We have had some bad weather this week but boy that was not the case on Wed. What a great night. Let’s get to the action
On Field 1 it was Team Brafman vs. Team Tenenholtz. Rick for the winners.
It was a beautiful, sunny night at Triple Creek and Team Tenenholtz took to the field against Team Brafman knowing it would be a fight. In a pregame meeting, captain Rick Tenenholtz told his squad, “This team has a perfect record, and they are hungry to end it. They’re gonna try to run all over us, so play good defense, get the ball from the outfield quickly into the infield and don’t make any wild throws.”
Team Brafman ran all night, scoring early and often against an offensively impotent Team Tenenholtz. “Eppy had us velocitized for the first five innings of the game,” the captain told a hord of press members. “It was 9-3 after 5 when I went to Mike Rothstein, who was coaching third. He told me, ‘I knew it was going to be a long night. Look at this team. They have a good lineup. How have they not won?’”
At that point, Team Tenenholtz’s offense came to life. Sparked by hits from Tait Cunningham, super-sub, Jacob Zeidenstein, Mike Rothstein, Yitz Creeger and Jeremy Dock, the visitors put 4 on the board. Brafman countered with one in the bottom of the sixth to make it 10-7 going to the seventh inning.
Howie led off the inning with a single to right field. The next two batters grounded to SS and Howie was advanced to 3B, so there were two outs, and nobody had scored. The next seven batters reached base to give Team Tenenholtz a 13-10 lead going to the bottom of the 7th.
Team Brafman continued their aggressive style of play in the bottom of the 7th but came up short. With two outs and men on first and second, a ground ball to 3B got by Bryce Anslinger, but Tait Cunningham made a miraculous play snagging the ball that got past Bryce and diving to tag the bag and narrowly beating the runner. Game over and game ball to Tait Cunningham as Team Tenenholtz prevailed 13-10.
For Team Brafman, once again Harry “Hood” Meisner homered, “The Natural” Jeff Weisbrot had 4 hits and a special shout out to Steve “Shap” Shapiro who in front of his fiance and a loud cheering section, played a great 3rd base, had two hits and a sac fly. Team Brafman looks to right the ship vs. Team Solomon on Sunday.
On Field 2 Team Grefer beat Team Fogel. Kyle for the winners:
We beat Team Fogel 14-12. We started off strong in the first inning, but they fought back to tie the game at 10. We fortunately scored a few more runs late on some key hits by Oren Shmoel and Ryan Silverman, followed up by a triple from Zach Mayer that ended up being the difference. We had a shaky defensive game with more errors than normal (myself included), but we were able to close out the game strong. Offensively, Ryan Silverman led the charge, with Tim Troutman, Landon Krantz and others contributing key hits.
On Field 3 it was Team Solomon vs. Team Kamrass
Stu for the winners:
Team Solomon was back to their winning ways as they defeated Team Kamrass 14-4 in 5 innings.
Ben Charlton “Heston” got the monkey (or Ape) off our back early with a single, SB, and run scored. Adam “and Eve” Cronstein went 3-3 on the night with an RBI and 2 runs scored.
The big inning came in the bottom of the 3rd when Stuart ‘Little” Solomon smashed his 3rd homer in 2 games over the outstretched glove of Adam “The King of Laundry” Heldman. The next batter AJ “McCarron” Goldhoff, walked and scored on a triple from Chris “Columbus (The Director of Home Alone)” Kunkel.
Up 9 in the bottom of 5, David “Beckham” Snyder singled, bringing up “Lets Go” Brandon Lindsey to the plate. Brandon crushed a pitch to RCF for a walk-off (10 run rule) double to end the game.
Great pitching from Ken Groh”er not a show-er” and big time catches from Ben “nieThe Jet” Charlton and Chris “Farley” Kunkel in RCF and RF respectively.
Team Solomon takes on Team Brafman this Sunday in what is sure to be a great game. Gary Fisher on this Sunday’s game, ” You have to throw out the record books when these two teams get together. It should be a great game with a lot of action!”
Finally on Field 4 it was Team Wagner vs. Team Wolf
Brad for the winners:
Team Wagner defeated Team Wolf 12-11 on Wednesday night. Runs were scored early and often. Team Wagner plated three in the first and four in the second, while Wolf countered with five in the first and three in the second. The teams exchanged leads throughout the rest of the game, but Wagner took the lead in the sixth and never looked back. The defensive play of the day was on a liner to right field hit by Tyler Wolf, who tried to stretch it into a double, but the relay of Mark Levine-Brad Wagner-Landon Hawkins was able to nail Tyler at 2nd base.
Key hits came off the bat of Landon Hawkins (surprise, surprise) with another home run over the right-centerfield fence. Sub Ryan Marcus, Anton Loon, Daniel Hiudt, and Brad Wagner also contributed with big hits.
Zac Hiudt, Mark Levine, and Corey Norris, who fielded very well for a pitcher, played wonderfully defensively.
Team Wagner will take on Team Fogel on Sunday on Field 1, with Randy Milligan and Randy Johnson on the call.
Team Wolf has a bye week and will be watching film in Wes’s basement.
League notes
The Oy Vey 5K is this Nov: Oy Vey 5K (runsignup.com) Please sign up and help out the JCC Blue Jay’s program. And even if you don’t want to run please consider donating thanks
As most of you know we have been going to the Silver Spring House post game for many years. By the front door there is now a nice picture of former player and long time friend to the JCC Mike Youkilis and below it a plaque with the winners of the last two post season tournaments. We have named the post season trophy after Mike “The Youk” award and this is a very nice touch by the Spring House and Eppy for making it happen. (Don’t be scared off by the picture above it of David Weil and Roger)
If you aren’t tired of the Olympics that just ended go up and ask Duffy Wolf about his experience in Paris. Duffy is an amazing photographer and he took pictures at a number of events from Beach Volleyball to (I think he told me) field hockey. Either way he had an amazing time.
I love to see everyone’s back to school pictures be it elementary, middle, high school or college. Good luck to all of us with school age kids.
We talk about it often but it’s still pretty amazing that on Field 1 on Wednesday night Eppy pitched against Howie, with Jerry “Doc” Kirzner also on the field. I only hope that when I’m 75+ I can still get out there and play.
Which leads us to the announcement on Wednesday while we were all playing that Joey Votto retired. I will admit it took me a while to come around to his style of play. I was definitely one of those who wanted him to swing away and drive in BP or Billy Hamilton or Drew Stubbs or Corey Patterson or whatever bum the Reds had hitting leadoff. I didn’t realize that in his mind not making an out was more important than driving in a runner. Once I got hip to his style I have not enjoyed watching a Reds player in my lifetime more than him. And once he started to open up and show his personality more we all loved him even more. He’s one of only 3 Reds players since 1976 that would crack the Big Red Machine lineup (I’d have him starting over Tony Perez with The Big Doggie as the DH) along with Larkin and in his prime Eric Davis. Let’s hope that he can come back to the Reds in some way shape or form if he wants to help the hitters. Lord knows they need that.
Speaking of which, the clock is ticking on the front office to field a competitive team in the next 5 years. That is the current length of Elly’s contract (and many of the rookies) while this season, like the past 29, is going nowhere fast the clock is ticking on the front office. tick tick tick
If there is anything more meaningless in all of sports than NFL pre-season I would like to know what it is.
Reminder that we play this Sunday and that starting next week the games start at 6:00 PM.
See everyone on the fields bright and early.