August 3 Recap
By Marc Brafman
A nice night for softball last night. Ryan must have sacrificed a live chicken or something to get us a Wednesday without rain.
Let’s get right to the action.
On field one we had Team Weisser vs. vs. Team Stu
Stu for the winners once again:
What a game from Team Solomon, as they continue their undefeated second half 11-8 against Team Weisser. ROY Frontrunner Ryan Marcus had this to say after the game. ” This was a gritty win for this team. We never got down on ourselves and knew we could and would fight back.”
Team Solomon started very sluggish on both sides of the ball (I know this is a football expression, but it works). On offense we only had 8 hits through 5 innings. On D we had several miscues in the outfield including 2 flat out drops by the man writing this recap.
Through the first 5 innings, there were some great defensive plays to keep the game close. Jeff “Captain America” Weisbrot had a great running catch in deep RCF. Ryan “Macrodosing” Marcus had three very nice putouts at third after not having a ground ball hit to him in 4 weeks. Adam “The Mad Scientist” Cronstein had a great outfield assist to 3rd to nab the career stolen base leader Scott Wolf. Some offense was provided by Matt “007 aka Swaggs aka Swaggy G aka Ms Wagner aka The Accountant” Wagner with a huge double to RF scoring two.
Then came the top of the 6th with Team Solomon down 7-4. After a long flyball out from future Teach of the Year, Ryan Marcus, Stuart “El Capitan” Solomon roped a triple to LCF in what has been called the hardest hit ball of his season. Corey “Chuck” Norris and Gregg “Triple G” Harris hit all game going 3-4 and 4-4 respectively. Corey had a single next, followed by a Gregg Harris double. Adam “The Bad Guy” Cronstein’s infield single scored one, followed by a huge two out single by Jeff Weisbrot, plating two to put Team Solomon aka The Purple People Eaters on top 9-7 (this may be a run-on sentence, but I’m too stupid to know how to fix it and I don’t care.). In the top of the seventh, we added two more to seal the game 11-8.
Big shout out to Corey Norris who pitched and fielded his position expertly. I’m not sure who rated him as an 8, but thank you.
Our whole team looks forward to playing for other teams on 8/14. Call them today captains because they are going fast!
On field two it was Team Kamrass vs. Team Grefer
Kyle for the winners:
We beat Team Kamrass with a final score of 15-12, I think. It was an overall ugly game with a lot of defensive miscues on both sides. Offensively the top contributors were Chris Kunkel and Zach Michelson each going 3-4, with Chris getting a JCC homerun on a ball to right field that was nearly caught. Everyone on the team chipped in offensively with some key hits.
Apologies to Mark Tenenholtz for intentionally walking him 3 times. They were missing some of their top hitters, so he wasn’t as protected in the lineup (and last year I think he had nearly 10 RBI’s in a game against us).
On Field three
It was Team Brafman vs. Team Lefton
Marc for the winners:
Team Brafman held on in the bottom of the 7th to force an extra frame where their bats came alive for a 16-10 win. “It’s always a close game when we face Lefton,” Brafman said post game. This game was no different. Neither team ever led by more than 3 runs in this back-and-forth affair. Big hitters for Team Brafman were Eric “The Mouth of the Midwest” Gruen who set the table for us with 5 hits I believe, Todd “The Mayor” Wasserman with a booming double and a go ahead single in the 8th. JZ hit his first homer of the year a three-run shot in the gap. And David “BP” Synder also had three hits. On defense, sub Tait Cunningham made a couple of key plays at 3rd, Alex Krause was great at 2nd base and combined with Joel “Hallelujah” Buckley for a great 4-6-3 DP in the bottom of the 7th. “Handsome” Sam Castellini continued his outstanding fielding in the outfield this season and sub Jamie Kurtzer kept Lefton off balance all night.
Team Brafman would like to give props to both Griff Harris and Cam Kirzner from Team Lefton for seemingly being everywhere on defense and for Alan “King Salsa” Lessure for his fine catch in the 1st inning off the bat of Brafman.
Finally on field 4 we had Team Roger vs. Team Z
Pinch hitting for Roger this week is D-Sol for the winners
It was a complete team effort. Ace, Keith Kombrinck, and battery mate, Brian Goldberg, kept the opposition off balance all night allowing only 3 runs and 1 walk. We were flashing the leather all day in a gold glove caliber game across the board that saw 0 errors. 3B Norm Frankel made some great throws for putouts and RCF James Swan showed off his basketball skills with a couple of leaping grabs. The team OBP was .513 led by SS Evan Pierson going 3-3 with a walk, LCF Michael Askin 2-3 with a walk, and 2B David Solomon going 3-4.
