Pilgrim Turkeys

Most Tuesday evenings during June and July, you'll find Pilgrim Turkeys and their families at UMD's softball fields where our team is part of a co-ed, intergenerational church softball league.  Kids too young to take the field and non-athletic parents sit on the sidelines and cheer!  Games are an hour long--bring your mosquito spray, water bottle, and snacks. Enjoy the fun with this team from Pilgrim Congregational UCC. This week's game is on Thursday evening--all other games are on Tuesdays.  David Braun and Tucker Hanlon are team captains.  The roster includes friends as well as members of Pilgrim.

June 3              Pilgrim vs. Cross Roads          6:00     Field #1

June 10            St. John’s vs. Pilgrim              8:00     Field #1

June 19            University Christian vs. Pilgrim          6:00     Field #1

June 24            Pilgrim vs. St. Benedict’s       7:00     Field #1 

July 1               Pilgrim vs. Peace in Christ      8:00     Field #1

July 8               St. Benedict’s vs. Pilgrim       8:00     Field # 2

July 15             Water’s Edge vs. Pilgrim        8:00    Field # 1 

July 22             Peace in Christ vs. Pilgrim      8:00     Field # 1

July 29 and August 5    Playoffs

Turkey Time!

The Turkeys are back!  The YMCA Church Softball season has begun with the first game being a draw last week.  The schedule for the remainder of the season is:
June 4-Turkeys vs. Cross Roads UMD Field 2, 8:00 pm
June 11-Turkeys vs. Peace in Christ Red UMD Field 2, 8:00 pm
June 25-Turkeys vs. The Waters Edge CC UMD Field 1, 7:00 pm
July 2-Turkeys vs. St. Benedicts Popes UMD Field 1, 7:00 pm
July 11-Turkeys vs. St Benedicts Cardinals UMD Field 1, 8:00 pm
July 16-Turkeys vs. Peace in Christ Blue UMD Field 1, 6:00 pm
July 18-Turkeys vs. University Christian Fellwoship UMD Field 2, 8:00 pm
Playoff begin July 25th.
Come out and cheer on the returning champions.  If you are interested in playing, please contact the church office.  Can the Turkeys make it three in a row?

Turkeys Softball Update

July 26 Turkeys vs. Our Savior
This one was a mismatch from the start. We put up 13 runs in two innings and the ump asks that we only bat around our order once and then let them bat (that means that regardless of how many outs we had, we could only send 8 batters to the plate per inning). We agree with the ump as this one has the potential to turn into a football score. John Fochs loses his hat rounding 2nd, the ump calls time out so John can dust off his hat--the comment from the other team was “Its not what you do, its how you look”. Some old geezer from Our Savior finally connects with one for a home run and they score some runs. We didn’t take our ups the last inning—we just let them 6 outs instead of 3. Turkeys rough ‘em up 19-6.
Kerry Hanlon, Turkeys Manager

The Turkeys begin playoffs on August 16, come out and cheer the team at UMD Field 1! Please call the church office for the time of the game.

Pilgrim Turkeys

The Pilgrim Turkeys play softball on Tuesday evenings at UMD field 1. Honigman continues to be the strong arm pitcher and the senior member of the squad. Players welcome--this is a mixed league which means the team includes men and women, teens, adults and seniors. And if you don't play, come out to cheer. The Turkeys are out to defend their title as one of the "winningest church teams!"
Schedule
June 7 - 7:00 pm
June 14 - 6:00 pm
June 28 - 8:00 pm
July 5 - 6:00 pm
July 12 - 7:00 pm
July 19 - 7:00 pm
July 26 - 8:00 pm
Playoffs will begin on August 2.

Turkeys Lucky 13

August 10
Ah, finally the Popes Team-St. Benedict’s, we got wet, but it was a warm wet. Kids and wives headed for the trees to try and keep dry. Was it really raining? We wanted to get this game in so bad, we were in denial. The Popes team had us down 6 to 4 in the bottom of the 3rd when Tucker walked up to plate with bases loaded—the bat always makes a certain sound when you really cream one, sort of a ting, so, TING and the race was on to see if he could score before they threw the ball back in. (He did).
The Popes had a left handed batting kid who slid into first base on his stomach (ouch) and then he got on base again and slid (on his stomach) into 3rd (more ouch) and I think Kenwood Dry Cleaners is going to get a little business. But hat’s off to the kid for effort.
Jenny Fronhauer and Abby both got a pair of hits, the women were on fire. We were lucky to get this game in before somebody got hurt. We still have to play this team one more time-6:00 pm next Tuesday, before the Playoffs. Are we ready/Is the Pope Catholic?—Oh, yea. Chalk one up for the Turkeys—13-7.

Turkey Power

Grace Baptist Church had youth & speed, their time will come, but the Turkeys have age, experience & POWER, and if we had Brett Farve on our team we could win the whole ball of wax.
At the end of 4 innings we had em down 20 to 3. Snustad hits this towering fly ball, three outfielders converge on it & it falls in between all of em-wow, hope you bought a Power Ball ticket Snooz, you lucky____. Dave Adams continued his punishment of their third baseman-3 line shots down the line; I kept hearing their manager saying “Play close to the line”. Then in the first inning I could tell they were playing Nick in too close and he made em pay for that one. Lindsay hit a smash down the 3rd base line (took a page out of the Dave Adams Book). The highlight of the game was a big glop of kids enjoying, of all things, Pokemon cards-Geez, are those things still around.
It was a beautiful night, we welcomed Amity Grace into this world last night and I am a grandpa once more. Thank you Lord.

