Month: September 2022

September 7 Recap

By Marc Brafman

After a LONG and wet regular season, we somehow got all the post season done on time and without too many hiccups. When all was said and done the best team in the regular season proved to be the best in the post season. Congrats to Captain Stu Solomon and his team for a great season. 

For those that didn’t know, in a back-and-forth game vs. Team Weisser the game, season and championship ended on a walk off single by Jeff “The Natural” Weisbrot who drove in Dan “Everything is so” Green who led off the bottom of the 7th with a double to win 9-8.

Instead of Stu’s recap e-mail he passed along the e-mail that Jeff sent his teammates after the game:

Some of you know this already, but I started playing in this league when I was 16.   I’m now 44.   44-16 equals 28 years.   I was gone for 8 of those years, so let’s call it 20 years of playing this league, and I had never been on a team that had won a half or an end of the year tournament.

Even though I was absent for part of the first half, I could tell early on this team was different.   We had guys up and down the lineup that could get a rally started.   I could chill out in the outfield and occasionally go track one down, and I knew I had a capable infield in front of me, and I just had to help on the back side.   That was also unique.

This was a fun bunch of teammates to play with and kudos to Stu for putting this team together.   As many of you know, Jason Faust and I were lifelong friends, and we competed with and against each other for many years in this league.  He and I had a long running joke of how I had never won a half or a tournament, and I certainly had him in the back of my mind throughout this tourney run. 

And, especially while I was up there in the bottom of the 7th with the winning run on second.   I never imagined I would have the opportunity to personally end the 20-year curse, lol!

Thanks to Tyler for straightening me out, when I had a brain fart, and gave a thought to bunting.  In so many words, he told me to get the fuck out of here and hit the ball!  I’m a grown adult now, but it is still fun to win a championship in this league.

As talented as we were, it wasn’t always easy, and this team always found a way to battle out of tough situations.   We never gave up, cool stuff.   

Thanks for letting me be part of it.

Jeff Weisbrot, 6th Round Pick

Congrats again to Team Stu and all the guys on his team. And to Team Weisser who played two great games to get to the championship game and made it a fun exciting game last night. 

Reading Jeff’s words above it really goes to show how much this league means to all. From Cam Kirzner who might be the youngest guy in the league to Jerry, Howie and Eppy it’s a special thing we do once a week each summer and how much we all enjoy it and cherish each Wednesday. 

One thing that struck me about Jeff’s note above is that you are never too old to get excited about winning a title. I was reminded of this last night when I watched my daughter, the non-sports fan of the Brafman household, win her first Jr. High tennis match. I was planning on going to the game last night, but her match went to 2 sets, and she won in a tie breaker for her first win. She then asked me to stick around to watch the doubles match, which Wyoming won for their first team win of the year. You’d have thought they had won the US Open! I hope none of us ever forget the joy of winning no matter how old we get. 

Speaking of old: here is an amazing stat from two weeks ago. 

On Aug. 29, 2001 Serena Williams won a match at the US Open and the great Albert Pujios homered for the Cards. That night Vlad Guerro, Craig Biggio and Dante Bichette “Happens” also homered

On Aug. 29, 2022 Serena Williams won a match in the US Open, AP homered vs. the Reds and Vlad Guerro JR., Cavan Biggio and Bo Bichette all homered. Sports are weird like that, right?

Happy anniversary to Eric Gruen (13 years I believe).

Happy birthday to JCC softball alumnus, Jeff Cohen.

Reminder the ASG is Sunday Sept 25 at Triple Creek. Come out and cheer on the guys.

The Oy Vey 5K is Nov. 13. Please come out and support the JCC and the sports program.

The Fall league is getting ready to go. Please sign it up if you want to play.

In case you missed it earlier this week Rabbi Yitz would like to pass this along:

I was wondering if you could include a message in your next communication to the League:

As Softball is a prime Jewish community program, it would be nice to let the large number of “Young Jewish Professionals” ages 21-40 that play know about a very popular event coming up — the “End of Summer Soiree” on Thurs Sept 15.

It’s a fun, social, Jewish party downtown. Click to RSVP.

I’m happy to report that Roger didn’t get tossed overboard on his cruise. 

A big thank you to all the Captains this year. It was a crazy year with the rain, the Sunday morning games, but you made it through, and everyone had a great time. (Well, maybe not Roger) 

Finally, a big shout out this year to Ryan, Rick T, Ricky L, Jerry and Mr. Mike for all of their help in getting the league through the rain, the postponements, the crazy schedule changes and everything else that happened this year. Well done guys. We don’t thank you guys enough for keeping us in line and the league running smoothly. 

