Category: Game Results

 

Pre-Season Notes

April 6, 2022

By Marc Brafman

After a long and sad off-season, it’s time to get back out to Triple Creek. The first order of business every year is the annual player draft. Let’s take a look at each team and preview the season.

 

We’ll start with Team Weisser. Before the draft, Capt. Mark Weisser was his normal cheerful self and seemed pretty excited to have a high draft slot. “I have been reading my draft guides, listening to ESPN8 (The Ocho) podcast and everyone has been giving me their advice on who I should take.” When he selected the Wolf family no one seemed all that surprised in the room. “I see Scott every day at work. Why not on the softball field?” Weisser said. With the Wolfs, Brad “The Human Rain delay” Wagner and Pete “The Straw that Stirs the Drink” Soltesz in the middle of the order, Team Weisser will definitely bring the thunder each week. They also might lead the league in inter-team arguing and bickering, which will also be fun to watch. “I think having ‘Easy’ Eddie Gallop and ‘The Dr. of Style,’ David Weil on my team will help ease the friction that some of the guys might feel this year,” Weisser said. ”I’m excited to see how many bombs (both f and real) we hit this year.”  Fun fact that may only interest me: in the history of JCC softball no team has ever had as many guys with the same last letter of their name on the same team. Nine of the 12 guys on Team Weisser start with “W.”

 

Continuing their theme from last year, the Lefton’s once again employed the “WE are family” approach to drafting taking the Harris (Griff and Dee) group along with the Kirzners (Reigning rookie of the year, Cam and the ageless wonder, Jerry “Doc” Kirzner). “Nothing wrong with half our team being related to each other,” Rick said post draft. “Remember in the mid-90’s when the Reds started an infield of the Boones and Larkins? They won, didn’t they?” Didn’t they? “This is an interesting team I’ve got,” Jimmy said post draft. I have three of the fastest guys in the league in Griff, Cam and Zach “The Wild Horse” Zakem and some big-time hitters like Ryan “The Hebrew Hammer” Baum and Matt Brodof. But we also have station to station guys like myself, “The Special One” Mike Rothstein and Alan “Sauce” Lessure. A special bonus for all of us this year will be listening to Rothstein direct Alan on where to play in the field this year.

Fun prediction that may only interest me: Jeremy Fogel will throw out at least one, if not two of Team Lefton’s runners from the outfield trying to get to 1^st base when they play this year.

 

Moving along to Team Kamrass…the out of the blue winners of the second half of the season last year are back for more this year. “We proved we could win with Eppy last year so why not try again?” So for the second year in a row, Eppy and the Brothers Kamrass will be partners. “I’ve been in the pool, in the weight room and in the wing eating contests all winter to prepare,” Eppy said. I’m looking forward to beating the odds once again. Eppy has a lot of help around him with Mark “Big Blue” Tenenholtz coming back this year along with Danny Gilbert, Jason Esterkamp and Adam Heldman. “We hope our big hitters and the rookie Scott Raskin can blossom into a star for us,” Micah said. Plus, it’s always fun to play with Riley “The Big Man” Able once again.

Fun random game that would only interest me: We need to time Eppy this year running from first to home, then take that time and see if he could polish off a plate of wings faster post game.

The first rookie captain makes his appearance next. After spending a number of seasons as one of the chattier catchers in the league, Steve “Z” Zawatsky has stepped up to captain. “I got tired of always listening to guys talk about their teams and I figured it was time for me to step up and captain my own team. I wanted to get youth and speed at the top of my order which I did by drafting David “Slim Shady” Wertheim and Harry ‘Hood’ Meisner. I just have to keep Wertheim off his phone and focused. He’s so all in on OSU that I need to make sure he can stop covering the 4-5 best team in college football each year long enough for him to hit and field.  I’ve caught Ken Groh before and I know what a solid player he (and not being a captain will help him this year), plus I got the new Commish, Ryan and his crew (Phil and Oren). When you toss in Rabbi Yitz, new/old Rookie Bradley “Monkey” Swillinger and the rest of my team I’m ready to go!” Most of the talk around the draft room was that Z did very well for his first time drafting and has a well-prepared team.

