It's midnight for Ricky

He gave us all a great run, but all great things must come to an end. For Ricky - or Cinderella - it's midnight.

The underdog story is over. The big story, however, is what happened Saturday night. The matchup was still close. Bob had already stiffed. Ricky absolutely needed to in order to give himself a chance to win.

But he didn't.

"Very surprised, one might say astounded," Bob said of the lack of stiffing. "He had five moves left to make, I don't know if he was saving them for the last week or just plain didn't care. If he stiffed he could have kept the matchup more competitive and might have snuck out a win."

So what happened? You're never going to believe this.


I'll let Ricky tell it like it is. Remember, Ricky lives in California, so he is operating on a three-hour time difference.

"At the risk of being laughed at, I'll tell you the truth," he said. "I meant to stiff. I meant to pick up four guys and overtake innings and wins both...at least. So I'm sitting here (Saturday) night on my couch watching SportsCenter at 11:15 p.m. pacific, and i set my alarm for 11:55. I honestly thought that I had more time past 12 (3 a.m. eastern) because I could have sworn that in the past I've come home late at night after 12 and made moves for the following day. I guess I was wrong.

"The whole reason I was waiting was because I wanted to wait long enough to make sure Bob wasn't going to counter at 3 a.m. eastern! ...and it backfired. I had the guys I wanted picked out and everything. Then at the last minute, I went to start the pickups at like 11:58 and saw that my first choice had disappeared! Then i looked and Joe had swooped in! Then I panicked and by the time I went back to add players, it had changed to Sunday already! 12 on the dot!

"I couldn't believe my eyes. My heart sank and I felt like such an idiot. Lucky for me, my stiffs wouldn't have made a difference (Sunday) because my bats blew it or else I'd be kicking the shit out of myself for such a bonehead move. So yeah, that's why i didn't stiff."

Wow. What do we even say after that? The best part is we can all imagine it taking place as we're reading it, right? Incredible.

Ricky falls just short of the title game for a second straight year - the matchup ended 13-6 but was pretty close. The key to Bob's win, however, was pitching. Just incredible all week. He finished 8-1 with a 2.02/1.11 in 66.2 innings. Just wow.

"You gotta give credit to the Miners staff," Ricky said. "I had a good week, but man, their starters were lights out."

Bob obviously was elated at how well he threw the ball.

"My pitching was amazing," he said. "I think I won for my first eight starts or something and I didn't allow a lot of baserunners. My hitting struggled most of the week, but had a good enough weekend to win it."

Meanwhile, as Bob moves on after his first career playoff win, Ricky - and his fans - go home thinking, "What if?" Will historians remember Ricky's season by his awesome run to make it into the semifinals? Or will it be remembered by Stiffgate '09?

"Am I happy with my season? One word answer...No," Ricky said. "We didn't win. It's that simple. I'm proud how much heart the guys showed and how we kept fighting down the stretch, especially to get into the playoffs with that big win over Chris. There were great moments like that, don't get me wrong, but there were some mistakes along the way and ultimately it cost us another shot at the championship.

"Losing in the semis for the second straight year is tough after tasting the finals two years ago - we know what it means to win, but sometimes you need a little luck on your side too. I'll say that I look forward to next year. I do wanna get on the medal stand though so it's time for us to get ready for the third place game."