July 20 Recap
By Marc Brafman
I don’t know what Commish Ryan Hi Ho Silverman did to piss off Mother Nature (maybe leave the toilet seat up or call her fat?) but man when it’s not raining it’s hotter than hell on those fields. Ryan, do some sort of dance to get some nice 75-degree weather out there for us, will ya!! I think this might have been the first time since May that we played two weeks in a row, so we have that going for us, right?
The action on the field was as hot as the air. Let’s get right to it.
On Field one we had Team Lefton vs. Team Kamrass
Jimmy for the winners:
Lefton 13 Kamrass 2
Team Lefton beats Kamrass by run rule in the 5th, 13-2. Team Lefton shuffled the time of the order and it seemed to help reignite an offense that was very hot at the start of the season and cooled off significantly during the run of double headers. This was a total team effort both offensively and defensively. Game ball was given to Zach Zakem who had some great at bats and an awesome catch on a ball hit a mile high by Mark Tenenholtz in right field. Going into the game, Lefton was 4-1 in 7 inning games and 1-5 in 5 inning games…winning this game by run rule in 5 innings brought up a great question from Team Secretary Ryan “Hammer” Baum… “does this win count for our 7 inning record or our 5 inning record?”… Good stuff!
On Field two it was Team Brafman vs. Team Weisser
Marc B for the winners: Team Brafman finally got a win in the second half of the season, 15-5 over Weisser. As is usually the case when it comes to Team Brafman, it was a total team effort. From Todd “The Mayor” Wasserman’s 3 hits, to “Handsome” Sam Castellini continuing his torrid hitting, Team Brafman jumped on Weisser early and never looked back. Other hitting stars were David Snyder, Fink, who had a couple of RBI Doubles, Eric “The Mouth of the Midwest” Gruen, who had 2 doubles and could have had an inside-the-park homer had he not had base runners on in front of him. In his first game back from foot surgery, Jack Cohen had a couple of knocks as well. On defense Team Brafman played a near error-free game. Super Sub David “Slim Shady” Wertheim made all of the plays at SS, JZ showed off his cannon of an arm at 3rd and Dr. Bob Pelberg with a great smothering play at first off the bat of Tyler “Big Bad” Wolf.
Not to be overlooked was an inside-the-park homer by Wes “Hungry Like a” Wolf and Scott “Dire” Wolf who added to his all-time JCC steals record. And Brad Wagner turned a nice 5-3 DP on a hot shot down the line.
“I’m proud of my team,” Brafman said. It took us a couple of weeks to get back on the right track. Now we need to turn our attention to Team Stu on Sunday. Brafman hopes he can avoid being thrown out of this game.
On field 3, it was the game of the night as Team Solomon took on the revamped and recharged Team Rosenthal.
Stu for the winners.
We now go to our live man on the scene, Less Nessman, aka Gregg Harris:
“This is Les Nessman live at Triple Creek Park where the excitement is mounting. Team Solomon has narrowly defeated a much-improved Team Rosenthal 10-9. People familiar with the situation say this game was a back-and-forth affair with Team Solomon going down early. It has also been reported that Super Sub Yitz Creeger was everywhere defensively along with his subbing partner Harry Meisner. Is that a turkey falling from the sky?! No, it’s Ryan Marcus with another superb day at the plate. What really has this reporter buzzing is Matt “007” Wagner. Why are we calling him 007, you ask? Because he has a Golden Eye at the plate. Let me set the scene: Team Solomon had been chipping away all game after an early deficit . They load the bases in the bottom of 7 and up steps Matt (S)Wagner. On a 3-2 pitch he lays off on a ball to walk the winning run in! What a time to be alive for Team Solomon as they stay undefeated in the 2nd half.
When asked if he was going to miss the game this weekend because his roommate was not playing, 007 said “Yup I’ll be there. I got a championship on my mind, unlike JZ.” Could there be trouble in paradise? Stay tuned next week to find out.
This is Les Nessman signing out.
and Roger for the losing team:
TEAM SOLOMON 9
TEAM ROSENTHAL 8
(might have been 10-9…..check with other team…..)
I owe it to you as a captain to report on the game………
We jumped out with an early lead and held it until the very end……a hit here or there and a defensive play here or there and we might have had our second straight win.
Kudos to…..
