The season came to an end on a somewhat gloomy night on Wednesday as Team Fogel and Team Harris battled it out. The two youngest captains in the league squared off for the Youk award.
Griff for the winners:
In an exciting championship showdown at the illustrious Triple Creek Park, Team Harris emerged victorious over Team Fogel with a final score of 11-6. Notably, Team Harris was missing, arguably, their MVP (Most Vexatious Player) of the season, Roger Rosenthal, who was on a cruise in Canada. Rosenthal fired the team up before the game with a video message from the cruise ship telling them to simply “just win the damn game.” Team Harris knew they couldn’t let him down after that.
The game was filled with standout moments and impressive performances from both sides. Team Harris jumped out to an early lead in the first inning scoring 3 runs and never looked back after that. For Team Harris, Ryan Marcus hit a solo home run in the 3rd inning to highlight his 3-hit performance, while Ryan Baum contributed with several nice hits throughout the game. Captain Griff Harris hit a crucial 3-run home run in the top of the 6th inning to extend the lead to 11-3. The captain also made a nice diving catch on the warning track to save multiple runs in the bottom half of the 6th. Stu Weinstein pitched a gem. He kept Team Fogel’s hitters off balance all night, only allowing 6 runs over 7 innings. Other key offensive contributions came from Pat Feldman, Mark Weisser (who went 3 for 3), Dan Bernstein, and Stu Weinstein himself, who had a couple of big hits.
Big shout out to Jeremy Fogel of Team Fogel for making a spectacular catch in the 1st inning, robbing a potential 3-run home run. He also threw a laser to nail a runner at 3rd base later in the game. Joel Buckley also shined for Team Fogel with an outstanding catch at shortstop for the final out of the 2nd inning to save multiple runs.
The game saw Team Harris leading every inning, with scores progressing from 3-2 after the 2nd inning to the final score of 11-6. The atmosphere was electric with a sellout crowd, including some league veterans, despite the cloudy weather. After the game, the team (JZ) celebrated their victory by popping (dumping all over himself) a bottle of champagne provided by Brad Wagner, adding a festive end to their championship win.
Congrats to Team Harris and all of the guys on both teams for a great game and post season tournament.
League notes:
Weather permitting, the ASG is on Sunday morning at 9:30. Make sure you check the rain out line before you come to the game.
The Oy Vey 5K is on November 10. Please sign up here: Oy Vey 5K – Mayerson JCC
Happy birthdays this week:
“The Special One” Mike Rothstein
Former player, Neil Nadel
Eddie Gallop
Zach Mayer
It was also Wes Wolf’s anniversary this week. Congrats to Wes and Hailey.
As David Weil and I were talking about earlier this week, only the Reds could fire a manager with 5 games left so they don’t have to pay him to go on the road. Now they still have to pay him the last two years on his contract, so maybe David Bell got the better end of the deal. But NOTHING the Reds did comes close to the cheapness of the Pirates. With only 4 at bats away from getting a $200,000 bonus, the Pirates cut Rowdy Tellez. Again, 4 at bats away from paying a guy $200K, the Pirates cut him. They claim it was a baseball move. So when I bitch and moan about the Reds, at least I’m not a Pirates fan.
It was a great season once again, guys. We (the league) got a big shout out during the JCC annual meeting last night. A huge shout out to Ryan and all the captains for their hard work. Can’t wait till next season (maybe my team will win a regular season game).
Marc