League notes:
Ryan informed the captains last night that we have had 8 games rained out this year. That is half the season for those of you keeping score. Let’s hope the next couple of weeks are better…
Congrats to Todd “The Mayor” Wasserman on his 19th wedding anniversary.
If you are in the market for good baked goods and enjoy Marx Bagels make sure you grab some Sweet Butter Bakery goods on the way out
Congrats to Weston “Big Bad” Wolf on getting married a couple of weeks back. The wedding had a Mardi Gra parade built in and looked like a lot of fun.
Jeff “Capt. USA or The Natural” Weisbrot, depending on which nickname he is going by that day, won Bronze at the Maccabiah games in Israel. Just like the Reds, Team USA was done in by bad pitching. But Jeff reports that he had a great time, and we are all proud of him for representing our league on such a large scale. Next time we expect to see Grff, Mark Tenenholtz or Anton out there. Come on boys, make it happen.
Speaking of Maccabiah games, kudos to Mr. Mike “Flash” Creemer and Eric “Jeter” Goldstein for taking kids out to San Diego from Cincy for the Maccabi games. Eric’s daughter is playing softball and former players’ Aaron “Straight outta” Compton and Greg Leader (of the Pack) sons are playing baseball. What a great experience for the players and for Mike and Eric. Good luck Team USA and Cincy.
More news on the Wolf Family. Duffy Wolf last week had some of his art deco pictures on display here in town. If you haven’t seen Duffy’s pictures before, make sure you check out his Facebook page. They are really something.
Disturbing news from Mr. Bearcat, Cam Kirzner. He keeps posting pictures of himself with his arms around a pretty girl. When League notes asked who she was, he said, “It’s my girlfriend.” When asked if she too was a Rally Cat (Bearcats cheer team) he told us, “No she goes to Miami!” Cam might get his Bearcat card pulled for that answer.
Things you don’t know about your teammates until you ask. Fink has been out the last week and when I asked why, he told me he has been a collector of sports cards for years and he and his son were going to the National Convention in Atlantic City. I can’t wait to hear what he comes back with and what he sold.
Congrats to former Commish Brad “The Human Rain Delay” Wagner on the birth of his first daughter Maddie. We all can’t wait to meet her.
Random Twitter picture of the week. For some reason I follow Weird Al Yankovic on Twitter and yesterday he posted a picture of himself, Pee Wee Herman and Little Stevie Van Zandt bowling. So many questions need to be asked about this. Why were those three together, why were they bowling and what in the world did they talk about? (FYI…if you have XM radio I highly recommend Little Stevie’s Underground Garage. You get some amazing music and great stories.
Finally, let’s discuss the Reds and the moves they made. While I sort of understand them trading Castillo, and they should have traded Pham and Drury, I can’t understand why they traded Tyler Mahle. If you go to a game the Reds have a minor league report and if you believe Nick Krall he keeps talking about building from within and keeping it with player development. Well, Nick-TM was the 3rd best home-grown pitcher the Reds have had since Tom Browning. (Cueto and Leake where better). Anyway, he is under team control for at least one more year after this year and with the three rookies formed a pretty good rotation. But nope, let’s get more prospects which stand for haven’t done JACK SQUAT yet and start planning for 2025. Since we are giving up on the next two years or at least next year when they are still on the hook for Fat Moose and Joey, here is my advice for the Reds front office. Just like Darth Vadar did in Empire Strikes Back, they need to hire Boba Fett and freeze the three rookie pitchers and Tyler Stephenson in carbonite, hang them in the Reds Hall of Fame so we can come see them like Jaba Did to Han Solo in Return of the Jedi and then, in 2025, unfreeze them at Redsfest. This way they won’t get any older, get hurt or require Tommy John surgery before the next round of “prospects” are ready to go. Even in retirement Doc writes way better than me so I’m going to quote him from his Facebook page here: “This team has offered no proof that it can turn the 19-year-old bus rider into anything but a 24-year-old bus rider. Without that credibility, the most recent trade deadline wasn’t reassuring. It wasn’t a reason for optimism. It was a dispiriting march toward further irrelevance. Some of us (ALL) are tired of waiting for a future that always arrives elsewhere.
See everyone next week, and remember UC has their home opener on September 10. Hell, I’m even excited for OSU vs. Notre Dame the week before.