The Bartolo Project

Unfortunately, Bartolo Colon has never appeared in any game during the Backyard Baseball series.

Disheartened but not deterred, I decided the best way to show my appreciation for the greatest pitcher of our time was to recreate him as best I could – no, not by creating him as a custom kid in the game, but by emulating him.

Welcome to the Bartolo Project.

In the sixth game of the season for the Humongous Melonheads, it was time to pay tribute to Big Sexy by pitching as him.

How do you pitch as Bartolo, you ask?

Easy. Throw nothing but fastballs.

We only threw fastballs for the entire game, with Ashley Webber playing the role of our lovable portly Dominican. The two don’t exactly have much in common, but she’s one of our better pitchers and throws a good fastball.

The opponent? The Atlanta Braves, who Bartolo actually pitched for in 2017.

Playing on the road and looking to avenge an earlier 4-2 loss, we got off to a roaring start as Braves hurler Jay Green, who carved us up the last time around, made back-to-back throwing errors on comebackers to start the game, unable to comprehend that throwing to first before the first baseman was covering wouldn’t be productive. Maria Luna followed with a two-run double, and Bartolo had the lead before throwing a pitch.

Those two runs would be more than enough for our blonde Bartolo, who went the distance on just 93 pitches, scattering four hits while striking out 11 without issuing a walk. The only blemish came on a long Robert Young opposite-field homer in the bottom of the fifth, and with Ronny Dobbs pitching in relief, the Melonheads (4-2) opened up a three-run lead in the seventh. Ashley reached on an error by catcher Scotty Roth and went to second on Ricky Johnson’s single. Gretchen Hasselhoff hit a liner that second baseman Artie Pimbleton couldn’t hang on to, the fourth and final error of the day for Atlanta (2-4), and Reese Worthington followed with a liner to center that scored two.

As has been a common theme lately for the Melonheads’ opponents, the game ended on bad baserunning, with Green thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple despite his team trailing by three runs.

WP: Ashley Webber (2-1) LP: Jay Green (1-1)

As for the Backyard Soccer 2004 update that even fewer people care about, we reached the halfway point of the season with a 0-0 tie against the Blue Boots, a 2-1 come-from-behind win over the Green Bombers and a 4-0 pasting of the Red All-Stars. Our success continued in the Off the Wall Indoor Tournament, one of the game’s coolest features. It’s a midseason tournament that includes the top four teams in the league and four other squads, and we rolled to the title by beating the Hat Tricksters 2-0, allowing two equalizers but ultimately winning 4-2 against the Super-Duper Hornets and scoring two first-half goals for a 2-0 win over the Turf Mowers for the tournament crown. We enter the second half in first with a record of 6-1-0, good for 19 points.

All games are available on Twitch!