Fun future fact about Team Z-we are only a couple of years away from getting a 10^th team in the JCC league made up of Rabbi Yitz and his kids. Forget the Wolf clan. Very soon it will be the Yitz pack ruling our league.

If there is one consistent thing to say about Stu Solomon’s teams year after year it’s that he drafts guys that can hit. This year is no different. Tyler “Bryce Harper” Stansbury, Adam Cronstein, Stu and rookie Ryan “The One Man Gang” Marcus make up the top of his order. (No pressure Ryan, but Mike “Flash” Creemer thinks that he will lead the league in homers).  “In our league if you can’t hit you can’t win and this year, I am going ALL in on big boppers. Not only that, I have a pissed off Jeff “The Natural” Weisbrot ready to show that he is all in and back to form this season. Did you guys see Joey Votto last year? Well, that is the level of locked in-ness Jeff is going to bring this year. He is going to forget that his kids have games and come out each Wednesday ready to hit.”  With rookie full time pitcher Corey Norris on the hill and a couple of rookies “Mr. Wonderful” Max Orloff and the mysterious Mike Wagner holding down the fort along with Mark “Bruiser” Wolfe, Team Solomon should be a team to be reckoned with this year.

Fun Dad fact that Stu shared with me on Sunday. I bumped into him at Marx Bagels at around 9:10 on Sunday morning. All I did was drop my kids off at Sunday school. Stu informed me that with his kids 2^ndbirthday coming up later that day he he already gone to Target, Cosco, Party Source, cut the grass, walked his dog, hired Eric the Clown as entertainment and was now at Marx Bagels picking up food. I don’t miss little kids at all.

 

Our next captain was following the trends set by first Tony LaRussa coming back to the White Sox, Sean “Nothing to see in Arizona” Miller coming back to XU and finally Thad Motta returning to Butler. We of course are talking about Roger Rosenthal. Roger was a captain so long ago that the Reds weren’t even begging fans to come to games with bobbleheads…they were actually trying to win. Roger wasted no time in making a big statement by grabbing Howie and Rafi. Along with Michael “Chatterbox” Askin and James “Lynn” Swan, this team is going to have a lot of speed in the outfield. D-Sol behind the plate brings a great bat and a good target for Howie.  Roger drafted for experience and he sure got it with “Stormin’” Norm Frankel, Jim Beckett, Keith Kombrinck and Gary Fisher. “My team will be ready to take on any and all comers this year,” Roger said. “I’m in the process of ordering team bobbleheads as we speak.”

Random fun contest for team Roger: Will Roger talk more in one inning than Michael Askin talks all season? My money is on Roger

Team Grefer coming off the league title last year picked up right where they left off on draft day. Taking a couple of rookies, Taylor “F$%^ the” Police and AJ Goldhoff were bold moves that I think will pay off for them. Josh Rosen brings team speed and solid defense in the outfield. Mike “Mr. Cub” Gray will keep them in any game, and the recently buff Ben Margolis is poised for another breakout season. “We change with the times,” Kyle Grefer said post draft. Last year it was all about the Wolfs and established players and this year we went with the young guys. Of course, I don’t know half my team but I’ll meet them on Wednesday. I just know they can play. Rounding out the team, Chris Kunkel and Mike Margolis are looking forward to proving their worth this year.