Marc

On a glorious night for softball (of course, when most of us weren’t playing) we had two great, down-to-the-wire games at Triple Creek.

On field 2 it was #1 seed Team Solomon vs. #5 seed Team Lefton

Stu chimes in first for the winners:

Team Solomon advances to the Championship Game with an 8-6 victory over Team Lefton.It was a back and forth battle with great plays from both teams.On a team filled with big hitters, the offensive action started with a seeing eye single by Evan “6th Circuit Court” Gildenblatt to score Corey “Chuck”  Norris. Dan “Everything is So” Green and Jeff “No Novocaine” Weisbrot were terrors on the base pads, both having multiple hits. Event of note: Team Lefton was terrified of Gregg “Triple G” Harris’ high exit velocity and intentionally walked him.Two of our biggest hits were from Ryan “ROY” Marcus with a bases-clearing triple. He came around to score on a delayed steal of home. It wasn’t the prettiest slide (it was more of a belly flop), but it all counts. The second was a home run by Adam “The Bad Guy” Cronstein after Griffin Harris robbed Adam in the 2nd inning. This ball was too far out of his reach. Adam chirped Griff on his way to second and eventually scored. That put team Solomon up one going into the 5th.Team Solomon scrapped out a run in the bottom of 6 to put them up 2 going into the top of 7.“It was a great team effort with contributions up and down the line-up and solid D across the board”, said Team Captain, Stuart Solomon, who is in his first ever trip to the Tournament championship game.

On Field 4 it was #7 seed, Team Weisser vs. #6 seed, Team Zawatsky.

Mark, from his Europe trip for the winners: (I can’t remember the final score but Team Weisser won by 5)

What a great team win for my guys last night. Down one going to the top of the 7th, our bats came alive. The big blow was a two-run go-ahead triple by Brad “The Human Rain Delay” Wagner. Watching from the bleachers Mike “Flash” Creemer remarked that he could have scored from first on that ball. Tyler “Big Bad” Wolf, Jamie Kurtzer, and Brad Gallop also had big hits in the inning. “I was just trying to help my team,” Gallop said post game while icing the boo-boo he got on his knee from sliding without pants on.” I’m so excited we made the championship game. Earlier in the game, “The Doctor of Style” David Weil had a big hit and contributed with a sac fly later in the game. “We will be ready to play next week,” Mark said. “Even without me, I’m confident that we can knock off Solomon.”

So, we are set with a Team Solomon vs. Team Weisser final next week at 6:00 PM at Triple Creek. If you are free, come on out and watch and we’ll all head out to the Silver Spring house post game for some wings to celebrate the end of the season. 

League notes:
If you haven’t sent your ASG votes to Ryan, please do so. The game is coming up soon.

If you would like to play in the fall league let us know. Games will be on Sunday mornings at Triple Creek. 

The time for me bugging all of you about the Oy Vey 5K race at the JCC is back. This year all the money earned goes towards ALL the sports programs and that includes the softball league. You can walk if you don’t run, you get a fun shirt and it’s for a good cause. The race is Nov. 13 at the JCC. I’ll send the link out soon.

Congrats to former League Rookie of the Year Leon “The Bull” Seserman on his engagement last week.

What is going on with fans at baseball games? Twice this week once in Oakland, and once in Toronto fans had sex in the stands. Maybe that would work for the Reds.

Did you see the story that came out yesterday about Angel Hernandez, the worst ump in baseball, who is suing baseball because he never works any of the big games. The last postseason he worked was in 2018 and he had 4 calls overturned by replay in one game. Joe Torre, who was in charge of the umps at the time, said, “Yeah, you are terrible, and this is why you aren’t working the World Series.” The report also mentioned that he went up to maybe my least favorite Red of all time, Homer Bailey, and asked him to sign 11 balls after one of his no-hitters. The fact that MLB can’t or won’t fire him is the reason we are going to see robot umps soon.

With all the gushing over Serena Williams (and rightfully so) winning her first two US Open matches at 41, everyone should look at our league where Jerry “Doc” Kirzner, Howie and Eppy are still going strong into their mid-70’s. Let’s see her do that!! By the way, on Monday night Martina Navratilova and her dog were sitting next to Mike Tyson. Everyone it seems is coming out for Serena.

Finally, Roger is on a cruise to celebrate his wedding anniversary. What are the odds that we hear about a man pushed overboard, not by his wife, but by the entire crew? Roger on a cruise… man that is a lot of talking and nowhere to go!