Month: October 2021

 

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. 

 

October 19 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

It was another amazing night weather wise for the fall league. Let’s hope this weather picks up next spring. Sure, there was the normal October chill and weed smell in the air, but hey, it’s better than monsoon season in July, right? 

 

Let’s get to the action. 

 

Over on Field Two it was Kamrass vs Fogel.

 

Micah chimes in:

 

Team Kamrass lost to Team Fogel in the first game. Nothing interesting happened except Mark Tenenholtz hit another ball over the fence.

Game 2 was an all-time JCC softball Classic. Trailing by 8 runs in the top of the 5th, Team Kamrass came roaring back with a 14-run inning to ultimately win the game. Every single player on the team got at least one hit in that inning. Highlights included a laser off the bat of Bryce Anslinger that was still going up when it cleared the fence. Also, Kombrink, Creemer, and Marvelous Mr. Mendel got back-to-back-to-back singles and scored the tying and go ahead runs. Super sub, James Swan, had a couple of triples and some nice plays on defense.

In the field, Micah Kamrass out Fogeled Jeremy Fogel with a diving catch in the outfield that turned into a double play. Mark Tenenholtz made an admirable debut at shortstop, and Ken Groh came through with key pitching and hitting to lock down the win.

 

On Field One it was Team Leader/Loon vs. Team Bad News Bears

 

Anton and company jumped all over the Chico’s Bail Bonds Sponsored Team Solomon in game one, winning 15-1. While the normal guys David “The Event King of Cincinnati” Wertheim, Anton, Ryan “Hi Ho” Silverman and Greg Leader all contributed, it was the monster hits by Peter Brownell and Matthew Leader that stuck out. Peter hit one off the fence and Matthew pulled one down the LF line that one-hopped the fence while also playing very good defense. “We like where our team is,” Leader said post game. “The only thing I currently think more about than this team is my award-winning skeleton displays in my front yard. Kudus go out to Jamie for his continued dominance on the mound.”

 

Team Buttermaker decided to change things up in the second game and completely reversed their order. This seemed to confuse L/L as Team Tanner Boyle took the lead with some key hits from the bottom of the order as David “The Dr. of Style” Weil, The Mayor, Todd Wasserman Alex Karras and David “BP” Snyder got them on the board. But this isn’t Hollywood and Kelly Leak isn’t coming through that door anytime soon. Despite back-to-back home runs by Stu (an absolute bomb that landed shortly after the Kamrass/Fogel game ended) and Harry “Hood” Meisner, Team Leader/Loon soon took the lead. Once again it was the normal guys who got the big hits for Team Leader/Loon, but the big hit was a 2-out 2-run single to break the game open in the bottom of the 4th by Jared Wallerstein. “Not only does Jared have a very solid mustache, he also has been a very solid player for us,” Loon said.   The 6-run lead was too much for Rudy Stein and company to overcome and they lost 10-5. “We played our best out there,” Stu Buttermaker said after the game. “Unfortunately, our best isn’t very good at the moment. To make matters worse I hurt my ankle running the bases, but never fear. I’ve got Timmy Lupus ready to sub for me next week.” 

 

The food at the new field is surprisingly good. I would suggest the chicken quesadilla. The fries are tasty as well. It goes well after you’ve gotten a contact high from the weed smell on the field.  

 

Let’s all keep former player and all-around good guy Ben Sandor in our thoughts. His wife is battling cancer and he could use all the good vibes we can muster.

 

A lot of anniversaries (weddings) for the guys. The Special One, Mike Rothstein,  The Mayor Todd Wasserman, Rick Lefton, and I’m sure I’m missing a couple of others. Congrats guys…

 

We are less than a month away from the Oy Vey 5K that helps out Mr. Mike and the Blue Jays program. Please sign up to run or walk in the event and even more importantly please pass the info along to your friends and family who would also like to enter. Free food, a cool t-shirt, music by Rick’s BFF DJ Toad and more will be available for you.  Go to https://mayersonjcc.org/oyvey5k/  to register.  Thanks in advance.

 

Can you explain to me why baseball teams celebrate winning the wild card round or even the NL/AL DC rounds with champagne and jumping around on the field? Do NFL and NBA teams do this when they win the wild card round? No! They go back to the locker room and think we haven’t won JACK yet, why would we celebrate? I don’t get this. Of course, since it was 31 years TODAY since the Reds won the World Series and over 9000 days ago since they won a playoff series, I guess if either of those happen in our lifetime again I would celebrate like a fool as well. 

 

In other things that I can’t explain, why do people get so worked up over a college football poll in October? Don’t get me wrong I’m both thrilled and amazed that UC is ranked #2 in the country, but does it really matter on Oct. 20? If we are ranked #2 on December 20 I will get excited. Also, to David Wertheim who says that UC shouldn’t be ranked that high, I’d like to remind him that UC has the second best road win of the season by any team with only Oregon beating OSU in Columbus being better. Final UC thought…one of the funniest things I’ve heard in a while was another OSU homer, Joey Gallaway, saying that UC’s win over ND wasn’t that great because quote “ND has a loss.” Yeah, to UC you moron…

 

Speaking of morons how about the Washington St. coach who got himself fired because he won’t get vaccinated?  Now he is suing them because they fired him with cause. Buddy you’ve known since at least July this would happen and you’ve not explained yourself or given one good reason why you should get a religious exemption.  I guess 3 million and being the highest paid state of Washington employee wasn’t enough to convince you to get a shot that billions of people across the world have gotten. Oh, and if their trainer was another like the training staff at UC who has continually kept our entire department up to date on Covid and vaccines, then double shame on you. If you trust your training staff with your players’ health but not your own, what does that say about you? 

