Author: Rick Tenenholtz

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April 23, 2025: Games Recap

A wonderful night for softball (and baseball) unless your last name was Brafman as both my team and Jacob’s team lost. But enough about us, let’s get onto the action:

On Field one we had Team Groh vs. Team Fogel 

Ken for the victors: 

After a scoreless 1st inning, Pete Soltesz led off the bottom of the 2nd with a double and came around to score as did Groh on a rare wild pitch from Jamey Kurtzer. Tyler Stansbury hit a 2-run homer with two outs in the 3rd to increase the lead to 4-0. Team Fogel plated 4 runs to tie in the top of the 4th after stringing together several line drives. Soltesz, Von Holle, Groh started off the bottom of the 4th with singles and all 3 scored with David Solomon and Anslinger hits to make it 7-4. Team Groh broke it open in the 5th as Tyler hit his 2nd homerun over the fence and after Castellini had his 2nd hit, Von Holle hit his 1st homer over the fence driving in Jack Cohen and Pete to put Groh up 12-4. In the 7th Jeremy Fogel hit the 4th ball out a 3-run shot to finish the scoring at 12-8. Two amazing defensive plays by Jack Cohen and Jeremy Fogel each saving inside the park homeruns with run down catches. Jon Ruben pitched a scoreless inning and Danny Meisterman also flashed some leather in his first game of the year. 

On Field 2 it was Team Brafman (minus the Capt) vs. Team Simons

Marc Simons for the winners: 

Yesterday was an epic showdown between Team Brafman and Simons. Team Brafman struck first with some nifty baserunning, putting pressure on team Simons to counter. David Wertheim delivered by knocking one out of the park to pull ahead. Team Brafman wasn’t done as they compiled a 6-run inning to pull ahead 11-10 in the late going. Zach Michelson then hit a triple, and mind you not a JCC triple, but legend has it, he may still be on his way to third. Team Simons was able to pull ahead 14-12 in the bottom of the 6th inning and held on for their first win of the season. Many minor injuries in this game but overall it was a fun, well fought game on both sides. 

On Field 3 it was Team Grefer vs. Team Goldhoff

AJ for the winners:

Another great win for the Goons this week as we took out the Grefer-less Grefer’s. Where do even begin? Contributions all over the board…we had not one, not two, not three, but four inside the park home runs, from four different players. Including: Griffin Harris (to go with his 4 hits), Ian Segall (on his first swing of his JCC softball career), Ian Conwell (on the 12th or 13th pitch of an unbelievable at bat), and of course the commissioner Adam Cronstein. Zach Fritzhand also had 3 hits and 4 RBI’s for himself as well.

The story of the game at first though seemed to be the sun, as both teams were struggling in the first couple innings to see the ball in the outfield. As the sun set though the Goons stepped up the defense, started running the basepaths (8 steals on the day) and held off the Grefer’s until they scored 5 in the 6th to come within 3. Jamey Drennan though locked in and finished off another good outing to bring us to 2-0.

Next week we play Team Wagner looking to keep it rolling.

And last but not least on Field 4 it was Team Wolf vs. Team Solomon

Wes for the winners:

After a bye in week 1, Team Wolf kicked off our season with a bang—and a whole lot of grit—pulling off a thrilling 16-14 win in our first game of the year.

Let’s be honest: it wasn’t the prettiest start. We gave up 9 runs in the top of the first inning, which had some of us wondering if this was going to be a long year. But instead of folding, we answered right back in the bottom half with 4 runs, including a two-run double by Pat Feldman, setting the tone for this season right off the bat. 

The middle innings were a battle. Both teams traded runs and big plays, keeping the score close and the energy high. Corey Norris provided excellent pitching as a sub, and Tyler Wolf came through with a 3 hit day. Heading into the bottom of the 6th, we found ourselves down 14-10—but Team Wolf wasn’t done yet.

With our backs against the wall, we rallied for a huge 6-run inning, taking the lead for the first time all night. The top of the 7th was all about defense, and we locked it down to secure the win.

Final score: 16-14, Team Wolf.
A hard-fought victory, a great way to start the season, and a reminder that even when we’re down, we’re never out.