Fun fact about Team Grefer. If we were starting a basketball team Team Grefer would be a great place to start. With Danny and Kyle, Kunkel and Zack Michelson all being well over 6 feet tall this team would give the 69^thranked XU team a good run for their money

 

The last of the three rookies, Jeremy “Hamilton” Fogel took time away from his Ben Roethlisberger shrine to get up to speed on the draft.  Like Team Grefer, he took a little gamble by drafting a rookie high when he took Pat “Sunshine” Feldman’s family early. “We are counting on Tait Cunningham (Pat’s cousin) to really be a big-time player for us. If he plays half as well as his girlfriend looks, we have the rookie of the year.”  We have a strong team with Scott “why can’t we be” Friend, The “Macho Man” Andrew Gage, and Bryce “The Gunslinger” Aslinger part of the team. After my trade with Team Brafman we now have two quality pitchers in Jamey Kurtzer and Eric “Spuds” Zied along with great quality guys like Scott “Shorty” Adams and Mark Franklin. “Having my dad help me out was a big plus this year. I value his opinion and he’s never steered me wrong (The rest of us disagree with that statement since he did turn you into a Steelers fan).

Fun future altercation that might happen. With a member of the First Wives club of JCC softball Barb Fogel coming to watch each week, we now have worry about her getting into arguments with the umps. “My mom is not used to me being in control, so I’d better make sure she controls herself each game.” We don’t want her to get tossed out of Triple Creek arguing plays in the field. She’s been known to curse like a sailor when a call goes against me or my dad, so now we have to try and control that fury.

 

Finally, we come to Team Brafman. “I feel we have a good mix of speed and power. I’ve got two former Rookie’s of the year in Joel “Hallelujah” Buckley and JZ. Fink with a year under his belt as a pitcher is poised to take that next step up. You know what you are going to get each year with Anton and we have a couple of returning players who missed a year or two in Alex Kraus and “The Mouth of the Midwest” Eric Gruen primed for breakout seasons,” said Brafman post draft. “Joel and I are happy to be back in the league,” Gruen said. “Who wants to play golf when you can swing a softball bat each week?”  “With cagey vets like David “BP” Synder, Dr. Bob and “The Mayor” Todd Wasserman we should lead the league in compliments around first base this season as well. I can’t wait for the season to start,” Brafman said. Let’s play ball!

Fun Passover food fact. If you guys are hosting Passover this year or going over to someone’s house and are in the market for  baked goods that actually taste amazing, please track down Sam “The Hitman” Hecht and Sweet Butter Bakery. I promise you will not have better baked goods anywhere.

 

League Notes:

Congrats to Scott Sadler on getting married. Either it happened this week or it’s going to very soon

Some wedding anniversaries over the last couple of weeks…Scott Friend, 13 years and me and my wife, 21.

When he and David Wertheim aren’t talking about the 4^thor 5^th best football team in the country year in and year out, Griff Harris has found a team at OSU that actually wins National Titles. I’m talking of course about the women’s hockey team. Griff posed for numerous pictures with the ladies (some of whom actually have their own teeth still) and seemed very excited to be whatever a guy groupie would be called. Way to go Buckeyes.

A great article last week in everyone’s favorite weekly newspaper, the Israelite, about Mike “Flash” Creemer and his coaching of girls Blue Jays basketball. We talk about it a lot, but man Mr. Mike really does have a huge influence on all of our kids who have been through the J. (In a similar vain last week my son, Jacob, and Zach Huidt’s son, Noah, played against each other in a select baseball league game. Both of us coached them at the J) So keep up the good work, Mike.

If you can stomach watching the Reds in person for one game come to JCC/Jewish night on June 7^th. It’s always a fun night even if the Reds won’t be that much fun.

Congrats to Roger on XU winning the NIT. The game started during the draft and to his credit Roger kept his eyes on the prize and drafted a good team all the while claiming to not want to know how XU was doing. He was surprised, though, to get a cease and desist letter from the Xavier marketing department when he tried to sell We love 69! T-shirts. He didn’t (and still doesn’t) understand why that’s a bad thing.

Ryan sent this out last week but here it is again. If you would like to record a memory of Jason Faust for his kids please click on this link: https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=jnfLkqeLNE-gEUum5zZplqT8j1Q87klFkPrAWSKljr1URFdJVUY5TExGNkZNT0xVTFJXT0FVVjZDUy4u

And last but not least Roger listed a 2016 Reds team baseball card set for $10 on his web site. This, mind you, is the same Reds team that finished 68-94. I think he should pay us $10 to take them off his hands.

