By JON DARLING
The Isotopes Times

The Isotopes are 2-2, have been outscored on the season and there are a lot of low numbers when looking over everyone’s batting averages.

The slow start doesn’t have coach Jon Darling worried, and he points to one stat to why he thinks the Topes are the favorites to win the championship in 2012: .643 — the combined on-base percentage for leadoff hitter Kenny Jacobsen and Kurt Homer, who has hit second.

Jacobsen has been on a tear to start the season. In four games, Kenny is hitting .750 with an OBP of .786. He’s 9-for-12 this season with two walks.

Behind him, Homer has an OBP of an even .500 with three hits and a team-leading four walks.

“The guys at the top of the order are getting on base, that’s what they’re supposed to do and they’re doing it well,” Darling said. “The middle of the order is off to a slow start, but when the heavy hitters come around, there’s going to be plenty of ducks on the pond to drive in.”

Jacobsen and Homer have each reached base in the first inning in all four games this season and have been on base a combined 18 times in four games, yet the duo has scored only seven times.

“Historically, the top of the order has been an area of concern,” Darling continued. “Over the years, we’ve tried several different combinations up there, looking for guys to get on base for Tom Jachimczyk and Dave Gagliardi in the middle. Now, we’re found a combo that works, and we’re only going to score more runs as the bats come alive and the temperatures get higher.”

On top of the success at the front of the batting order is a stronger middle. In addition to Yim and Gags, the longtime combo in the No. 3 and No. 4 spots, Eric Marshall, Eric McAndrew, Ryan Walsh and Jeff Dacosta have made the lineup deeper. It’s a simple formula: Guys getting on base and good bats to drive them in. It’s a combo that’s gonna lead to a lot of wins.

Season Highlights

There have been only four games, but there are a number of noteworthy plays already in 2012. … Yim slammed a two-run, walk-off homer in the first win of the season, 15-14 over the Sand Demons. … In that same game, Homer platted two runs with a bases-loaded double on an 0-2 pitch with no fouls to burn. Also in that game, Dacosta, Ry Chabot and Patrick Long had back-to-back RBI singles with two outs in a big second inning. … Long had a beautiful opposite-field double down the right-field line and scored what proved to be the go-ahead run in a 7-5 win in Westport over the Wrecking Crew, a game that also saw Marshall throw a perfect strike from left field to hose a runner at the plate and Gags drive in the final run of the game with a long triple that arguably would have cleared the fence at Cushman.

Around The Bases

Walsh leads the team with five RBIs and boasts a .545 batting average … Chabot is off to a good start to the season, hitting .444 with two walks, making for a .545 on-base percentage. … Some other teams in the league count errors as hits, and while this isn’t the Topes’ policy, it does shine some light on who’s reaching on errors, i.e. who’s hitting it down and hard. Jordan Chabot is only hitting .285 on the season, but if counting errors as hits, his average shoots up to .571. … There have been 96 penalty beers so far this season (156 if counting preseason games). Jordan Chabot, Walsh, Homer, Dacosta and Mike Hochella have all had to make extra runs to the packie this year. … There has been no set make-up date for the rainout with KMP last Thursday, but the rainout with the Misfits will be made up on June 19 at Cushman in a doubleheader. … The Rose Alley Ale House has two cool new happenings that are worth checking out. First, on Monday nights from 8 p.m. to midnight, the bar is serving breakfast for dinner, complete with a variety of Bloody Marys. Also, check it out on Facebook for details on how you can turn your New Bedford parking ticket into half-off your meal … The jerseys are done and will be available on Tuesday. Compliments to Justin Estrella of Just Your Way Screen Printing in Westport. Find it on Facebook for more information.

Looking Back

From time to time, the Isotopes Times will look back at a notable game of yesteryear. Today, we take the DeLorean from Back to the Future to July 14, 2009, when the Topes were 18-3 heading into a 6 p.m. contest against the Wrecking Crew at Cushman Park.

After McAndrew led off the first inning with a lineout to third, Kenny came up and knocked a basehit to center. Yim followed with a two-run homer over the fence for an early 2-0 lead. The Topes fell behind, 4-2, heading into the third, when they scored five runs on back-to-back run-scoring doubles by Kenny and Yim. The Topes broke the game open with an eight-run fourth inning, highlighted by a three-run homer by Yim. The Topes cruised from there to a 19-8 victory, but not before Yim made it a three-homer game with a solo shot in the sixth.

Oh, Yim also pitched that game, filling in for former pitcher Matt Biltcliffe.

Yim’s evening took a disastrous turn when KMP rolled in for the second game of the doubleheader. He slammed a two-run homer in the first to give Rose Alley a 4-1 lead, but tore his Achilles in the third inning rounding second base after a single. KMP scored 10 runs in the fourth and went on to win, 14-13.

Yim’s statline for the night: 6-for-6, four home runs, a double, nine RBIs, six runs scored, seven innings pitched and one ruptured tendon.

