Month: May 2025

Somehow the rain held off yesterday and sun poked it’s head out on Field 3 about the top of the 7th just when Team Brafman was trying to protect a 5-run lead. 

Let’s get to the action.

On Field 1, Team Wolf beat Team Simons 28-12.

Team Wolf beat Team Simons 28-12 in a slugfest on field three last night. With two separate innings where the first 7 batters in the lineup scored, Team Wolf was on a roll from the first inning on. 

Team Simons started with 6 in the first inning, then Scottie Wolf stayed strong only allowing 6 runs the rest of the game, earning his first two game winning streak as a pitcher in over 40 years in the league. Scottie also added a 2 run homer to his stat line, prompting catcher Andy Beck to call him the “Shohei Ohtani” of the JCC. 

Team Wolf is now 5-2 with a shot at the first half championship and is looking forward to the much anticipated return of Howie Schwartz for the second half. 

On Field 2, Team Fogel took on Team AJ

AJ for the winners:

Another really good 7-5 team win for The Goons last night against Team Fogel in a

defensive battle. Both teams hardly made an error the entire game, so it was really fun

to be a part of.

The game mostly happened in the first inning as we jumped out to a 5-2 lead on the

back of a couple triples from Ian Segall and sub, Stu Solomon. After that Team Fogel

chipped away, but we were able to keep them at a distance to hang on to the

win. Shout out to the defensive MVPs of the night, Dee Harris on our end, and Jeremy

Fogel (shocking, I know) for them. Both of them made ridiculous plays keeping both

teams in the game.

No one could confirm for me but this had to be one of the first Jamey (Kurtzer and

Drennan) duels on the pitchers mound in the history of the softball league. Clearly it

lived up to the billing around it.

Sunday we will look to keep it rolling against Team Simons. (Team AJ plays for the first half title on Sunday vs. Team Simons)

On Field 3 Team Brafman took on Team Wagner 

Marc for the Winners:

In another clutch defensive (and offensive) performance, Team Brafman won 12-11 in a close game despite some terrible 3rd base coaching that will be addressed behind closed doors . Hitting stars for Team Brafman were Rabbi Yitz who went 3-4, Ricky Lefton who might have gone 4-4, Jimmy Lefton with a big time double, Harry Meisner with one of the all time JCC doubles,  and Zach “The Wild Horse” Zackem who had a couple of clutch hits and timely stolen bases. On defense, Zach Mayer made a couple of great plays at SS but the two big stars for Team Brafman were the rookie combo of Corey Meyers and Jeff “Oscar Meyer” Wiener in LF and at first base. Both played outstanding defense all game and helped win the game. It was a back and forth game but in the bottom of the 6th, Team Brafman had a big two-out rally and scored 5 runs to go up 12-7. Team Wagner showed the heart of a champion and tried to come back in the top of the 6th with the big blow coming off the bat of Steve Zawatsky, but Team Brafman was able to get the final two outs to close the deal. 

Team Brafman looks to finish the first half with a win vs. Team Stu on Sunday.

Finally on Field 4 it was Tean Groh vs. Team Grefer 

Ken for the winners:

Team Grefer jumped on a shaky Groh in the 1st inning with hits everywhere to jump to a 7-0 lead. A 2-out hit by Chris Von Holle drove in 2. After a scoreless 2nd inning, a Pete Soltesz triple drove in 2. Heading into the bottom of the 4th down 12-5 the bottom of the lineup said enough is enough and started the inning with three straight singles. Then Tyler Stansbury and Sam Castellini drove them in and Jack Cohen followed up with a home run over the fence to cut the score to 12-11. Soltesz singled and later came around to tie the game after 4. Stansbury hit an inside the park home run with 2 outs in the bottom of the 5th to put Groh up 13-12 but with 2 outs in the 7th Grefer got a hit from Bill Bernstein to tie the game. The game went to extras and after holding Grefer in the top of the 8th with a great catch by Tyler, Jack Cohen led off the 8th with a single. Jack is making a run for MVP going 5-5 and scoring his 4th run after our real captain, David Solomon, roped a single with the bases loaded to give Groh the comeback win 14-13. The 8-10 hitters Todd Wasserman, Danny Meisterman and Mathew Kraus all went 2-4 with a run. Castellini had 3 doubles and made 3 great catches in LCF. 

As we come down to the final Sunday of the season three teams are still in the running for the first half title. If Team AJ wins they win outright. If they lose and Team Wolf and Team Brafman win there will be a 3-way tie for the title. We might have a Friday Night Lights coin flip up the street at the Circle K to determine the first half champ.

League notes:

Happy birthday’s go out to Jeremy Fogel, Wes Wolf and former player Barry Kaplan this week.

Reminder once again, June 11 is Wing Night sponsored by Big Gig Franklin at the Silver Spring House. This is free and open to all of us so hope to see you there.

The J Classic is coming up as well. Please sign up and support the JCC.

A huge shout out to Jared Kamrass who announced this week that he is once again cancer free. That is great news!