 

Can’t wait to see everyone later today (if Mother Nature permits it)

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-Season Review (March 24, 2022)

By Marc Brafman

 

Welcome back, everyone, to the softball blog. It’s been a tough offseason for all of us with the deaths of our close friends and players, Ron Rose and Jason “The Mad Hungarian” Faust. This year we will dedicate the season to both of them. I’ll be sharing stories and memories throughout the year for both guys once the season starts. 

 

Since we haven’t had a blog in a while, grab some coffee, sit back and relax

 

You know the season is getting off to a great start when last night at the new player practice we realized no one had a bat with them to take BP with. Lucky for us, Stu Solomon was about to get one from his car. But for a while it looked like the new guys would be hitting with one of Mike “Flash” Creemer’s Blue Jays bats…

 

Our condolences go out to Alan Lessure who lost his mom this off season and Jeff Weisbrot who lost both of his in-laws.

 

Not all the news was bad as Riley “the Big Man” Able,  Jacob “orthodontist to the stars” Stadiem and Mr. Sunshine, Zach Mayer all welcomed babies to their households. Congrats, guys!

 

Speaking of kids, Ben “Weezy” Lefton’s kids are both playing sports in college. One baseball and the other lacrosse. 

 

As much as it pains me to say this, a late congrats goes out to Scott “why Can’t we Be” Friend on UGA winning the national title over my Crimson Tide. As I gave Scott a ride home from the game, I give him credit for not rubbing it in too much, although he couldn’t hide the smile from his face the entire trip home. 

 

A lot of us made it out to some Bengals playoff games or even the SB. Shorty, The Lefton’s and I’m sure more that I missed. But no one enjoyed the games like the brothers Kamrass who were in the high-cotton suite seats for at least the Raiders game and maybe more. I heard they used the line “Hey, we made it to our own title game with Eppy as our pitcher so our run is more impressive than yours” 

 

Speaking of the Lefton’s since this is the 45th anniversary year of when the Ohio River froze, they shared some pretty cool pictures of them walking across it as kids earlier this winter. Lucky for all of us they didn’t fall in.

 

If you happened to watch any UC basketball games this year you may have noticed that Rookie of the Year Cam Kirzner was always sitting front and center in the student section and always seemed to find his way onto TV. Maybe it’s because he took the Skyline Chili costume that my office gave him to wear at College Game Day and never gave it back. He will tell you it’s a good way to meet girls. But when it comes to his job as a Rally Cat at UC, don’t ask him to play music on his portable speaker since he seems to have a problem with remembering to charge it before events.  

 

Bryce Anslinger celebrated his dad making the Miamsburg school hall of fame. A very cool story that I’m sure he will be happy to share with you this summer

 

Another guy celebrating this year so far is Tyler “Big Bad” Wolf and his company, Urban Blooms. If you haven’t seen his work at the new Madtree inspired restaurant in OTR, check it out. It’s amazing!

 

If you would like to help out David “BP” Snyder and his family please consider donating to their meal train at this link: https://www.mealtrain.com/trains/yvg7ze/updates/ David’s son was diagnosed with cancer so please help if you can. 

 

Also, the Hillel at UC is doing a fundraiser to help out former player Justin Berg and his wife, Lauren. https://www.cincinnatihillel.org/campussuperstar-tickets

 

If you want a fun way to live vicariously through someone, check out Brooke Fogel’s blog as she travels through Italy. Oh, to be 21 and in college again.

 

And if you want to know what’s going on around Cincy, make sure to read Doc’s Morning Line Blog each Thursday. That is when our own David “Slim Shady” Wertheim writes a blog post each week on what is going on around town. He also has started a blog or podcast talking about the 4-5 best college football teams in the country, OSU , which I’m sure is great if you want to learn more about the 4th or 5th best team in the country. 