Looking Ahead

Rose Alley will have its first of five doubleheaders Tuesday at Cushman against the Wrecking Crew (6 p.m.) and Sand Demons (7:30 p.m.). The week after is a home-and-home series with the Red Eyes at Cushman on Tuesday and Wednesday. Other games to check out around the Sandlot Softball League include: Bulldogs at Red Eyes (5/16), Sand Demons at KMP (5/17), Crew at Misfits (5/21) and Bulldogs at KMP (5/24).

Dude! Check out the YouTube time machine. Start out in 1860 go through every year till the present. Pretty chill stuff — like footage from the 1910 World Series. So whip out your roni and let the stroking begin.

Mechaphilia means having a sexual attraction to your car. It’s weird because cars are designed to be sexy. So who is at fault here? If you don’t want people getting all randy about cars, stop making them so damn sexy.

That said, I think this video is more about mutually beneficial relationships. Like, I’ll give you a rubdown, and you give me a rubdown right back. I sweat on you, you sweat on me back. It’s about loving your car. If sex is a part of it — so be it.

Ha! Decent Community has been on a serious hiatus. We hope everyone is doing chill. We have a big announcement coming soon — so stay tuned!

You should know — we’re still into the jams and figured we’d turn a recent mix into a podcast. So here it is:

Click here to listen to and download the Decent Community Podcast.

Pretty chill mixture in here — even if a tad on the ambiguous side. But it all correllates with how we’ve been rolling over the past month or so. Give it a listen. We hope you enjoy!

How decent are outtakes? Nothing caps a good movie like some funny outtakes playing while the credits roll. Two flicks to recommend with some hysterical outtakes: The Cannonball Run and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. … Dear the m’fcker who hacked into my e-mail and sent out a message to everyone on my contact list offering cheap, generic viagra: FUCK OFF! … Three links for your reading enjoyment this Thursday: 1) A look at Japan’s oddest museums, including the best of Japanese advertising and even one full of parasite specimens; 2) A Time Magazine reporter offers a nice account of the Winter Olympics, including how the Vancouver edition was the drunkest Olympics of all time; and 3) Check out these cool pieces of art made from stuff on your desk. … It’s a big week down at the decent Rose Alley Ale House in downtown New Bedford. The popular pub is celebrating its first birthday with a range of events, including a March Madness-themed beer tournament, a wings-eating contest, and the release of a special calendar featuring the beautiful ladies of the Rose Alley. Swing by and check it out all weekend. … Happy 54th birthday to the current mayor of Sacramento, Calif. and former NBA All-Star guard Kevin Johnson. He was the seventh pick in the 1987 NBA Draft, a draft that featured Hall of Famers David Robinson (No. 1 to the Spurs) and Scottie Pippen (No. 5 to the Supersonics) and future Hall of Famer Reggie Miller (No. 11 to Indiana). The Celtics used the 22nd pick that year on a shooting guard from Northeastern — Reggie Lewis. … Happy 42nd birthday to porn star and weird fetish queen Susan Cummings. Did you know Cummings has appeared in more than 280 pornos and has 45EE boobs? I tried to find a link to one of her “movies” on ExtremeTube, but apparently, she’s too much for the Internet. Ont he other hand, if you’re into that sort of thing, ExtremeTube is pretty decent.

International competition. Bobsled. Curling. America topples Canada on ice. Alpine skiing. Biathalon. Nordic combined.

What’s decent about the Olympics? Everything, or course. From the ladies who like to watch every kind of figure skating to the guys wondering how all these hot chicks got involved in curling, the Olympics offers something for everyone — and its seemingly 24-hours-a-day coverage means there’s always something dece to watch of TV.

So here are a few Olympic fun facts, courtesy of the Book of Odds.

•  The 2010 Olympic mascots (above) are Quatchi (a sasquatch) and Miga (half orca, half kermode bear). Their unofficial sidekick is a non-mythic Vancouver Island marmot named Mukmuk. Miga and Quatchi are not the Winter Olympics’ first cryptozoological mascots: the Turin games in 2006 had Neve and Gliz, a snowball and an ice cube. And at the ’92 Albertville games, it was Magique, a “snow imp” or anthropomorphized star.
• There are two notable Winter Olympic events that didn’t stand the test of time: 1) Skiojring, skiing while being pulled by a pack of dogs, ceased after the 1928 Games while the Winter Pentathalon (Cross country skiing, downhill skiing, shooting, fencing and horseback riding) saw its final run in 1948.
• The only even the U.S. has not medaled in EVER is the biathalon. That list also included the nordic combined until won a silver medal a few weeks ago.
• Only one Spanish athlete has ever won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. It was Francisco Ochoa in the 1972 slalom.
• There have been only four athletes in Olympic history to win medals in both a Summer and Olympic Games. One is American, Eddie Eagan, who won the gold in light-heavyweight boxing in 1920 and another gold in the four-man bobsled in 1932.

