August 26 Recap
By Marc Brafman
We are in the home stretch of the second half of the season so let’s get right to the recaps:
On Field One Team Weisser defeated Team Lefton 13-11. “After jumping out to an early 12-3 lead we hung on to win,” Weisser said post game. “I had to use my new spitball technique I learned from my mentor Preacher Roe. He told me to wipe my hat and while I do that I spit in the palm of my hand. This way no one can see me. Although Z was looking at me pretty closely down the stretch last night.”
Team Weisser was led on defense by James “Lynn” Swan who, like his namesake, made a pretty catch in LC to save 3 runs. Also, Dee Harris and David Wertheim kept Team Lefton off the board with some nice defense. Not to be overlooked was Brad “The Human Rain Delay” Wagner’s homer to help Weisser win their 1st game of the second half. Weisser stands at 1-2 in the second half and 3-5 overall while Lefton falls to 0-3 in the second half and 4-8 on the year. One note from this game…not a single player on either team who started at 3rd was thrown out at home by the right fielder on a single.
It should be noted that League Mascot, Kirby the dog (aka Muffett), interrupted play for the 3rd time this year. Might be time for a better leash, Mark.
On Field 3 it was a battle from start to finish as Team Brafman outlasted Team Loon 16-14. “I’m not sure how we lost that game,” Anton said post game. Between myself, Matt Brodoff and Zach Huidt we went a combined 12-12 yet somehow Brafman was able to pull it off. I know my team will rebound next week. Also, Scott “Shorty” Adams had at least 2 hits (and maybe 3. I can’t remember). After jumping out to a quick 2-0 lead in the top of the first, the lumber of Team Loon answered with 6 runs in the bottom of the first. But Brafman battled back and went into the top of the 7th only trailing by 3 runs. With one out is when the rally started. Scott “Dire” Wolf and Duffy “Clap at the Wolf” Man each reached on bunt singles. A single by Zach “The Wild Horse” Zakem brought the go-ahead run to the plate in Joel “Hallelujah” Buckley who also singled. Weston “Hungry Like a” Wolf and Jeff “The Natural” Weisbrot also singled. After a walk to Tyler “Big Bad” Wolf, the star of the game, Brandon “The Bird” Wolf, roped a two-run double to LF to conclude the 6-run inning. Brandon went 4-5 and pitched a great game. “I know my job is to throw strikes, but tonight I was happy to contribute at the plate.” On defense Sam “The Hitman” Hecht made a great diving catch to rob Jeff Finkelstein of extra bases and Joel Buckley stopped a hot shot with his neck. While he didn’t make the out it was an impressive use of one’s body. “This was one of my favorite wins in a while,” Brafman said. All 10 of us got at least one hit and we made the plays in the field when we had to. Beating such a good team like Loon was our best of the season.” Of note, not a single player on either team who started at 3rd was thrown out at the plate on a single to right field, continuing the JCC softball trend. Loon falls to 1-2 in the second half and 7-3 overall while Brafman improves to 3-1 in the second half and 5-5 overall.
Finally, on field 4 Team Groh defeated Fogel 6-5. After a scoreless top half of the 1st, Zach Swadner, in his last game of the season, got a single and scored on a Castellini hit. Zach will be missed for both his offense and defense! He paced the offense tonight going 3-3 and scoring twice. Tyler Stansbury scored 3 runs and finished the scoring in the 1st after a Pete Soltesz hit. The score remained 2-0 when the same trio all scored in the bottom of the 4th as Stansbury, Soltesz and Groh had RBIs. In the 5th, Team Fogel’s bats got hot with Dan Gilbert and Adam Knecht leading the charge as the lead was cut 5-3. In the 6th Joel and Jeremy Fogel helped even up the game at 5. Team Groh held Fogel scoreless in the top of the 7th and Stansbury scored off a game-winning single to right by Joel Kahn. Swadner, Stansbury, Snyder and a game diving catch by Sam Castellini paced the defense, but not to be outdone, both Joel and Jeremy Fogel had amazing over the shoulder catches that would have joined Sam’s in the ESPN plays of the day. Amazingly no player on either team was thrown out at home while starting on 3rd base on a single to RF.
For all of you Faust fanatics, please send him a text or a call this week as he really is missing the action. It will be a big pick-me-up.
Swadner states that in the Denver air he will become a homerun legend like Donte Bichette
Team Schwartz on the bye this past week is 1-2 in the second half of the year and 4-5 overall
League notes:
I never thought I’d see the day when anyone in this league rivaled that of Rick “Mr. Selfie” Lefton, but Mr. Nice Guy, Todd Wasserman, is giving Rick a run for his money.
I enjoyed seeing all the pictures of everyone’s dog yesterday for National Dog day. Except maybe the Fogel’s dog who on Sunday pulled Mr. Fogel clear out of his seat during the Brafman-Fogel game.