 

If you are like me, and I hope you aren’t, every once in a while you look someone up on Linked in or Facebook and realize they know someone in the league. That was the case with a future client of mine who was linked in with Danny Grefer. So being the good salesmen I try to be, I reached out to Danny to ask how he knew her and if they keep in touch. His answer to this day still makes me smile. His exact words to me where “Wow, I haven’t through of her in a while. I didn’t know her that well, but I did used to sleep with her roommate in college.” 

 

No blog post of mine would be complete without a Reds update. No need to rehash the offseason or all the moves they are making that make zero sense to anyone other than maybe the Big Man in the front office and Nick Krall. But one guy who did want to get his two cents in was Scott “Dire” Wolf who got into a Twitter battle with the newest Red hoping to be the next Eddie Milner, Jake Fraley (one of the stiffs we got for Jessie Winker). Keep up the good work, Scott, as I am sure that both Griff and Mark Tenenholtz are going to have much better seasons than that guy. By the way, only the Reds can trade away two All Stars and get back a guy who hit .200 a pitcher who MIGHT be a 3-4 starter and another pitcher who they knew had a bad arm. How in the world do you trade for a pitcher who you knew had a bad arm? 

 

Finally, if all goes well this weekend Roger will be selling WE ARE 69! t-shirts for XU winning the NIT. That is after he sells his soul for the return of Sean Miller. 

 

Hopefully mother nature will cooperate, and we will be out at Triple Creek next week. 

 

Marc

 

November 9 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

The most recent edition of the JCC fall softball season came to a close on Tuesday night. Thank you to all the players and captains for making our first fall trip in a long time a fun season. Without further delay the winning captain, Greg Leader, who took time out of his Mensch on a Bench decorating (it’s never too early in the Leader household) to report in. 

 

Team Leader entered championship night winners of six straight games, but needed to scratch, claw and fight from behind in both games to secure the title.

 

Team Solomon gave Team Leader all they could handle in the semifinals. Mike Gray pitched a fantastic game and Solomon’s crew came ready to hit. Team Leader entered the bottom half of the fifth inning down by a run. Two hits later, the game was tied with the winning run on second and nobody out. Team Solomon intentionally walked the next two batters (Anton and Rafi) to load the bases. Ultimately, the winning run was scored on a bloop hit by Matthew Leader to advance Team Leader into the championship game.

 

Like Team Solomon, Team Fogel came ready to play and their big bats plated six runs in the top of the first inning. Team Leader scored three of their own in the bottom half of the inning. The story of the rest of the game was stellar defense by Team Leader, allowing only one additional run in the following four frames, and their bats coming alive. Fueled by a big offensive fourth inning, Team Leader pulled away and won the championship game 14-7.

 

After the game, Leader was overheard urging teammate and future commish, Ryan Silverman, to make the fall season a dynasty league and keep the teams the same as this year. “Just think about it, okay?” Leader asked. “Every team reached the semi-finals this season. Why mess with that kind of parity?”

 

Congrats on a great season, Team Leader. 

 

First, some sad news. Former player, Ben Sandor, lost his wife to her long battle with cancer last week. Please keep him and another former player, his dad Doug, in your thoughts. 

 

In much happier news, shout out to rookie, Camden Kirzner, who is one of the bigger rally cats at UC. He dressed up in the Skyline Coney outfit all day on Saturday at UC’s game day and during the game. Not sure if he got free food out of it but he was all over Twitter and Gameday. 

 

A big thank you to Pat “Sunshine” Feldman, David “The Dr. of Style” Weil, Ryan “Hi-Ho” Silverman, Mark “Eddie Harris” Weisser, Rick Lefton, Mr. Mike and winner of the softball division of the race, Adam Cronstein, for your participation in the Oy Vey 5K race. We broke the race participation record this year so next year I’d like to see more of you out helping to support the J.

 

Evan Gildenblatt will now be the best dressed lawyer in the city as he officially became a lawyer this week. Way to go, Evan. 

 

It’s heartbreaking to see Jacob’s reaction each day when I tell him about the Reds moves this offseason. Watching the World Series, I was thinking, “Huh, maybe his kids will be able to experience the Reds winning since we sure won’t any time soon.” 

