It was a fitting way to end the season on Wednesday. With the rainouts earlier in the year it only made sense that it was one of the hottest days ever on Wednesday. But it didn’t matter to Team AJ or Team Jeremy as they played it out.
Just like in the regular season it was Team AJ that came out on top to win the Youk Award.
It was a scorcher out there for the final game of the season, but we brought our A game as Team Orange took down Team Fogel 11-5 to win the Tournament Championship.
In the first inning, Fogel raced out to a 2-0 lead behind David Wertheim and Jeremy Fogel. We fought back to get a run on a steal of home by super sub Jack Cohen on a wild pitch. We added more in the second inning with hits from Zach Zakem, Tyler Stansbury and myself to bring it to 4-2.
In the third we added a couple more with runs from Mike Gray and Jeremy Dock to bring it to 6-2. We kept chugging and added another 2 in the 4th with hits from Stansbury, Harry Meisner, and Jeremy Dock to bring it to 8-2. While the offense was rolling, the defense played very stout up to that point.
Fogel fought back in the 5th adding two on their side with hits from the Brads, Gallop and Wagner, and a Will Coleman double to bring it to 8-4. But, we slammed the door shut in the bottom half, matching the two and ending the 5th at 10-4.
Zack Zakem was able to put one in play and score Kunkel in the 7th to make it 11-4, and Jeremy Fogel scored in the bottom to make it 11-5 before we got the final out of the season.
Shoutout to our pitcher as always Mike Gray was a beast the whole year and especially in the Tournament.
This was a great season and I am so proud of my team for fighting to the end. We look forward to playing again next season!
Congrats to both teams on a well played season and tournament.
As Adam mentioned, our banquet is coming up in a few weeks. It will be pretty cool to listen to Hal McCoy who was the Reds beat writer going back to the Big Red Machine. Maybe he can explain to us why TJ Friedl is still getting playing time, what he expects to happen next year and, if Nick Krall is still the GM, why he thinks he is the right man for the job.
Info should be coming out soon about the All-Star Game. Adam will update us once he has the date down.
Now onto League Notes
First off an announcement from Roger
I’m sorry Roger, I can’t find your e-mail to me but Roger is announcing his retirement from the league. Roger is many things to many people BUT no one loved the league more and he is a great (if loud) ambassador for the entire league. To me guys like Roger are what makes our league special when we can have guys of all talent and age level playing each Wednesday and enjoying the time we spend together. I know I get a little sappy when I talk about the league this way but it really is what makes our league different from others and why it’s going strong for the past 80+ years. Roger plans on coming out and coaching or being at the games next year, so we can still tease him about well we can just tease him.
I mentioned it in my Hal McCoy comment above but there is no question in my mind that ALL of the guys that normally play LC have a better arm than TJ. On Tuesday night I saw a guy tag up on him on a ball to somewhat medium CF and beat the throw easy. There is no good reason why he is still playing at all let alone starting. Now that the Reds brought up another guy I’ve never heard of to play CF maybe that is the end of his time.
The Get-Off-My-Lawn-Old-Man moment of the week. Since when did we start postponing high school sports due to heat or pushing football games back? I’m not saying we are wrong to do this but I remember my senior year in high school playing Oak Hills in soccer on a day every bit as hot as this week where when the game was over I could ring my jersey out as if I dove in a pool. Maya this week had a tennis match moved to 7 PM at night which would have been fine if the courts had you know lights! She finished literally in the dark. We are all old and we somehow made it through the game on Wednesday. Are kids/parents/AD’s soft?
Good luck to all of us college football fans out there this week. If you are going to be at Nippert tomorrow, let me know and I’ll try and swing over and say hi.
Thanks as always for a great season guys. Can’t wait till next spring.
Marc