Each week I reach out to a guy not playing this year to see what they are up to. This week it is Greg Leader’s turn. Now I thought he was going to say that he is trying out for Thom Brennaman’s job or that he is excited to share his white-water rafting skills with the league. Boy was I in for a surprise when he reported that instead he has been living in a bunker during the COVID times with a number of other JCC softball players I’ll let Greg fill us all in:
JCC softball pandemic journal entry –
August 23, 2020:
It’s day 150. Those of us who opted not to play are still on lockdown inside of the bunker. We miss our friends in the league but understand the importance of our mission. In an unthinkable, worst-case scenario, the future of JCC softball depends on us to rebuild the league.
There are dozens of us safely residing inside of the bunker. We have outstanding medical care (Doctor Bob and Larry) and food, thanks to the Grefers’ regularly scheduled truck deliveries from Atlantic Foods and Alan Lessure’s homegrown salsa. Who knew he grew tomatoes in his beard?
Fittingly, tickets can be exchanged for food inside of the bunker. We also received shirts to wear while in the bunker. They arrived a week late.
With dozens of competitive guys living together for this long, fights tend to break out on a regular basis. While the umps living within the bunker never seem to see what happened, they always blame Zach Mayer. He’s been banished to solitary confinement in the storage room we refer to as ‘field four.’ It smells like garbage and there’s nothing there except for a bucket of water.
The bunker definitely lacks quality entertainment and it feels like time stands still – kind of like watching the speaker at our end of season banquets. Before MLB started back up, Ryan Silverman provided a full re-play-by-play of each Reds game in the 1980s. The fact that he has committed every pitch to memory is unbelievable. Conversations with Michael Askin are pretty brief. We’ve already been through all of the videos Scott Adams dropped off. Howie does let us sit in on his Zoom happy hours with Mark Spitz, though. As for me, I spend most of my time changing brass trophy plates from ‘League Champions: Team Loon’ to ‘League Champions: Team Leader.’
There are some group celebrations. It was Roger’s birthday last week. We’re still not letting him in, but did enjoy singing Happy Birthday to him from inside the bunker.
We’ve formed a new commission inside of the bunker. Micah was named commissioner, with Jared serving as his campaign manager. He ran unopposed. Soon after the league’s COVID scare in June, the commission voted down the idea of mating with current players’ wives to replenish the league with new talent. We have now voted that motion down three times, but fully expect someone will raise it again in September.
All of us here inside of the bunker continue to read the blog. We miss the league and being on the field with our friends. We wish them all continued health throughout the remainder of the *season.
It was reported that this week that OSU suspended over 200 students for violating the COVID-19 rules, and while there are no reports that any guys in the league were included in that my extensive JCC reporting network did uncover some past history of guys betting in trouble in college:
For example, Jeff Weisbrot was once caught trying to use his dentist mirror to look at one of his fraternity brothers and his lady friend by sticking the mirror under the door.
Randy “Tex” Broyles was fined by OSU for using Careless Whisper by Wham as his walk-up music every time he entered class “I always wanted to make an entrance and nothing says that like a song by WHAM,” Broyles said.
Jerry “Doc” Kirzner was once fined for falling asleep as he says or passing out as his friends say at a Homecoming concert by The McCoys at OSU. “All I remember is having a couple of drinks before the concert and the next thing I remember Hang on Sloppy was over and I was getting carried home.”
Mike Gray was fined in college simply for being a Cubs fan.
In a strange twist to these stories Eric Goldstein was actually awarded money for marrying a great woman who went to Alabama. (Well done Eric)
Sam “The Hitman” Hecht (my brother in law) learned how to make ice sculptures while at OSU. He was once fined for making an anatomically correct version of Greg Oden.
Joel “The Wrath of” Kahn was once fined for reenacting the famous Bluto scene from Animal House as he walked through the buffet line in his dorm. When confronted with a mouth full of mash potatoes Kahn said, “Hey I’m trying to become a chef. I need to eat all of this food to try it out to see what I like.”
Scott “Shorty” Adams was fined because he legally wanted to change his name to Dick Nicholson
And finally, I may or may not have been fined for streaking a party (or 2) with somebody taking a picture of said act and then forcing me to wear that picture on a t-shirt during my bachelor party. I can neither confirm nor deny those charges.
And last but not least, it was Rogers birthday this past week. He learned that the Happy Birthday song was the first singing telegram song of all time and that now you can have Western Union send one using his favorite singer, Snoop Dog, directly to your house. He also reports that he is working on getting the special Brewers limited edition bobblehead of Freddie Galvis being thrown out at home on a single to RF. “It hasn’t happened since 2009 and I know Reds fans near and far will be excited to have this special bobblehead to commemorate this great season they are having. I’m also in touch with Dinsmore and Shol to put together an even more special Joey Votto Sombrero 2020 statue since that is what he looks like at the plate these days.
See everyone on Sunday. Stay safe and mask up!