In kids news: Jeff Weisbrot’s son Evan’s baseball team came in second place in a recent tournament and Joey Monk (son of Brian) is up for Penn Station Athlete of the week for his work at Sycamore Lacrosse. Good work, boys and Dads.

This week in the Athletic they announced the top Reds players since the start of 2000. If you put this team up vs. the other top teams from baseball I would predict the would be no better than 3rd place in the NL Central and no closer to getting to the World Series than our current team. An entire generation of Reds fans have grown up without seeing a winning team. It makes me more sad than angry.

Here is there team by the way:Tucker Barnhart C, Joey Votto 1B, Zach Cozart (over Elly) which is dumb at SS, Geno Suarez at 3rd, Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey Jr, and Jay Bruce in the outfield, P Homer Bailey, who would never get my vote (I personally would have Hunter Green, Aaron Harang, Johnny Cueto, Luis Castillo, Bronson Arroyo, Aroldis Chapman,
in this vain) Roger has promised me that he will work on a personalized Reds bobblehead series of the following Reds players over the past 25 years who didn’t make this list: Jeff Conine, Jeff Keppinger, Buck Coats, Matt Belisle, Kyle Lohse, Ryan Jorgensen, Eric Milton, Gary Majewski and, of course, Marlon Byrd. Thanks, Roger for the bobbleheads. See everyone on Sunday!

Marc

Hi, everyone. Sorry for the radio silence from the blog the last couple of weeks. This is going to be a 3-week blog with some captains reporting in and others not. Blame them, not me. 

So starting from the week of May 14:

From Team Goldhoff’s win over Team Brafman:

Great win for the Goons this week as we took down a shorthanded Brafman 10-7.

The game started out a little sloppy with errors on both sides bringing in runs, but it tightened up and, even with 9 players, Team Brafman would not go down without a fight. Zach Mayer hit an inside the park homer, and Harry Meisner pounded one over the fence to lead the way for them.

On our side it was another gritty team effort with another one of our players leaving the field with a slight injury. However, we stayed the course and Griffin Harris, the Commish and I each had 3 hits while our super sub for the week, Matt Miller, had a couple hits and drove in 3 runs. Ryan Small and Ian Conwell had multiple hits as well, while helping out immensely in the field.

We will play Team Solomon on Sunday in the first 11:30 game slot we have this year.

Team Wagner defeated Team Groh 17–11 in a high-scoring matchup Wednesday night.

Wagner started steady with a run in each of the first three innings, added two more in both the 4th and 5th, and then exploded for 9 runs in the 6th to pull away. Joel Buckley anchored the defense at shortstop and had a big night at the plate, going 4-for-4 and scoring three times.

Wagner’s offense was a full-team effort, with multi-hit games from Brad Wagner, Eli Zawatsky, Steve Zawatsky, Anton Loon, Matt Leader, Seth Shaifer, Scott Raskin, and Corey Norris.

Defensively, Eli patrolled RCF with precision, Corey made a highlight-reel play on the mound, and Raskin flashed the leather with multiple foul-ball snags at first base.

Next up, Team Wagner takes on Team Grefer this Sunday in a matchup expected to draw big ratings. Catch the action streaming exclusively on Hulu, with Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan in the booth. Team Groh will rest up on their bye week.

What a thrilling VICTORY for Team Solomon 13-12 over Team Simons. 

It was a real back and forth affair throughout the game.  The highlight of the game was the bottom of 7. Team Solomon was up 5 runs and Stu “pid” Solomon got a quick out. After a triple and three straight bloop singles, the score was 13-9. Eric “Blue Boomer” Gammarino laced a triple scoring 3 to bring the game to 13-12. The next batter grounded sharply to SS. Cam “Bam Thank you Ma’am” Kirzner made the force at first. Will “Ronnie” Coleman threw a dart home where Alex “Kris” Kraus made us want to jump as he tagged Eric out at home for the 6-3-2 double play to win the game. Kraus had a great overall game with another great defensive play on a bunt and 2 hits. 

Hits were plenty up and down the line up. The offense was lead by Steven “Seagal” Shapiro going 3-4 with a huge triple in the top of the 7th to score everyone’s favorite captain and spiritual leader of Team Solomon, me. Also, Ben “ny and the Jets” Charlton went 4-4 scoring twice. 

Team Solomon looks to keep “Rollin” this Sunday against Team Goldhoff. 

Dan McGrath had this to say after the game: “If I had a Hammer, I’d still hit pop ups. But my team picked me up and we got the BIG W”

Wolf defeated Grefer on a walkoff hit by Tyler Wolf.

Onto Sunday the 18th

On Field 2, Team Brafman beat Team Wolf I think 17-12 (Something like that) 

Team Brafman was paced by Captain Brafman who continues his best season ever by going 3-5 with a sac fly. Harry Meisner,  also had a couple of big hits as did Zach Mayer. Playing in front of his wife for the first time since college Jeff “Oscar Meyer” Wiener had a good game at the plate and in the field.  A special shout out to Scott “Why Can’t We Be” Friends for subbing and sacrificing his fingers for the cause. Get better soon, Scott. Rabbi Yitz and Zach “The Wild Horse” Zackem played great defense in the win. And no team Brafman win would be complete without the pitching of Jimmy Lefton who continues to say as long as we make the little plays we will be alright! A special shout out to Shorty Adams for robbing me twice.

