April 27 Recap
By Marc Brafman
On another nice night for softball (two weeks in a row…how about that) the action was hot and heavy. Let’s check in with field 1 first as Team Kamrass took on Team Fogel in what turned out to be a classic game:
Micah for the winners reports this:
Staring down the prospects for getting mercy ruled, trailing 11-1 in the fourth inning, Team Kamrass came roaring back to beat Team Fogel 16-15.
Jared Kamrass and Jason Esterkamp each made their season debuts with some strong hitting, and also turned a double play on defense.
Danny Gilbert just missed the fence on a monster shot to left field.
Eppy pitched another strong game and tagged up to score from third.
Eric Goldstein also hit a few missiles.
“It’s great to be 2-0,” said Micah Kamrass. “After an atrocious first inning where we made about 8 errors, we did a great job regrouping and just having fun. Winning is a lot more enjoyable than getting run ruled.”
Team Kamrass heads into the much-needed bye sitting in first place in the standings. There are already lots of sore hammies and quads in need of some rest.
Over on field two it was Team Grefer vs. Team Weisser.
First Mark for the losing team:
Well, we lost 12-4. Scott Wolf had to pitch due to my groin injury. Very nice catches by Evan Weisser and Alexander Wold in the outfield. Mike Gray pitched great with six strikeouts–the most in a game I can remember. Kudos to him.
And now Kyle for the winners:
We beat Team Weisser 12-4 last night behind a dominant performance on the mound by Mike Gray. He finished with 7 strikeouts and had their hitters off balance all game. Defensively AJ Goldhoff had a great game behind the plate working with Mike, and Josh Rosen made a couple nice running catches in the outfield. Offensively we had one big inning in the 5th where we batted around scoring 7 runs, and key offensive contributors were Josh Rosen, Taylor “F&^% the” Police, Kyle Grefer, and Zach Michelson. The usually talkative Mike “Mr. Cub” Gray had this to say post game: “I’m glad I pitched well.”
On field 3 it was Team Lefton vs. Team Z
Jimmy reports the following for the winning team:
A good ol’ good one last night. We beat Team Z, 20-17. Everyone contributed offensively with even Alan “Sauce” Lessure getting on base a couple of times and scoring a run. I had to ask Alan to catch for us last night and he did a stand-up job. We awarded him the game ball for his contributions. What’s more amazing is that he scored two runs for us that helped us win. “I’ve been telling guys for years that with my blazing speed I should be hitting leadoff,” Alan said last night post game. “Glad Jimmy understands my place on this year’s team.”
Finally on Field 4 it was Team Brafman vs. Team Rosenthal
Roger chimes in first for the losing squad:
My notes……
We had one bad inning that decided the game. I’ve got to make those catches. Those are putouts for me years ago, but now I move like a…well I don’t move. Howie pitched a great game and our defense played well, but two plays is all it took to open the flood gates.
These are two tough losses in a row, but I feel confident in this team that we’ll bounce back. At least I hope so or else I might be out of a job and have to go back to selling bobbleheads full time.
My hats off to Marc’s team. They played flawless defense and came up with the big hit and knew where to hit the ball (i.e. to me).
I had to report to the General Manager after the game and it wasn’t a pretty conversation. He said, win or else…
kudos do go out to…
*MICHAEL ASKIN……for hitting a homerun to the opposite field.
*HOWARD SCHWARTZ…..for pitching a great game, but he can’t catch the balls for us (mainly a certain second baseman).
*MARC SIMONS……for making a nice running catch in LCF.
*NORM FRANKEL…….making an unbelievable catch at 3B.
Here’s hoping JAMES “SPEEDY” SWAN is ok after having to leave the game early because of an injury.
And from the winning Capt. Brafman
Team Brafman continued their total team ball last night by defeating Team Roger, 11-8, in comeback fashion with contributions from everyone. On offense Anton, Fink, “Handsome” Sam Castellini, Sam “the Hitman” Hecht and Alex Kraus all had big hits to drive in key runs. “It’s never easy to hit the Living Legend,” Brafman said post game. “We got just enough big hits in key parts of the game when we needed them to win. As Roger mentioned we also continued to play very sound defense. JZ turning a 5 to 3 Double play, David “BP” Synder making key plays at both first and second, Todd behind the plate, and most importantly Dr. Bob digging the ball out at first while tumbling around the base to keep the ball in front of him helped save us.”
When told post game that he got the game ball, Dr. Bob laughed and said, “no way should a 1st baseman ever win the game ball.” We disagree Bob. Keep up the good work! Now we need Eric “The Mouth of the Midwest” Gruen and Joel “Hallelujah” Buckley to get off the DL and we will really be a force this year. Team Brafman moves to 2-0 on the young season.
League notes:
A big shout out to Greg Leader (and Uncle Anton) on Greg’s son’s bar mitzvah this past weekend. From what I understand Greg gave a great speech then flew out to RC.
The Minister of Fun, Dave Cohen, reports in that while Roger Daltrey forgot a couple of words to “Who are You?” The WHO put on a great show last week in Miami. For those of us going next month, he said to expect a great concert.
Congrats to Jimmy and Laurie Lefton on their 30-year wedding anniversary. Points do get taken off for introducing us to Alex though. (we kid, we kid)
Tyler “Big Bad” Wolf makes the blog again for his continued success with Urban Blooms. I believe they just either bought or merged with another company and continue to expand in the city. Keep up the good work Big MAN!!
Speaking of Big Men Riley “The Big Man” Able played in front of his kid for the first time last night and reported that he had something like 10 hits. Even if he only had 2-3 he will always tell him that it was 10.
Happy 40th birthday to former player Jeremy “Oh Canada” Cantor
A big shout out goes to our own Fink who got himself kicked out of his son, Chase’s, baseball game the other day, not for arguing with the ump, but for requesting that the ump not use profanity in front of the kids when the ump was throwing someone else out of the game. “My wife was not pleased when I got home,” Fink said “until she understood what I was doing. Then she said, ‘well at least the kids are learning which words not to use to get tossed.’”
Before our game yesterday, Rafi, Anton and I were discussing what Howie’s record must be and if he has more wins than Cy Youngs 511. Maybe one of the league historians can look that up for us. On another note, Tuesday was the anniversary of when Nolan Ryan broke the strikeout record of Walter “The Big Train” Johnson. When Howie does decide to retire, his strike out record will be as untouchable as Ryan’s (he added two more last night vs. my team).
Next time we all complain about the strike zone or the umps in general we all have to take a step back and reflect that at least Angel Hernandez isn’t in our league. Here is a guy whose actual job is to ump and he, year in and year out, continues to be awful. How he is still employed is beyond me.
Finally, you know it’s not a good season when the biggest news coming from GABP this week is that they will in fact permit fans to come to the game with bags on their heads. Also, when the only Sports Center top play that involves your team is a dad feeding his baby and catching a foul ball at the same time you might be in a little trouble.
Finally, part 2: I am 100% convinced that every time ESPN shows a highlight of other NFL teams doing something good it will be against the Bengals. I thought that maybe that would have changed with them going to the Super Bowl, but I would be wrong. Every time they show Baker Mayfield doing anything it’s against the Bengals. Did he not throw any other TD passes this year vs. any other team?
And finally, part 3: if you want any random XU treasures Roger is your guy. Even more than ever he’s got great stuff. 1998 team basketball set…he’s your guy, Pete Gillen “It’s gonna be a wahhh Andy” Bobblehead…he’s your guy. Kingsgate Logistics fan giveaway towel…go find Roger…
See you all at the field next week