 

Finally, in college football this week I’m going to have to hold my nose and root for OSU to win out. Also, and this really pains me, UGA to beat Bama. I’ve seen 6 national titles. I can handle Bama not winning one this year if it means UC makes it to the final 4. SO, for you Bearcats fans, it’s pretty easy. Root for Utah, OSU, UGA and anyone beating Oklahoma. That’s all.

 

Don’t forget, registration for the Spring league is only 7 weeks away.  Hope to see you all in April!

 

 

 

 

November 2 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

On a very cold night at the ballpark, both Jack Frost and an actual skunk (not to be confused by the normal skunk weed smell) were in the air last night. 

 

On field one it was Team Fogel vs. Team Buttermaker

 

Jeremy chimes in: 

Battling the frigid weather, defense seemed to be no problem for Team Fogel. Even with a quiet first few innings with the bats, the leather was flashed all around the field. There were not enough gold gloves to be given out and the JCC record for most outfield assists was shattered. Let it be known that the record books are loosely kept, but the 4 assists from the outfield of Team Fogel will not be forgotten. (Wes “Hungry like a” Wolf, and Jeremy “Hamilton” Fogel) each had a couple. The bats came eventually came alive and the defense continued to be stout which lead to a sweep of the final 2-game series of the season. “I almost had to put pants on last night Fogel said. When I got home last night I hopped right in the shower since there was definitely a lot of shrinkage.” On offense we were led by Pete “The Straw that Stirs the Drink” Soltesz, Josh Rosen, and a lot of errors by Team Buttermaker..

 

For Team Stu “The Mayor” Todd Wasserman crushed a double, Eric “Lombardi” Goldstein had a couple of knocks and Harry Meisner also hit the ball well. “We crushed the ball tonight but give Fogel credit for making the plays. Also, I need to draft faster guys. Goldstein and Brafman getting gunned down on the bases didn’t help us. We are looking forward to shocking the softball world when we defeat Team Leader next week.

 

Over on field 2 it was Team Leader vs. Team Kamrass:

Greg steps away from his future job on Skeleton Yard Wars, the new TV show coming to Lifetime to chime in:

Team Leader completed a perfect back half of the season, winning two against Team Kamrass. They did so without two of their key players, Anton Loon and David Wertheim, who were either out of town or saw the forecasted temperatures for Tuesday night.

 

Both games were close back and forth, relatively low scoring affairs. Jamey was Jamey on the mound, featuring a high level of accuracy and keeping hitters off balance. In fact, the biggest offensive inning of the night came when Jamey was on the bench. Teen rookie Peter Brownell had played all but two positions this season coming into the game – pitcher and right field. Leader let Peter start on the bump in game 2. That experiment was short-lived, as the rookie gave up five earned runs before earning an out. Leader quickly hooked Peter and his infinity ERA, sending him to RF for the rest of the inning – thus completing (within one inning) Peter’s quest to play all 10 positions in a season. We are checking with the historians, but we believe Peter has set JCC fall league season records for number of positions played, as well as highest ERA.

 

Key call-outs go to rookie Jarrod Wallerstein, who hit his first home run, key sub Dan Grefer, who was a vacuum at 3b and the River City skunk, who made a return appearance in left field.

 

The Oy Vey 5K race is this weekend. (Sunday) please if you haven’t already sign up: https://mayersonjcc.org/oyvey5k/ the money raised goes towards the Blue Jays program run by Mr. Mike. See you all out at the race on Sunday!

 

Stu informed us last night that he was really full from the mac n cheese he had for lunch yesterday during his weekly Tuesday early-bird special lunch with some prospective clients. In my head Stu and his friends have this type of discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGGi4SpPtqc

 

With all the pictures of Halloween with our kids I’m wondering if B-Rod dressed his kids up as JFK Jr. If you don’t know what I’m talk about look it up…

 

Speaking of looking things up I suggest you all look up the crazy Halloween story involving a coach for the University of Texas, a monkey and stripper named “Pole Assassin” which not surprisingly was Corey Norris’s nickname in college.

