November 9 Recap
By Marc Brafman
The most recent edition of the JCC fall softball season came to a close on Tuesday night. Thank you to all the players and captains for making our first fall trip in a long time a fun season. Without further delay the winning captain, Greg Leader, who took time out of his Mensch on a Bench decorating (it’s never too early in the Leader household) to report in.
Team Leader entered championship night winners of six straight games, but needed to scratch, claw and fight from behind in both games to secure the title.
Team Solomon gave Team Leader all they could handle in the semifinals. Mike Gray pitched a fantastic game and Solomon’s crew came ready to hit. Team Leader entered the bottom half of the fifth inning down by a run. Two hits later, the game was tied with the winning run on second and nobody out. Team Solomon intentionally walked the next two batters (Anton and Rafi) to load the bases. Ultimately, the winning run was scored on a bloop hit by Matthew Leader to advance Team Leader into the championship game.
Like Team Solomon, Team Fogel came ready to play and their big bats plated six runs in the top of the first inning. Team Leader scored three of their own in the bottom half of the inning. The story of the rest of the game was stellar defense by Team Leader, allowing only one additional run in the following four frames, and their bats coming alive. Fueled by a big offensive fourth inning, Team Leader pulled away and won the championship game 14-7.
After the game, Leader was overheard urging teammate and future commish, Ryan Silverman, to make the fall season a dynasty league and keep the teams the same as this year. “Just think about it, okay?” Leader asked. “Every team reached the semi-finals this season. Why mess with that kind of parity?”
Congrats on a great season, Team Leader.
First, some sad news. Former player, Ben Sandor, lost his wife to her long battle with cancer last week. Please keep him and another former player, his dad Doug, in your thoughts.
In much happier news, shout out to rookie, Camden Kirzner, who is one of the bigger rally cats at UC. He dressed up in the Skyline Coney outfit all day on Saturday at UC’s game day and during the game. Not sure if he got free food out of it but he was all over Twitter and Gameday.
A big thank you to Pat “Sunshine” Feldman, David “The Dr. of Style” Weil, Ryan “Hi-Ho” Silverman, Mark “Eddie Harris” Weisser, Rick Lefton, Mr. Mike and winner of the softball division of the race, Adam Cronstein, for your participation in the Oy Vey 5K race. We broke the race participation record this year so next year I’d like to see more of you out helping to support the J.
Evan Gildenblatt will now be the best dressed lawyer in the city as he officially became a lawyer this week. Way to go, Evan.
It’s heartbreaking to see Jacob’s reaction each day when I tell him about the Reds moves this offseason. Watching the World Series, I was thinking, “Huh, maybe his kids will be able to experience the Reds winning since we sure won’t any time soon.”
Finally, in college football this week I’m going to have to hold my nose and root for OSU to win out. Also, and this really pains me, UGA to beat Bama. I’ve seen 6 national titles. I can handle Bama not winning one this year if it means UC makes it to the final 4. SO, for you Bearcats fans, it’s pretty easy. Root for Utah, OSU, UGA and anyone beating Oklahoma. That’s all.
Don’t forget, registration for the Spring league is only 7 weeks away. Hope to see you all in April!