Sorry for the delay this week in blog land
Here are the updates from this past week
On Field 1 it was team Stu vs. team Micah
Stu for the winners:
Team Solomon starts the season off with a great win against Team Kamrass 14-7.
Team Solomon hit up and down the lineup. The top of the lineup was incredible. Ben “Norm” Charlton set the table going 3-5, David “Tent Man” Wertheim and Adam “The Bad Guy” Cronstein both going 3-3 with a walk. The bottom half of the lineup provided some great offense. Chris “Baby Bump” Kunkel had two hits. Brandon Lindsey “Graham” had two hits and an RBI in his first ever JCC Men’s fast pitch softball game.
Defensively , Ken pitched a great game and fielded his position expertly. Many are saying he is in the running for Defensive Player of the Year. Two very nice sliding catches by Adam Cronstein and everyone’s favorite captain, Stuart Solomon. Big shout out to Zach “Rock’em Zakem Robots” for holding down the catchers spot after never playing there before. (Editor’s note: I always called Zach Zakem “the wild horse” because he was fast and a good runner. But Stu name is way better so “Rock Em Zakem Robots” it will be from now on)
On Field 2 a mighty clash of Team Wagner vs. Team Wolf
Wes who has still not lost a regular season game as a captain for the winners:
Team Wolf held on for a 10-9 victory against team Wagner. We jumped out to an 8-1 lead after two innings due to timely hitting from rookie Zach Fritzhand and Scottie “The Hitting Machine” Wolf.
Team Wagner started chipping away in the Fourth, mounting a come back to 10-7 going into the Seventh. They quickly loaded the bases and scored two runs with solid hits by the Hiudt cousins, but with bases loaded and two outs, Team Wolf persevered and got the final out.
Another stellar pitching performance by Mike Gray led to a super exciting game this week on Field two.
On Field three it was Team Brafman (minus Brafman) vs. Team Tenenholtz
Rick for the winners:
It was another high-scoring affair on Field 3 as Team Tenenholtz hosted Team Brafman minus their captain. The visitors got off to a hot start scoring five in the first, but the home team tied it up in the bottom of the first and followed up with 6 in the 2nd to take an 11-7 lead. The bats were hot all night for Team Tenenholtz as Jack Cohen, Mike Rothstein, Bryce Anslinger, Brian Goldberg and Captain Tenenholtz each had three hits en route to a 19-9 victory in 6 innings.
Zach Michelson, who reached base three times, declared the victory illegal. “It is against the rules to end the game when I am next to bat!” Michelson also had a huge catch at first as he laid out to make a grab and kept his foot on the bag. Captain Tenenholtz said after the game, “We put Zach in training after our first loss. He had to spend all week fielding throws at Camp Rothstein. I thought we were in trouble when Linda Rothstein told me before the game that she was going to have to leave so she didn’t have to listen to Mike complain on the way home. In the end, Zach’s hard work paid off and the Rothstein 10-game losing streak came to an end.”
Also redeeming himself after a tough first week was Bryce Anslinger who flashed the leather at 1B, 2B and 3B. He also scored three runs. “Just don’t ask me to track a fly ball,” Team Tenenholtz’s utility man said.
It should be noted that once again this is a special game when Howie and Eppy are on the mound going at it. And I heard that former player Richie Katz was at the game as well.
And last but not least on Field 4 we had Team Fogel vs. Team Grefer
Kyle for the winners:
Team Grefer beat Team Fogel 16-4 in 6 innings. After a horrible first game where we scored two runs and Jimmy Lefton hurt his knee (best of luck on your upcoming knee replacement, Jimmy), we were able to turn it completely around in this game. Sub Tim Trautman stepped in and pitched a nice game only walking one batter and chipped in with a few hits.
Our defense was phenomenal with Will Coleman setting the tone early with a sliding catch in right field and everyone played a clean game with maybe one error combined. Offensively everyone contributed, but Landon Krantz set the table well in the leadoff spot, Zach Mayer hit line drives all over the field, and Gary Grefer, Will Coleman, Oren Shmoel and Howard Goldwasser all had clutch hits.
League notes:
Happy birthday to Rick Lefton and former player Mark Wolf.
Brad Gallop fooled his professors long enough to graduate from UC. Congrats, Brad.
Let’s all wish Jimmy a quick recovery from his knee surgery.
It was Joel “Hallelujah” Buckley’s anniversary this weekend
Please sign up for the J Classic if you’d like to play golf, tennis or pickleball.
If you haven’t already, make sure you check out the link of Scott “Why can’t we be” Friend’s son who started his own clothing line. The link to the clothing line is coolbeanz.shop and the link to the story is on WLWT. Just search cool beanz.
And now the Lance McAlister random notes portion of the blog:
The Reds might be a .500 team until they get some guys healthy, but man it’s worth turning in every night to see Elly play. Joey was amazing at the plate in his prime and it was fun to see Jr. or Adam Dunn try to hit a ball into the river, but I don’t remember being this excited about a player on offense, defense, on the bases, brushing his teeth, etc. since Eric Davis in the late 80’s before he got hurt all the time. I don’t believe he actually threw the ball 106 the other night, but hey, why not?
How come NBA teams can have music playing all games with people on the PA saying DEFENSE as loud as possible, and yet college schools won’t or can’t do it?
I have mentioned this before but I have no idea how real coaches sleep at night or ever. Coaching Jacob in little league ages me by the day and I’m not even the head coach (to say nothing about having to coach Eric “The Mouth of the Midwest” Gruen in our league). We are struggling as a team and I get more worked up than the kids who generally just want to go to Skyline or Rhino’s after a game.
It’s amazing that Howie and Eppy, Jerry etc. are still out here playing each week, but how about Neil Young and Crazy Horse and the Rolling Stones both going on tour again last week. And amazingly still sounding pretty darn good! I woke up the other day with a leg cramp and it’s still bothering me and I didn’t play a 2 hour concert.
Is there a bigger waste of time in life than watching the NFL draft? It’s bad enough on TV, but I couldn’t imagine going to it in person. That said, I hope that Cincinnati gets it one of these days. It would be good for the city.
At what age are you too old to A) buy a concert T-shirt and B) wear it?
I have to admit I’m sort of excited to watch Mike Tyson fight on Netflix.
And finally Roger called me, not once, but TWICE this week to tell me he picked up some cheap used hats, shirts and underwear this weekend at a flea market. He was very proud of his purchases and the deals he got from them. So if you are in the market for a starter jacket from the Charlotte Hornets or a NKU T-shirt, Roger has you covered.
Let’s hope for a return of all the hostages soon. Keep Israel (the people not the leadership) in your hearts.
Marc