May 19 Recap
By Marc Brafman
Sorry that the blog is late today. Don’t you hate when work gets in the way of softball? But better late than never, right?
Let’s head to the fields last night on a great night for softball.
Over on field one, it was Team Solomon vs. Weisser. Solomon won in a pitching duel.
Team Solomon 6-Team Weisser 3
Roger from Team Weisser leads off:
TEAM SOLOMON 6
TEAM WEISSER 3
MARK WEISSER pitched a great game, and the defense played well for the most part except for a few rough spots, but the offense just never got it going, thanks in a large part to MIKE “MR.CUB” GRAY. When your 10th place hitter only gets up twice, you know it’s not a good offensive day.
Nice defensive gems were turned in by NORM “LET’S BE” FRANKEL at third base and ROGER “DR. WHO” ROSENTHAL at second base.
STEVE “ZZZZZZZZZ” ZAWATSKY was back after a week off nursing a bad back and was stellar at 1B, making some nice plays including tagging out a runner who made the wrong turn at 1B, but after the game, ROGER ROSENTHAL made this comment, “All I know is the only game we won, you weren’t here. What does that say?”
ZAWATSKY countered, “Maybe I should miss the next game and see if that continues.”
ROSENTHAL then countered that comment by saying, “No. I want you here win or lose. I just love you so much I don’t know what I’d do if you missed another game.”
DAVID “STUDMUFFIN” WERTHEIM added, “Roger, just shut the f— up!”
(Stu’s update will come later…)
On field 2, Team Brafman took on Team Groh and won 13-3.
Team Brafman played their most complete game of the season and defeated the previously undefeated Groh 13-3. All aspects of the lineup and defense were on display for Brafman’s squad last night. Playing in front of his proud mama, Ben “Raindance” Rosenberg got the game ball by going 2-3 with a triple and two nice catches in the outfield. The birthday boy, Rick “The Commish” Tenenholtz had a double. Fink, Mark “Big Blue” Tenenholtz, Marc Brafman, Zach “the Wild” Horse” Zakem and “Macho Man” Andrew Gage also each had multiple hits. Playing his last game for Team Brafman, “Playboy” Mitch Evans made a couple of outstanding plays at 3rd and along with Sam “The Hitman” Hecht, Eric “The Fastest Guy in the League” Zied and Brafman kept Groh off the bases. It was learned post game that league owner, Mark Fisher, traded Evans to the Indians for Mitchell Friedman, Willie Mays Hayes, and former All Star 3rd basemen, Roger Dorn. When asked about the trade, Capt. Brafman said, “I wish we had Dorn 3 years ago” When informed they did, he said, “Well, 5 years ago then.” All kidding aside, good luck Mitch with your new job in Cleveland. We’ll miss ya. Team Brafman would be remiss if we didn’t wish Capt. Groh a speedy recovery from his broken glove-hand finger he got trying to catch a line drive from Mark Tenenholtz (It was that kind of night for Groh). Kenny did want to single out Mr. Nice Guy, Todd Wasserman, who made a diving grab on a foul popup and nabbed the very greedy Brafman trying to score from 3rd. Nice play Todd!
Over on Field 3 it was Team Loon vs. Team Lefton trying to stay undefeated. It didn’t go well for Lefton as they lost 21-14.
In somewhat of a revenge game for Team Loon (because, you know, Loon played for Lefton in his rookie year of 2003), Loon, playing with 9 players, got on the victory board for the first time with a 21-14 thumping of previously undefeated Lefton.
When you score 21 runs, pretty much everybody contributed, but one man stands above the rest. Jerry Kirzner, one day shy of his 75th birthday, was a perfect 5-5 on the day. And there were no cheapies among those 5 hits. All were line drives and Jerry was in the middle of every rally.
Also of note is that Jerry caught the entire game as his nephew, rookie pitcher Camden Kirzner, picked up his first JCC softball win. Camden threw strikes and also contributed with a 3-run HR in the first inning.
Finally, on field 4, not since 1987 when Tom Seaver faced Steve Carlton have two older pitchers gone head-to-head as it was Team Kamrass taking on Team Grefer. Howie outdueled Eppy 6-4.
Captain Kyle Grefer reports:
We beat Team Kamrass 6-4 in a defensive showdown. Howard Schwartz pitched a fantastic game, with 6 or 7 strikeouts, bailing us out in a few innings. Wes Wolf played a great game, with a key double play, some great throws to first, and an opposite field homer. Tyler Wolf and Dan Grefer had some key hits, Scott Wolf manufactured a run with great baserunning, and Brad Gallop made a great throw to get a runner at second base going for a double.
On the other side, Ryan Silverman made 4 great catches in left center, including a full extension diving grab that was about an inch from touching the grass.
I wish every week was the Commish and Jerry’s birthday as we had more cupcakes and baked goods than at any time ever last night. Thanks, guys.
Speaking of baked goods, I say it every week but please check out sweetbuterbakery.com for all of your Jewish baked goods. She is working on the black and white cookie next so we can all say Look to the Cookie all week.
Last night post game, Jeremy Fogel informed his very nice girlfriend that instead of going to the Silver Spring House he would take her to Frisch’s and if she were nice she could get either the brawny lad or the little burgers, but not both. Nothing says being a ladies man than taking your girlfriend to Frisch’s.
Maybe he could learn something from “Playboy” Ron Rose, who when asked if he would like to catch an inning of ball from Ep (at 91) years old said, “I’ll have to ask my lady friends first. They won’t want me to get hurt”
Eppy was in full force last night buying cake for the Lefton Triplets and Brooke Fogel post game. As he likes to say it was their birthday at least at some point.
Congrats to Eric Goldstein’s daughter Gabby for winning the water polo title at Sycamore this week.
Last week we mentioned that Evan Gildenblatt graduated from law school. This week he posted some pictures of his two best friends from law school who happen to be very attractive women. When I commented that one was cute, he stopped me in my tracks and said, “Both of them are cute.” I stand corrected, Evan.
Jacob has a friend who without question every time he comes over leaves something at our house. He is 8 years old. I’m not sure what our excuse is for leaving gloves, bats, sunglasses, etc on the field each week. Pick up after yourself guys (and remind me of this when I leave something there next time).
Journey is playing Lollapalooza this year in Chicago. I guess Styx and Kansas were booked.
It was nice to catch up with Greg Harris last night and he showed me some of his baseball cards he sold during Covid including some amazing Hank Aaron cards. Not to be outdone, Scott Wolf then showed a picture of Duffy with Sandy Koufax praying at temple…no, just kidding…they were in the Crosley locker room. Both were very cool until you read today that a lawyer who died of Covid in Florida had a baseball collection worth $20 MILLION that his family is putting up for auction. Unfortunately, his Jonathan India rookie card continues to decrease in value.
If you are like me, you have always wanted a Lindsay Davenport bobblehead. Lucky for you, we all know a man that has such a thing. So now if you are in the market for used XU shirts, Covid and herpes infected used plastic cups, or Cincinnati Rockers caps, you can also own your very own Lindsay Davenport bobblehead. Thanks, Roger.
Till next week,
Marc