EVAN PIERSON……cranked a homerun over the LCF fence and came close a couple of other times……
MARC SIMONS……had his best offensive game of the year with at least three hits…..
JAMES SWAN……..had a couple of hits and played well in RCF……
DAVID SOLOMON……solid once again behind the plate and had a couple of hits…..
RAFI GOLDFARB…….solid at SS and had a couple of clutch hits……..
KEITH KOMBRINCK……had a good game pitching, but the third baseman (who would that be?) couldn’t move on a few grounders to him or they would have been outs……
MICHAEL ASKIN…..played a solid LF and got a couple of hits……
ROGER ROSENTHAL……MIA
Special thanks go out to subs, GARY ASKIN and MATT MILLER…….
QUOTES AFTER THE GAME……
“I think we’re getting it together. That was a good team we played this evening,” said SIMONS.
“I’m proud of the way we fought out there. We didn’t get the results we wanted, but we hung in there against a good team,” ROSENTHAL said.
It should be noted that afterwards, ROSENTHAL asked one JACOB BRAFMAN, son of MARK “MR. BLOG” BRAFMAN, if he could sub for him the rest of the year.” He can’t do any worse!?
Also, it should be noted that one of the bigger XAVIER fans, ROSENTHAL gave up the TBT game the XAVIER alumni were playing this evening to play softball……rumor had it that his team wished he would have gone to the basketball game….”I wish I would have too. I could have gotten a sub that wouldn’t have done any worse than I did. I stunk….again.”
Finally on field 4 it was Team Grefer vs. Team Fogel
Kyle for the winners:
Team Grefer beat Team Fogel 7-2 with Howie pitching a great game to earn his first win of the year! It was a total team effort with generally great defense and only a couple defensive miscues. AJ Goldhoff had a great game at shortstop and his flexibility has been invaluable moving from catcher to outfield to shortstop this season. Yair Richler also had a great game in right field making a couple huge catches on hard hit line drives. We did most of our damage in one inning scoring 5 runs, with Dan Grefer having a triple to right field, and Chris Kunkel, sub Ian Conwell, Josh Rosen, and myself all with base hits. Chris Kunkel also made a nice putout at second base to stop a potential rally.
League notes:
Happy birthday Evan Weisser. He celebrated by making a very nice shoestring catch to rob Fink last night
Israel reporter Ken “let it” Groh reports that Team USA is 3-0 in the fast pitch softball Maccabiah games. Jeff “The Natural” Weisbrot is more than holding his own and keeping his 5th round draft pick grudge going. It will be interesting to see which holds a grudge longer, Jeff or JaMarr Chase for his Madden ranking which means nothing to me but A LOT to Jacob.
Congrats are in order for Phil Ganson on the birth of his son, Emmett, last week.
Also, Brad “The Human Rain delay” Wagner and his wife Brooke are expecting their first kids any day now.
Continuing a story that was reported on last week, The Wolf family was on the front page of the Israelite this past week. A great story and picture of all of them and showcasing how long the league has been around and what it means to all of them. I know I speak for a lot of guys who are jealous of the fact that Duffy is playing with his two sons while Scott has played with his sons in the past. Every week when I wake up on Thursday with a sore shoulder or knee I think I can do this for a few more years to play with Jacob, right?
An interesting story that Dr. Bob told us last night. When he was in med school and doing his residency at Parkland Hospital in Dallas (Where JFK Was taken when he was shot) a very large women came into the ER complaining of stomach pain. As Bob was examining her, he realized that she had a rotten apple stuck in her let’s just say large folds of skin around her stomach. Not in her stomach but hidden in her skin. Reason number 465 that I could never be a doctor.
Did anyone find the ASG broadcasters incredibly boring? I have never been one to turn on a game because so and so is on the air. But man, the Fox team was awful. Micing up the players was fun but where was the excitement?
This week’s Ron Rose Story comes from Gary Grefer.
Ron contributed to the league in many ways. While he was on the commission and served as Commissioner, Ron was able to navigate the JCC political landscape for the league’s benefit. He always had the ear of the Executive Director and President. Whether we needed new lights, various safety initiatives, or better staffing – Ron was often the guy who ran the point on these initiatives.
Finally in this week in Roger land…
a 2014 NY Rangers Eastern Conf. Championship hat could be yours for the low, low price of $5.
Reminder that we play Sunday at 9:30 AM
See everyone out at the fields
Marc