League notes

Short and sweet this week

Happy birthday to Rick Lefton who is leading the March of the Living in Poland at the moment 

JCC Legend Mark Wolf also celebrated a birthday

Don’t forget to sign up for the J Classic in June and JCC night at the Reds game on May 13

If you have the means and want to, I can’t stress enough how amazing the Sphere is in Las Vegas. I saw Dead and Co twice over the weekend. It was well worth the money (at least to me)

It must be nice to make $32 million dollars in life and be as bad at it as the Candy man currently is for the Reds. Small market teams can’t continually whiff  on free agents like the Reds do and think they can compete. Shameful.

If there is a bigger waste of time than the NFL draft in sports I have yet to find it.

Finally Roger told me he has some old Martin St. Louis and Gump Worsley hockey cards if anyone is interested

See everyone on Wednesday!

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April 16, 2025: Games Recap

Welcome back to the blog everyone! What a nice night for softball. After a lot of rain and lousy weather this spring (take it from a baseball dad), it was great to be back out there (even if we are all sore today). Let’s get to the action.

On Field one it was Team Solomon vs. Team Grefer:

Kyle for the winners:

We beat Team Solomon 14-12 in a sloppy game to start the year. We had plenty of defensive miscues but were barely able to eke out the win.

Mike Gray pitched a solid game and had a double and a triple to jolt the offense. Dan Grefer and Brian Goldberg each had a few hits but subs Dan Green, Drew Hart, and James Swan did the heavy lifting on offense with 3 hits each (including a smashed triple to center field by Swan).

Happy to get started with a win!

On field two it was Team Groh vs. Team Goldhoff

Rookie Capt. AJ for the winners:

A great opening week for Goldhoff’s Goons (As the app refers to us) as we beat Team Groh 6-2 in a fun defensive battle. Jamey Drennan pitched fantastic in his debut, only giving up 4 hits and 2 runs, while seemingly getting everyone to pop out.

On the offensive side we got contributions from all over the lineup including Griffin Harris, Adam Cronstein, and Zach Fritzhand who each with 2 hits. I had a hit bringing in two runs and Michael Heldman got a hit and made it around to score in his first game in the league.

The defense won the day though with Griff and Adam locking down the middle of the outfield, we also got big catches from Howard Goldwasser, Ian Conwell, and Michael Heldman.

Overall this was a great team effort and we look forward to continuing to get better next week.

On Field 3 it was Team Fogel vs. Team Brafman

For the first time in over a YEAR in the regular season Marc for the winners

In a back and forth game vs. Team Fogel on field one Team Brafman got off to a great start with a walk off 9-8 win. “It’s been a very long time since I can celebrate a regular season win and it felt good to get off on the right side,”  Brafman said. Down early 3-0 in the first, Mike Margolis made a great catch in RF with the bases loaded to save three runs and keep Team Brafman in the game. While Team Fogel kept pushing across runs (including a rocket off the bat of “The Other” Josh Rosen) Team Brafman kept it close. Down 8-4 in the 6th, Team Brafman tied it with hits coming from all over the lineup including a big single from rookie Corey Meyers and Brafman’s 4th hit of the night. After a scoreless top of the 7th Team Brafman’s bottom of the order got the winning inning going. Rookie Jeff “Oscar Meyer” Wiener led off with a single, Gary Fisher moved the runner along and Team Game Ball winner Mike Margolis singled for his 2nd hit of the night moved the runners along. The Special One Mike Rothstein then singled to load the bases and Zach Mayer won it with a single to LF. 

Kudos to Jimmy Lefton for a great pitching performance in his first game back and Harry “Hood” Meisner for making a couple of nice catches in LCF and for a big hit in the 6th. 

Team Brafman looks to continue their winning ways next week. 

Finally on field four it was Team Wagner vs. Team Simons

Brad for the winners:

Team Wagner beat Team Simons in extra innings on opening night, 13-12. The game went back and forth with plenty of strategic moves, including lots of bunts, intentional walks, and key defensive plays by both teams. Wagner took a 10-7 lead late as Team Simons had crucial hits to tie in the 7th. Team Wagner held Team Simons scoreless in the extra frame. The victors started the bottom of the 8th by getting their first three hitters on, then with one out, Corey Norris hit a hard ground ball to David Wertheim playing a shifted 2nd base, who threw to Captain Simons playing catcher for the force out. Still, Simons could not handle the throw, and Joel Buckley scored the winning run.