 

Next spring before the draft I suggest we have a 100-yard dash to see who is the fastest guy in the league starring Eppy, Todd, Mike Creemer and Eric “Lombardi” Goldstein. We might be there 2 hours, but it would be fun to watch

 

Congrats to the Braves for winning the World Series last night. Image if the Reds had the front office that the Braves had. Maybe that could have been the Reds last night and Joey Votto crushing the ball to RC the way Freeman did. But hey, we did a look at TJ Friedel and Art Warren.

 

Finally, as most of us who care about college football saw last night, somehow UC is ranked #6 in the college football playoff vote. Now if all UC and the other teams are being judged on is how they did in the first 8 weeks of the season I’m not sure how you can have an undefeated UC and Oklahoma for that matter behind 3 teams with one loss. When asked by ESPN last night why UC is ranked lower the guy in charge the AD from Iowa whatever his name is said well besides ND who has UC beaten? The answer is EVERYBODY. Did they ask besides Penn St who has OSU beaten or besides Ole Miss who did Alabama beat? Because the answer isn’t everybody. I’m not here to say that in 4 weeks UC should be in the top 4 if everything plays out like it should or might. What I am here to say is it is a sham and a joke that TODAY after beating two power 5 teams on the road by double digits and everyone else by a huge score (minus Navy) they aren’t ranked higher. It’s a shame for the players and people who care about UC and all of college football that this continues to happen. More on this next week.

 

October 26 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

Sorry, everyone. I got sidetracked yesterday and forgot to post the recap from the games on Tuesday. I think the weed smell was still with me. But enough about that. Let’s get to the action.

 

On field one it was Team Chico Bailbonds Solomon vs. Team Kamrass

 

In a stunning turn of events Team Solomon swept a doubleheader from Team Kamrass winning the first game 15-10 and the second game 5-4. “I take full credit for both of our wins,” Stu said post game. “With me being on the IL with a bad ankle I was able to use skills as a manager to lead us to the wins. We had nothing to lose so we used Rick Lefton and Alex Krause as “rovers” on defense. I figured we couldn’t play any worse than we have been going with the traditional defensive spots, so why not?  This seemed to flummox the guys on Kamrass (other than the Special One Mike Rothstein) and we kept them off the bases. Plus, not playing permitted me to continue talking smack all game which is really the main reason I’m out here each week.”

 

Hitting stars were Super sub Kyle Grefer, David “BP” Snyder, Marc Brafman, “The Macho Man” Andrew Gage and Alex Krause in the first game. And in the second Scott “why can’t we be” Friend, Rick Lefton, Eric “Jeter” Goldstein all got big hits.  Not to be overlooked the defense led by Harry “Hood” Meisner at SS, Alex Krause as rover and Kyle Grefer in RF saved the day. Kudos for Mike Gray for striking out 4 or 5 guys over the course of the doubleheader. The only downer for Team Solomon is Andrew Gage hurting himself trying to catch a foul popup. Hope your shoulder is ok, Macho Man.

 

Even in the loss Team Kamrass had a couple of highlights. Commish, Rick Tenenholtz beat the shift for a few hits.  The Special One, Mike Rothstein fielded one of the hardest hit grounders of the year at SS off the bat of Meisner to end an inning and save a couple of runs. Also, Mark “Big Blue” Tenenholtz in front of his Mom, his girlfriend and what we can assume is his future Mother-In-Law hit a homer and a triple in his first two at bats. It should be noted that this was the first time that his mom met his girlfriend’s mom, and nothing says love like meeting your future in-laws at a JCC night softball game when the temp was around 50 degrees. 

 

On field 2, it was a battle for first place as Team Fogel took on the ‘27 Yankees Team Leader.  Greg took time out from organizing his skeleton displays in his front yard to report in. 