Thursday Ramblings

Why is it when I go to Wal-Mart I hear more Spanish than English? … Faithful readers of Thursday Ramblings might recall my idea to get very wealthy: Buying a $20 scratch ticket every Friday. Well I went five straight weeks of losers before I finally won something — a big $200 winner on Week 6. For those mathmatically-challenged, that’s +$80 after six weeks. I haven’t cashed the ticket yet but am planning on doing it tomorrow and saving it to fund the next 10 Fridays. Stay tuned. … Happy 28th birthday to porn star Jamie Lynn. Did you know Lynn, the Penthouse Pet of the Year in 2006, was the first Ganja Goddess for High Times magazine? … Happy 35th birthday to comedian and E! Entertainment TV star Chelsea Handler. Did you know the host of Chelsea Lately, who used to date the CEO of Comcast (and boss of E!), appeared on the cover of Playboy last year and turned down a spot on Dancing with the Stars? … Finally, today would have been George Harrison’s 67th birthday. Although John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote most of the Beatles songs, Harrison is credited with writing “Here Comes the Sun,” “Taxman,” and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

No doubt, The Community is a haven for goofiness. But that doesn’t mean we don’t take some stuff seriously. I mean, we take getting head seriously. We take drinking bronsons seriously. There’s probably a few other things we take seriously, but they’re not coming to me right now.

In all seriousness though — we thought we’d share a pretty serious interview with Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google. This vid is nearly 40 minutes long, but the content is definitely worthwhile. As in: changing our world, how we live, ethics, energy, and information. Some really big questions are addressed here.

This is probably one of the best things I’ve watched in awhile. Seriously. So instead of watching The Biggest Loser or some other crap show on TV, take a moment to listen and think about how our world is changing.

Decent chance you’ve heard of this site before, but we figured, “Hey, what the fuck, ya know?” Texts From Last Night is a collection of anonymous user submitted texts (with the area code included) that reveal funny situations and musings. Texts From Last Night is basically exploiting “the tendency to press ‘send’ more easily as the night turns to morning.” Here are a few so you get the gist:

(774)

I just walked into a room at this party and someone yelled “dibs!”…

(843)

Grinding on my ninth grade teacher. Dreams really do come true

(781)

I was just told by a cop that my party was the most epic party they ever crashed.

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***In the spirit of Texts From Last Night, we’ll share a decent text of our own. Here’s an actual exchange I enjoyed with Community member Lice a few nights ago:

What’s a more decent show to watch as a little kid than Sesame Street? This is the 40th year for the popular children’s program and several Web sites and media outlets (including Decent Community) have been dedicating time to take a look back at Burt & Ernie, Big Bird and the man himself, Snuffaluffagus. Check out this interactive look at the decent muppets from Sesame Street, a handy way to take a trip down memory lane and come across some of the decency you might have forgotten. … The staff at Electronic Arts that works on the annual Madden football game spends countless hours rating every player and every team to try to get them as close to real life as possible. That’s why the San Francisco 49ers are a 75 as a team and the Patriots last year were a 90. Not exact, but close enough. I find it a little odd that both the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees have exact 97 ratings in the upcoming MLB 2010 video game. Sorry to say it but the Yankees are better than the Red Sox, only because New York has a better offense. The meat of Boston’s order (Youk, Victor and Papi) just isn’t as strong as A-Rod, Teixeira and Granderson, who hit 30 homers in Tiger Stadium last year is a sure bet to hit 40 this year in the Bronx. …  Three links for your reading enjoyment this Thursday: 1) High school pledges to turn up the lights and blast Burt Bacharach at dances if teens start grinding; 2) 79-year-old survives for four days on a deserted island after his boat sinks; and 3) Take a glance through 30 of the dumbest inventions, including a device that lets you smoke a full pack of butts at the same time and the baby cage, a dog cage intended to house a baby dangling stories above a busy street. … Happy 36th birthday to Biggest Loser fitness trainer Jillian Michaels. Did you know Michaels, who decided to become a trainer after overcoming her overweightness as a teenager, will be starring in her own Biggest Loser spinoff series “Losing it with Jillian” on NBC next year? … Happy 42nd birthday to former teen star Molly Ringwold. Did you know that Ringwold, who is ranked No. 1 on VHI’s list of 100 Greatest Teen Stars, saw her career decline after turning down leading roles in Pretty Woman and Ghost? … Happy 53rd birthday to the very decent Vanna White. Did you know that Vanna’s first television appearance wasn’t on Wheel of Fortune, but rather as a contestant on The Price is Right in 1980? She was selected to “Come on Down” but never won the chance to get on stage. … Finally, a public service message from the most decent slow-pitch softball team out there, the Isotopes. The team is seeking players for the upcoming season. Games are in the New Bedford area on weekday evenings in the summer. Players must be somewhat athletic and like to chill and drink beers. Send an e-mail to decentcommunity@gmail.com and someone from the team will get back to you.