 

Mel Brooks is writing History of the World Part II. I just hope Jews In Space is included.

 

Finally, I haven’t picked on Roger in a while, but he did leave me a 1:20 second message the other day. Next week I’ll be happy to play it for you.

October 7 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

On a misty warm evening the JCC softball players battled the lights (or lack thereof) the smell of some fine weed and the cement fields to finally get two games in under the lights. Rookie Capt. Jeremy “Hamilton” Fogel leads off:

 

Game 1: Team Fogel got off to a sluggish defensive start allowing seven runs in the top of the first inning but rookie pitcher Corey Norris locked in afterward, only allowing two runs for the rest of the game. A stellar offensive performance from top to bottom as well as some timely hits carried the team to victory. Super sub Joel Fogel seems to get better with age, Josh Rosen with a pair of triples, Corey Norris going against the shift to drive in a few runs, Zach Michelson with two hustle singles to keep the inning going and a lot of XBH from other contributors propelled Team Fogel in game one…….

 

Game 2: Jumping out ahead in the top of the first, Team Fogel continued their pattern of implosive innings giving up a 6 spot with two outs in the bottom of the second. Battling back from behind as they’ve proved to do so effectively on the young year, Team Fogel took a 1-run lead into the bottom of the fourth before the wheels fell off. An eleven run bottom of the fourth by Leader & Co. brought Team Fogel their second run-rule defeat of the season.

 

Stats of the weird: Team Fogel is the only team in modern (soft)ball era to trail by more than 5 runs in the first game of a double-header and then come from behind to win with a subsequent run rule defeat in the second game.

Over on Field Two Team Kamrass swept Team Stu 

Both games were close but the bats for Team Kamrass carried the day. In the first game they were led my Mark “Big Blue” Tenenholtz who hit a ball on the fly off the wall  and Rabbi Yitz who continued his strong hitting from the summer. The Special One Mike Rothstein also contributed with a couple of knocks as did the birthday Boy Bryce Anslinger. Team Stu was led by Marc Brafman, Harry “Hood” Meisner and David “BP” Snyder. It should be noted in game one Team Kamrass used a ringer for an inning at 3rd base in Rafi’s brother where of course he made all three plays in the inning before he was banished to RF for the rest of the game.

The second game was a back and forth affair with Team Kamrass jumping out to a big lead but Team Stu battled back to take the lead going into the bottom of the 5th. But Kamrass was able to tie the game and send it to extra innings. In the top of the 6th Meisner got the go-ahead RBI on the most JCC play of all time. A dropped 3rd strike missed ball at 1st which let the go-ahead run score from 3rd with two outs. But not to be outdone in the bottom of the 6th Rabbi Yitz tied the game on a single and scored the winning run on an error by Team Stu to win the game by a run. 

League Notes:

I think I speak for all 4 teams when I say we all need some practice playing under the lights. 

 

Congrats goes out to Zach Meyer on the birth of his second kid. 

 

For all of you that posted pictures of your kids going to homecoming this past weekend I’m glad to see that the Jewfro is making a comeback..

 

I’ve been mentioning it for a while but now we have the link and the registration page open for the JCC Oy Vey 5K race that is going to take place this Nov. 

Please sign up and spread the word as this is a great fund raiser for Mr. Mike’s Blue Jays program which I know is near and dear to most of your hearts: https://mayersonjcc.org/oyvey5k/?fbclid=IwAR1f8Qv9fLy9jRHqaQkJcPr1taspaCsCZTvBFjCp-4paEgbrP_jYBiEEdbo

 

If you stayed up to watch the NL Wild Card game last night you saw Chris Taylor beat the Cards with a walk off 2 run homer. I know it must be hard to be a side line reporter but don’t you think they can do a better job than ask the following question: “Chris is this the biggest hit of your career?” Unless he is Bobby Thompson or Joe Carter I’d say the answer is yes. 

Since I was in the stands and not on the field last Saturday at Notre Dame I didn’t have much in the way of helping the Bearcats win but since everyone seems to be asking, this is what Bearcats fans need to root for the rest of the way. Bama and UGA to go 12-0 and meet in the SEC championship game (they will both make the final 4 no matter who wins or loses). Oregon to lose again,  Oklahoma to lose this weekend to Texas or to anyone in the Big 12 and then for one of the Big 10 teams to win out. Doesn’t matter who. What we don’t want is for their to be a lot of 1 loss Big 12, Big 10 and Pac 12 teams mucking things up for the Bearcats who have to win out. Too much football left to really think about all of this but man it’s fun to dream right? My advice for everyone is to just enjoy the ride that the Bearcats are on..

 

Finally a brief note on the Reds: What struck me about going to the ND game was that they played a highlight video before the game and just like the one that the Reds play it depressed me more than made me excited. All of the highlights were 20+ years old (give or take) and just like the Reds they rely in the good ol’ days while not really being great now. Sure ND has made the final 4 a couple of times but never a serious threat to OSU, Bama, Clemson etc. It’s been over 9400 days read that again 9400!!!! days since the Reds last won a playoff series and next year doesn’t look like that will change. You saw under-achieving teams like the Mets and the Pads firing their managers this week and, not saying that Bell should have been fired, but at least the message to the Mets and Pads fan base is being “ok” isn’t “ok.” Meanwhile down at GABP being 4 games over .500 and being competitive until Sept is viewed as a positive. Won’t it be nice if instead of that the narrative was we have a good young group of guys and we promise to do everything we can to get better next year. Instead we get, “well we have to see what the budget will permit.” Sounds like another 3rd place finish to me.