 

Heading into the fifth week of the season, a pattern became recognizable in our league – Team Fogel/Kamrass/Leader would split their doubleheader against other and sweep the doubleheader against Team Solomon. However, change (and the now familiar weed/skunk infused scent) was in the brisk fall air at River City Sports Complex.

 

After falling behind by four after the top of the first, Team Leader batted through their 12-man lineup, plating seven runs in the inning. The team overcame some errors by their usually sure-handed defense, as well as some incredible outfield play by Team Fogel (highlighted by the captain, himself) to take the first game 16-12.

 

After hearing the news that Team Solomon had beaten Team Kamrass in their first game of the night, Team Leader knew what was at stake in their second game. A win would ensure at least a tie for first place in the standings with one week to go. In another back-and-forth contest, Team Leader eventually pulled ahead and won 13-9.

 

Team Solomon beating Team Kamrass in game two, not only broke up the predictable weekly pattern, but meant that, with its own sweep, Team Leader will claim a regular season title in the fall league.

 

‘This team was built around speed’ said Leader. ‘There’s not a slow guy on the team. Our mindset is – get on base and you’re going to score.’

 

Leader also noted that he believes every one of the 12 players on the team has hit either a triple or home run this season – something rarely, if ever, accomplished in the illustrious history of the JCC fall softball league.

 

Leader also congratulated Team Solomon and its skipper, Stu, on their big wins. ‘You just never know in this league. Stu could definitely rally the troops for another pair of wins in the one-night playoff or the league could put ‘Team Solomon – Regular Season Champions’ on Team Leader’s trophies.’

 

Big shout out goes to Scott “Shorty” Adams on his son making the National Honor Society.

 

Chiming in from Florida, Dave “The Minister of Fun” Cohen told Roger and I that he is tired of us seeing pictures of our cat (me) and bobbleheads (Roger) on Facebook. I can’t speak for Roger but that is grounds for de-friending there if you can’t appreciate pictures of the legendary Cranberry the cat, Dave.

 

All time friend to the league and sometime sub, Billy Kahn’s daughter got married last week. Congrats on that and a bigger congrats on getting David Bell to be the official for the ceremony. No word on if Bell took 3 of the groomsmen out of the wedding two hours earlier than they should have been which resulted in him almost getting dropped out of his chair during the hora because the replacement groomsmen couldn’t do the job like the starters.

 

Continuing the trend of guys in the league being related to people that did great things, Aaron “Straight outta” Compton’s sister-in-law, Danille Minson, was named the new President of the Jewish Federation here in town. She is the first woman in the over 120 years of Federation here. 

 

We are only a couple of weeks away from the Oy Vey 5K at the JCC. Please sign up even if you can’t race or walk it’s for the JCC Blue Jays program: https://mayersonjcc.org/oyvey5k/

 

Tyler Wolf and his company, Urban Blooms, were profiled on Cincy Live last week. Sorry I can’t find the link, but it was a great look at what he’s doing around town to make our city look pretty.

 

It’s a weird Cincinnati sports fan mindset when both UC and the Bengals are winning and getting national attention, isn’t it? I suggest we all sit back and enjoy the ride even if it ends on Saturday/Sunday this week.

 

Speaking of Cincy sports, I find it funny that people are actually complaining that the Reds traded Adam Duvall a few years ago because now he is back and hitting well for the Braves. First of all, we got Lucas Sims, one of the Reds better relief pitchers. But the bigger question is where exactly would Duvall play on the Reds? I guess you could make the case for him in CF but he’s not better than Winker or Nick the Great. So please enough about that trade. I’d still take Sims.

 

And last but not least this week in college football.  After Saturday we can finally start paying attention to the polls since the college football rankings start on Tuesday. What I will be interested in seeing is if OSU is ranked ahead of Oregon if both win on Saturday. If a team has the same record and beat you on the road head to head shouldn’t they be ranked higher? And of course, the big Bearcat in the room, if UC takes care of biz vs. Tulane, where will they come in? No matter what it should make for an interesting last month of the season.