Turkey's Bring Big Dog!

The Water’s Edge-who’s that? I asked Carter and he said it was probably a CULT of some sort. Seeing as how these were the new kids on the block, we had to see whose dog was bigger. Turns out some of our older dogs got their hackles up-Honigman and Adams hit these line shots at their 3rd baseman (I suppose he was wondering what they had for lunch). Adams made this great catch on a foul ball going down the 1st base line. Duffers Rule.
The Water’s edge was ahead of the Turkeys 2 to zip, but the Turkeys had a HUGE inning and scored 14 runs in the bottom of the 2nd inning. Tucker hit 2 homeruns in the same inning. Tuck hits the 1st homerun (over the guys head), the guy backs up and Tuck torches him again (ouch!).
The defense put a stranglehold on the Water’s Edge that would’ve made Brock Lesnar (mixed martial arts champion) blush.
Snustad crushed one to right field, and by that time Water’s Edge was searching for a white flag. Turkeys take ‘em in five innings 20-2. Our dog was bigger than their dog.-Kerry Hanlon

Turkeys Beat St. John's

There was once a time when I took communion at St. John’s, and afterward I was told that I was going to a very warm place when I die because I did so. Though this may be true, needless to say I used this as the rallying cry for the Turkeys on this fine day. Grant Johnson came back to town (Good to see him again) and didn’t miss a beat. With a couple of Bunyanesque lumberjack swings, he sent the Johnnies outfielders running all game long. (I think I even saw him chugging maple syrup on the bench) Karl Honigman continued to baffle the Johnnies with his mysterious knuckle-curve pine tar-spit ball. (We let the Johnnies keep the game ball) Dave Moeller went 4-4, and both Snustad and Carter both hit titanic homeruns. Somehow I managed to knock two of their 3rd baseman out of the game with hard grounders…Ouch! Turkey’s roll 24-4. Next game July 20 at 8:00 against The Water's Edge. Tucker Hanlon

Turkeys Split a Double Headers

Turkey’s vs. Peace in Christ July 6th
So there we were, eyeball to eyeball with our deadly enemy Peace in Christ (these are the dudes and dudettes that beat us in the finals last year). They have this one big dude that looks like Jim Thome of the Minnesota Twins, problem is he hits like Jim Thome ( a big thug, who can MASH). This guy has bin on Roids since age 2 (his mother snuck it in with the lutefisk, figured he couldn’t taste it anyway). Big dude hits 2 home runs & there was nothing we could do about it. They had one Big inning and scored 8 runs. The only thing that topped that was the Turkeys had a big inning also & scored 9 runs (home runs by Moeller and Frohnauer). That was the difference in the ball game--one run. Turkeys managed to squeak out the victory 13 to 12. Tucker didn’t show up for the ball game as he was at La Maze class ( I don’t know why they couldn’t have these classes behind home plate somewhere in the grass). Havilland took one in the knee and it looked like he might be on the injured reserve list, but it turned out only to be a flesh wound. If only we could’ve had our secret BAT, but Tucker had it.

We played Peace in Christ again (this was a double header) and by this time the ball had turned to MUSH--probably because Roid man had mashed it too hard. Honigman showed me the ball and it sort of looked like it had a nose on it. We whined a little bit and got a new ball, but it was too late (it really was too late, ‘squitos were chewing on me) and we lost 5-2. I shook their manager’s hand and he said “we always like playing you guys”. Next time, green jello eaters.
by Kerry Hanlon

Turkey Gobble up the Opposition

Well, how do you like that, we finally got a game in. Noah put his Ark away and the Turkeys took the field. We were taking on Grace Baptist Church, and we had never played them before. So I asked Tewes what he thought - “What? We will crush them”. I wasn’t so sure. We got ahead 5 to 2, Nick Frohnauer was playing short stop and flashed some serious leather with a couple of fine defensive gems and , oh yeah, he also blasted a round tripper. Dave Moeller was playing first base and somehow got this impossible bloop fly ball down the line. In the 4th inning Dave Braun hit a home run to lead off and then the dam gates broke loose (completely loose). We batted around the whole line up - the bases were juiced when Carter walked up to the plate and hit the grand salami. I really can’t remember scoring 14 runs in one inning, but there it was, a good old fashioned whipping. Turkeys crush ‘em 19-3 (Never doubt the Tewes).

Turkeys to Play

The sun is out! The field is dry! The Pilgrim Turkeys are playing Tuesday evening, 7:00, p.m. , UMD Field 1. Come out to play or cheer--or hang out at the ball field and enjoy the company!

PILGRIM TURKEYS

It was too soggy for a softball game tonight, but check us out next Tuesday evening. Pilgrim's softball team--co-ed and intergenerational--plays almost every Tuesday evening at Field 1 at UMD. We're the guys and gals with gray and black shirts, turkeys on the front, "approved by God" stamped on the back. Softball games are great fun for the whole family--and a great place to meet Pilgrims. Most games are at 6:00 p.m. Check the calendar page on our website to be sure.