and a beer for only $5. You could drink like, 18 of those if you were irresponsible and not affiliated with Saucony Originals :–)

Anyway, we’re rolling by after our game today, but before we go, we wanted to post some pics from last time.

(though after a few of those Beam and PBRs, you’re pretty too!)

(well, he has nice hair…)

The much-anticipated San FranciscoWhiffle Ball Invitational 2008 went off gloriously, wonderfully, (almost) without incident. Fueled, in three of the four cases, by beverages in brown bags, the four teams fought it out furiously but respectfully, the green-clad Frog Design Pizza on Fire crossing swords with the black-and-gray Hyphen Magazine Centaurs while the unsurprisingly unkempt Revolver USA/Midheaven Sloth went toe-to-toe with the famously ferocious KQED St. Elmo’s Fire.

The action-packed hour was made all the more entertaining by an impromptu burlesque show that popped up directly next to our games, and before we knew it, there was wrestling, pie-throwing, a wedding dress-clad woman with a microphone, and no less than five fake mustaches. But yes, yes, back to the games: The greenshirts of Frog Design proudly took Hyphen Magazine to task by pummeling them 4-3 in a great show of amphibian force, and Revolver USA/Midheaven, for their part, took KQED’s bragging rights away from them by maintaining their first-inning lead all game (the actual score remains disputed and unknown…). It was a noble effort on the parts of all, but it was Revolver USA/Midheaven and Frog Design who would come out victorious.

And then, most importantly, the teams high tailed it over to Beauty Bar to get a bit (more) intoxicated with joy (read: suds) on Saucony’s tab. Shoes + Booze… for real.