August 10 Recap
By Marc Brafman
Commish Silverman set up a shrine to the sun God Helios in his backyard and it must be paying off as we had another night of softball last night without rain. Keep it up, Ryan. We all are grateful for your sacrifice to the gods.
Now onto the games.
On Field 1 we had Team Weisser vs. Team Zawatsky.
Mark, as usual, keeps it simple for the winners:
We beat Team Zawasky 8-2 yesterday. After giving up 2 in the first we held them scoreless with solid defense. Brad Wagner had two big hits and 4 RBI, and Duffy Wolf had a big two-out hit with 2 RBIs.
On Field two it was the game of the season as Team Fogel battled Team Solomon.
Jeremy for the winners:
In a highly anticipated matchup between Team Solomon and The Men in Navy Blue, there was not much offense left on the table and trace amounts of defense brought to the field. A shootout from start to finish, Team Fogel prevailed by a final score of 20-19. Let’s get to the action…
Jumping out in front early, The Men in Navy Blue hit around in the first inning and had five players cross the plate. It was a hit parade early and that persisted for both teams through the first few innings. The score jumped from 5-4 to 8-8 and just like that it was a good ol’ fashioned offensive duel. Through four innings Team Solomon lead 14-13 and they would hold onto that lead by a score of 19-17 heading into the last frame.
Captain Fogel led off the seventh with a base knock and came around to score on a Tait Cunningham hustle double. With the tying run on second and two outs, “switch hitter” Andrew Gage stepped up to the plate and channeled his clutch gene with a game tying double just inside of the bag down the first base line. Gage would come around to score on a single by Bryce Anslinger and The Men in Navy Blue carried a one-run lead into the bottom of the seventh.
With the meat of their order coming up and having scored in every inning thus far, Team Solomon stepped to the plate with a chance to walk-off this back-and-forth game. Jamey, as he always does, kept his composure and stuck to his gameplan of firing missiles to Mark Franklin and dotting the black edge of the plate. The first two hitters were retired via towering fly balls to Fogel and Nitzberg in left and right center field before a two-out single kept the game going. A groundout to third ended the game and The Men in Navy Blue celebrated around the mound.
The interim manager, Spark Fogel, had this to say after the game. “I love the resilience of this team. Top to bottom everyone contributed last night and has been doing so all season. I’m working feverishly to rejoin this group of guys for a championship run.”
Stats and shoutouts:
- Jeremy and Tait scored four times each in the shootout last night, with Scott and Pat scoring three times a piece, seemingly on base every time
- An outstanding catching performance by Mark Franklin who did not let up any past balls, although it came at the cost of his hitting as he said he was unable to bend his knees at the plate due to all the crouching while catching
- Shorty with three base hits yesterday started and continued many important rallies, not forgetting to point to the sky after each knock
On Field 3 it was Team Brafman vs. Team Grefer vs. Team Sun
Kyle for the winners:
We beat team Brafman 21-13 in a total team effort. Down 10-4, our team showed great fight to come back and get the win in a long game that took all of two hours. MVP goes to Chris Kunkel who went 5-5 and had a great running catch in short right field. AJ Goldhoff had 2 hits and 3 walks in the leadoff spot, Ben Margolis went 4-5 at the plate, and Josh Rosen, Howie Schwartz, Zach Michelson, and I all had big hits. Sub Cam Kirzner also had a great game with a lot of action at shortstop.
Capt. Brafman adds that we played a hard game but the bats of Grefer and the sun didn’t help the cause. Joel “Hallelujah” Buckley had a great game at SS and at the plate. A big shoutout to Todd “The Mayor” Wasserman who hung behind the plate in what was the longest 7-inning game in JCC history and also had a couple of knocks.
Finally, we move to Field 4 where Team Kamrass played Team Roger
On a lovely night for softball, Team Kamrass vanquished Team Rosenthal 14-9. Highlights included a diving catch from Adam Heldman, a few web gems at third base from Scott Raskin, an over the shoulder catch from Jared Kamrass, and a critical slide into first base by Mark Levine. Eppy pitched a great game.
Lots of strong hitting performances throughout the lineup.
Watch out. Team Kamrass is heating up for the tournament run.
League notes:
I’m sure by now most of you know but Rick Lefton’s sister-in-law lost her battle with cancer earlier in the week. We are all thinking of Rick and his family this week.
Ryan “The One-Man Gang” Marcus starts a new job at Princeton Jr. High this week. Good luck, big man. Try not to scare the kids.
A BIG and I mean BIG week for James “Lynn” Swan. First, it was his birthday and then he got engaged. Congrats and happy birthday!
Happy 21st anniversary to Corey Norris and happy 15th anniversary to Bryce Anslinger.
Somehow in one of the funnier mailing issues I’ve ever seen, Roger, who as we all know eats, sleeps, and poops XU basketball got mailing labels sent to him from UC with the UC logo on them and everything. He plans to sell them next week on his blog for $25 cents so if you want to be Roger Rosenthal when you mail out your bills, he is happy to share them with you.
Call out to all JCC softball historians…has this ever happened in our league? Last night in Amarillo, Texas a kid in the Cards organization named Chandler “Can I hit anymore homeruns” Redmond pulled off a homer cycle. That’s right he hit a solo, 2 run, 3 run and grand slam homer all in one game. It’s only the second time in the history of baseball at any level that someone has done that. Amazing…and to think the Reds haven’t had a player hit for the cycle since Eric the Red did it in 1989. To put that in perspective Christian Yelich has hit for the cycle twice THIS SEASON vs the Reds.
David “BP” Snyder doesn’t like me talking about the Reds in our team chat. He would prefer we talk about FC Cincinnati which honestly might be better for all of us.
Scott “why can’t we be” Friend(s) got to play golf on the old course in Scotland. Even for someone like me who doesn’t play golf, that is a pretty cool bucket list item, especially the picture of him and his family on the bridge.
If you want to watch a special on how not to run a music festival, check out Trainwreck, the 3-part special on Netflix about Woodstock 99.
Finally big shout out to Mike “Flash” Creemer and Eric “Jeter” Goldstein for leading all the Cincy kids out in San Diego for the Maccabi games. They looked like they had a blast and came back with a lot of wins and medals.
See everyone on Sunday.