Everyone contributed to Team Wagner at the plate, including their elder statesman, Roger Rosenthal.

Team Rookie Seth Shaifer also played well in his Triple Creek debut.

Team Wagner is off next week and will be home recovering while watching reruns of “I Love Lucy.”

Team Simons will take on Team Brafman next week. The game will air on CMT. Bill Dance and Richard Petty will be on the call.

League Notes

A bunch of birthdays:

Scott “Why can’t We Be” Friend

Dave Cohen 

Matt Miller

Brad Gallop

Scott Raskin

Danny Grefer

Josh Lisman

Handsome Sam Castellini

Jeff Finkelstein

Greg Leader

Stu Solomon

Once again, if I missed your birthday, sorry.

A big shout out to former player “Big” Alex Lefton on getting engaged

Reminder that it’s JCC night at the Reds game on May 13 vs. the White Sox

The J-Classic is coming up. J Classic – Mayerson JCC  Please sign up, donate or come to dinner.

Wing night is also coming up at the Silver Spring House. I can’t remember the date but a big thank you to Gig for his continued support of the league.

In Reds news, it’s good to know that the Candy man is now 1-25 with something like 13 strikeouts. The Reds’ front office continues to come up with winners in free agency.

Finally, in Roger news, I have to give him credit for somehow finding me a Sean “SK” Kirkpatrick bobblehead with him as a DJ. I have no idea why this was a bobblehead or how he got it but thanks

See ya next week!

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February 10, 2025: Offseason Update

Hi everyone

I figured the day after the Super Bowl would be as good a time as any to catch everyone up on the offseason. 

First as most if not all of you know I can’t stand Ohio State and make it a point to remind all the guys in the league that they normally root for the 4-5th best team each season. So as much as it pains me to say I have to congratulate all of them on winning the National Title a couple of weeks ago. A very impressive run they had through the post season. Let’s hope Alabama can get back in it next year or I will be the one eating crow again.

Congrats goes out to Matt Miller and former player Ben “Weezie” Lefton on getting engaged this off season

A ton of birthdays since the last time we all spoke:

Former league batting champ Corey “May the” Schwartz be with you and I believe his brother Taylor “I believe your Schwartz is as big as mine” got married!

Birthdays:

Dee Harris

Todd “The Mayor” Wasserman

Duffy “Hungry Like A” Wolf

Jimmy Lefton 

Scott “Shorty” Adams

AJ Goldhoff

Dr. Bob Pelberg

Matt Leader

Micah Kamrass 

Also, I think both Brooke Fogel and Laurie Lefton celebrated birthdays… and I am sure there are a lot more, so if I missed you, Happy Birthday!

In alumni league news:

Ryan Kirzner’s daughter (Jerry’s granddaughter)  Sasha is going to be a Florida Gator next year (she is also her school’s valedictorian) 

Jeff Cohen’s daughter Zora graduated from USF.

Jeff “The Natural” Weisbrot’s son, Evan, became a bar mitzvah last month. Congrats to the Weisbrot family!

I believe Oren Schmoel, Jimmy Lefton,  Joel “Sparky” Fogel (and I’ll even mention me) all celebrated wedding anniversaries over the last couple of months. All praise goes to our wives for putting up with us.

Get well wishes to Ryan “The One Man Gang” Marcus who, if reports are to be believed, slipped on the ice and hurt his knee. 

Finally, in league news he did it on the down low (which I wasn’t happy about), but let’s all raise a buffalo wing and Krispy Kreme donut to Eppy who announced post season that last year was his last in the league. His first year was 1974, when Dick Allen was the highest paid player in baseball ($250,000), Nixon was still in the White House and the Big Red Machine hadn’t won a World Series yet. For all of us who played with and against Eppy and enjoyed his generosity at the Spring House, we wish him well in retirement (from the league) and hope he comes out to watch us play from time to time. Thanks for everything Eppy!

