October 23, 2023: Banquet recap

Last night was our end of the season dinner and awards night. A fun time was had by all at the JCC. For you guys that never come, I encourage you to come next year. It’s the final night you are with your team and we all get together until next spring. 

The winners were:

Ron Rose Rookie of the Year – “Pistol” Pete Brownell

Offensive player of the year – Matt “the Bobcat” Brodof

League MVP – Wes “Who Dey” Wolf (more on that later)

Comeback player of the year – Jack Cohen

Gold Glove Winner – Zach Mayer

Tournament and ASG MVP – Jeff Finkelstein

Frank Harkavy Goodwill Ambassador Award – Micah Kamrass

Markus Kruke Good Sportsmanship award – Pat “Sunshine” Feldman

Once again, a huge thank you to Ryan, Rick and Mr. Mike for all of your hard work to make our league what it is. 

Off season league notes

I am sure that I have missed a few but here are guys that celebrated birthday’s (that I know of)

Jeff Cohen 

Ryan “The One Man Gang” Marcus

Drew “Kung Fu” Brown

“The Special One” Mike Rothstein

Eddie Gallop

Zach Mayer

Brad “The Human Rain Delay” Wagner

Albert Weisbrot

Joel “Sparky” Fogel

Mark Weisser

If I missed your birthday, sorry 

Last month, Evan Gildenblatt and Ben Barnett’s mom won the Kovot award at the JCC annual dinner. It was an honor for me to present it to her.  Also at the meeting a plaque was dedicated to the JCC for friend of the league, Jeff Elkus. Make sure you check it out the next time you are at the JCC

Eric “Jeter” Goldstein and his wife, Anne, celebrated their anniversary this month

“Handsome” Sam Castellini and his wife had their first baby. Congrats to you, both

Speaking of babies, Jamey “The Rookie” Drennan and his wife are expecting their second daughter in November.

More Evan Gildenblatt news…he got engaged since the end of the season

Scott “Why can’t we be?” Friend started a new job at UD. Congrats, Scott.

David “Slim Shady” Wertheim is a man about town. You can find him on TV promoting one of his events or dressed in all white for others. And I guess I can’t even tease him about the 2-3 loss OSU team since I don’t think they lose until they play Michigan. 

Wes “Who Dey” Wolf has had an eventful offseason: Get married-check; go on long European honeymoon that the rest of us are jealous about-check; start new job with the Bengals in their digital sales department; check and check. Good luck with the Bengals, buddy. Who dey!

Roger is selling random old hockey programs. Not sure who is in the market for a 1998 Toronto Mapleleafs yearbook but I guess someone is. He also has a Billie Jean King teach your kid tennis book from at least 1976. Actually that one I might find interesting

David “the Doctor of Style” and I will be co-GM’s of the Reds next season. Between the two of us we can figure out how to get a starting pitcher better than Luke Weaver, what to do with Joey Votto, and why we should trade Jonathan India. Stay tuned for that.

Recently retired after 50 that’s right 5-0 years in the league, the Salsa king, Alan Lessure, has volunteered to help coach a team next year in the Ron Rose honorary role. He also said he will always bring his glove and catcher’s gear if any team needs a sub. 

In a random bit of Jewish Geography, Eric “The mouth of the Midwest” Gruen a couple of years ago worked with US Gymnast and all round Jewish hottie, Aly Raisman, on a platform for P&G. My neighbor’s daughter recently got engaged to her brother. When asked to comment, Eric said she (Aly) is a bit crazy but overall was a nice person to work for. Unfortunately, just like Seinfeld when he dated the Russian Gymnast, Aly didn’t offer to use Eric as the pommel horse.  

For those of you with Netflix, I suggest a couple of sports movies that I watched. One is Called The Swimmers, a true story about a couple of Syrian swimmers who escaped before the Civil War and made their way to Germany. A really amazing story. The other is the St. of Second Chances, a story about Mike Veeck. If you don’t know who Bill and Mike Veeck are, just google them. While the ending is sad, the majority of the story is really funny (this is a documentary).

The Oy Vey 5K is coming up in two weeks. Please sign up and if you can’t do that, do me a favor and share the link on your social media pages for me. 

https://mayersonjcc.org/event/oy-vey-5k-2/?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=278510081&_hsenc=p2ANqtz–I5mLeMtBkgJeZJPr768WiZ4oRnci5u56JvC55raMwNinrUNPyeu7kzD_EFk6m8e5jdiFFnoddA3euIhuaVxD6lPUSpQ&utm_content=278510081&utm_source=hs_email&fbclid=IwAR3fnmgb9xm2Jx4RGiCVpJl6YtNrsMpqMaOxRfbWWGPzvu2XB39WbVhyanc

Finally, not all the news was great this offseason as both Rick T’s brother died and just this week former long time player Mike Kadetz’s mom died. So sorry for your loss, guys. 

Let’s all keep all the guys in the league that know or have family in Israel in our thoughts. 

If you ever want me to post something in the blog drop me a line mbrafman14@gmail.com

Talk to everyone soon.

Marc