Speaking of Dick Allen, congrats to him and Dave “The Cobra” Parker who both made it into the Baseball Hall of Fame this year. Eppy, or maybe Mark Weisser, tells the story of the one time Dave Parker came out to one of our games at the old JCC. If I remember it correctly he only had spikes with him and when told he couldn’t play with them never set foot on the field and just walked off. I would have liked to see him hit a couple of balls into the pool.  

And last but not least, if you are in the market for a Chris Mack Bobblehead don’t forget to give Roger a call. He has a couple. 

See everyone soon.

Marc

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November 21, 2024: Offseason Update

A  busy offseason for the league last night culminated in the election of a new Commish, Adam Cronstein. Let’s all wish Adam well as he has big shoes to fill after Ryan Silverman. Ryan, a big tip of the cap to you for the past 3 seasons. You did a great job and we can’t thank you enough. A quick bio on our new Commish:

Adam has played in the league for over 20 years and was brought into the league the same way a lot of us were, by his dad. He played with his dad and his brother, who joined the league a few years later, for several years. Adam has been married for 13 years and has two kids Ari and Zev, who both come out to the games from time to time and play ball. Just like all of us with sons, Adam hopes to still be playing when they are old enough to play in the league.  Adam told us a story last night that I can relate to. When he was a captain and was on the ratings committee, he was a passenger in a car driven by his wife in a snow storm to a wedding in upstate New York. While his wife was driving and white knuckling the steering wheel, Adam was kicking back talking about the softball draft for hours. That sums up our new Commish nicely. 

In other news, AJ Goldhoff and Scott Friend were elected to serve on the Commission. Congrats, guys!

A ton of birthdays since the end of the season and I’m sure that I missed a few:

Brad “the Human Rain delay” Wagner

Pat “Sunshine” Feldman

Olivia “The Big O” Goldhoff

Albert Weisbrot

Pete “The Straw that Stirs the Drink” Soltesz

Joel “Sparky” Fogel

Scott Sadler

Corey Noris

A couple of big anniversaries as well:

Rick Lefton

Scott “Dire” Wolf

AJ Goldhoff

Engagements:

Ryan “The One Man Gang” Marcus

Former league MVP Mark “Big Blue” Tenenholtz

And finally, one wedding as Evan Gildenblatt got married.

In other Tenenholtz news, Rick retired from his job and is now playing golf, advising Triple Creek on rain outs, and I believe may be helping coach Walnut Hills baseball, if I heard correctly last night. 

Congrats to everyone who won awards a couple of weeks back at the banquet and a big shout out to Mr. Mike for the nice plaques this year. 

For those of you who signed up for the Oy Vey 5K, thank you and sorry that it got rained out. Be ready for next year already as it will be back better than ever. 

I can’t remember if Tito Francona was hired by the Reds before the last blog posts, but if not my take is great hire for the Reds. Unfortunately he can’t hit, run or pitch. The good news though is that he brought in former Red, Chris Valaika, as his hitting coach. When he was with the Guardians they didn’t strike out nearly as much as the Reds did last year. Did you know the Reds had 5 players strike out over 100 times with Elly leading all of baseball with 213!!! 213 times Elly didn’t even put the ball in play. If he can cut down on that, the Reds will be much better.  Watching Tito on the great Netflix series about the 2004 Red Sox, you can see why he is such a good manager. The total opposite of David Bell. 

As for the Bengals, am I the only one that sees them going the way the Reds did with Votto and just wasting the prime years of Burrow and Chase? God I hope not, but when you are as good as those two (Plus Trey) and your team is 4-7, you know you are going the wrong way. 

Count me on board as loving the new college football playoffs. According to Temple Sholom’s star alumnus, Stewart Mandell from the Athletic: 23 teams are still in the running for one of the 12 spots compared to 8 last year.  How great would it be for the Army to make it? Or see Alabama come to Bloomington or South Bend to play IU or ND? 

In a story that might only interest me, I found it amusing that the owners of Heritage Bank Center, after the report came out about how much we need a new arena, are now saying we should build it on the current site. If only they had put ANY money into that dump over the last 30+ years maybe we won’t need a new arena. I don’t care what those clowns have to say when it comes to the new arena. Just get it done so we can get the NCAA tournament, conventions and concerts like Kacey Musgraves, who went to both the YUM Center in Louisville and Nationwide Arena in Columbus just last week while skipping Cincy. 

Finally, Roger and I will be lobbying the Reds to do bobbleheads of journeymen of the 80’s this season since the Reds have pretty much done all of the Reds we would want. So with Roger’s expert advice we are pitching bobbleheads of Eddie Milner, Ron Robinson, Kurt Stillwell and Kal Daniels. 

Be on the lookout soon for news about next season. Registration starts on January 1!

Have a nice Turkey Day, everyone.

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September 25, 2024: Tournament Finals Recap

The season came to an end on a somewhat gloomy night on Wednesday as Team Fogel and Team Harris battled it out. The two youngest captains in the league squared off for the Youk award. 

Griff for the winners:

In an exciting championship showdown at the illustrious Triple Creek Park, Team Harris emerged victorious over Team Fogel with a final score of 11-6. Notably, Team Harris was missing, arguably, their MVP (Most Vexatious Player) of the season, Roger Rosenthal, who was on a cruise in Canada. Rosenthal fired the team up before the game with a video message from the cruise ship telling them to simply “just win the damn game.” Team Harris knew they couldn’t let him down after that.

The game was filled with standout moments and impressive performances from both sides.  Team Harris jumped out to an early lead in the first inning scoring 3 runs and never looked back after that. For Team Harris, Ryan Marcus hit a solo home run in the 3rd inning to highlight his 3-hit performance, while Ryan Baum contributed with several nice hits throughout the game. Captain Griff Harris hit a crucial 3-run home run in the top of the 6th inning to extend the lead to 11-3. The captain also made a nice diving catch on the warning track to save multiple runs in the bottom half of the 6th. Stu Weinstein pitched a gem. He kept Team Fogel’s hitters off balance all night, only allowing 6 runs over 7 innings. Other key offensive contributions came from Pat Feldman, Mark Weisser (who went 3 for 3), Dan Bernstein, and Stu Weinstein himself, who had a couple of big hits.

Big shout out to Jeremy Fogel of Team Fogel for making a spectacular catch in the 1st inning, robbing a potential 3-run home run.  He also threw a laser to nail a runner at 3rd base later in the game. Joel Buckley also shined for Team Fogel with an outstanding catch at shortstop for the final out of the 2nd inning to save multiple runs.

The game saw Team Harris leading every inning, with scores progressing from 3-2 after the 2nd inning to the final score of 11-6. The atmosphere was electric with a sellout crowd, including some league veterans, despite the cloudy weather. After the game, the team (JZ) celebrated their victory by popping (dumping all over himself) a bottle of champagne provided by Brad Wagner, adding a festive end to their championship win.

Congrats to Team Harris and all of the guys on both teams for a great game and post season tournament. 

League notes:

Weather permitting, the ASG is on Sunday morning at 9:30. Make sure you check the rain out line before you come to the game.

The Oy Vey 5K is on November 10. Please sign up here: Oy Vey 5K – Mayerson JCC

Happy birthdays this week:

“The Special One”  Mike Rothstein

Former player, Neil Nadel

Eddie Gallop

Zach Mayer

It was also Wes Wolf’s anniversary this week. Congrats to Wes and Hailey.

As David Weil and I were talking about earlier this week, only the Reds could fire a manager with 5 games left so they don’t have to pay him to go on the road. Now they still have to pay him the last two years on his contract, so maybe David Bell got the better end of the deal. But NOTHING the Reds did comes close to the cheapness of the Pirates. With only 4 at bats away from getting a $200,000 bonus, the Pirates cut Rowdy Tellez. Again, 4 at bats away from paying a guy $200K, the Pirates cut him. They claim it was a baseball move. So when I bitch and moan about the Reds, at least I’m not a Pirates fan.

It was a great season once again, guys. We (the league) got a big shout out during the JCC annual meeting last night.    A huge shout out to Ryan and all the captains for their hard work. Can’t wait till next season (maybe my team will win a regular season game). 

Marc