Another fun one this week as the Goldhoff Goons took down Team Solomon 24-18 on Field 3.

The game started with a bang as we mounted an early 11-1 lead off hits from pretty much everyone in the lineup, and it seemed like we were headed for a blowout. However, Team Solomon showed plenty of fight and had an 8-run inning highlighted by a Dan McGrath Grand Slam. I will take the blame for this as I walked Matt Brodof to set up a force out, and Dan made us pay. Jamey Drennan came back and hit a grand slam of his own so we did get that one back.

Speaking of Jamey, he not only pitched well, he hit for the cycle for us. He along with super sub Matt Leader, Griffin Harris, Ryan Small, and Adam Cronstein all had big days at the plate. It was also another gritty win for us, as this was our third week in a row that we lost a player to injury. Sam Klinkowitz broke a bone in his hand on a play at the plate, so he will be out a month. We hope for the best for his health, and please say a Mi Shebeirach for our team to get healthy on our bye.

After our bye we will come back to play against Team Fogel.

Grefer run ruled Wagner in the early game on Field 2.

Finally on Wednesday in a night better set for watching the Bengals in November, we had a couple of recaps:

Team Brafman (with 3 subs) beat Team Groh 7-6. The big blow came from Brafman rookie Corey Meyers while subs Jamey Drennan, “Dangerous” Dan Green and Ian Cromwell all played great defense. 

Kyle Grefer for the win over team Simons.

We beat team Simons 8-5 in our best defensive game of the year. Game ball went to Billy Bernstein who made around 7-8 catches of varying difficulty in the outfield. Offensively it was a group effort with multi hit games from Landon Hawkins, Gary Grefer, and David Weil.

We’re officially on a win steak and looking to keep the momentum rolling!

Team Fogel evened their record at 3-3 with an 8 to 7 win over Team Solomon.  On a cool, drizzly evening, there was some doubt that the games would be played, but a major cloudburst never occurred. 

As well as I can recall, Team Solomon scored 2 in the top of the first with lefty leadoff man McGrath and Dock getting hits and Brodof and Shapiro driving them in.  The Fogel team came back with 3 in the bottom of the inning with Krantz, Joel Fogel, Rosen, and Frankel providing hits.  It was back and forth scoring and defense for the rest of the game with both Stu Solomon and Jamey Kurtzer throwing strikes. 

Notable hits were by Josh Rosen for Team Fogel with two over left-center bombs, and extra base drives by Team Solomon’s Stu, Brodof, and Shapiro. 

Highlight fielding for Fogel was provided by Josh Rosen in right-center as he chased down 3 balls to record all 3 outs one inning, and Norm Frankel who dove and speared a line drive at 2^nd base for a critical out.  He was prepared to catch that one because it was the last of 3 rockets that were fired at or near him during the game.  Jeremy again ran down fly balls from left-center and Nick O’Brien reached high for a line drive and made the routine plays at shortstop. 

For Team Solomon, David Snyder made the required catches at 2^nd base, Shapiro at 3^rd threw out a Fogel runner straying off the base, and the lefties in the outfield threw out Fogel runners trying to take the extra base.  Team Fogel kept testing Brandon Lindsey in right field (Jamey Kurtzer two times), but he continually snagged fly balls coming his way. 

Team Solomon went up 7 to 6 to end the top of the 6^th inning.  It looked bad for Team Fogel in the bottom of the 7^th as scoring opportunities in previous innings weren’t realized and they threw the ball around to give Solomon additional runs. 

Krantz led off the inning with a hard grounder in the hole between the 1^st and 2^nd basemen.  Joel lined out to 2^nd base.  Jeremy hit a shot to right field and he was off and running.  He was rounding second as Landon scored.  Third base coach Kombrinck prudently put up the hold sign at 3^rd base as Jeremy rounded the bag, slowed and threatened down the line.  He then smartly decided that the throw from the edge of the infield would be a tough one and started for home.  Chest flop onto the mud at home plate – safe!

On Field 3 Wolf beat Wagner.

League notes

Wing Night at the Silver Spring House sponsored by “Big” Gig Franklin will be on June 11. This is open to ALL of us so please make it a point to go that night and thank our great league sponsor, Gig. 

The J classic is coming up. If you would like to sign up for anything please do so. This is a HUGE and fun fundraiser for the JCC which Rick Lefton helms each year. 

Speaking of which, get your running shoes on for the the Oy Vey 5K. I believe it is going to be the second Sunday in November. I will continue to bug all of you for months.

Birthday’s this month and I’m sure there are more that I didn’t see

Former Player(s) Rafi and Jeff Adams

Rick Tenenholtz 

I like to tease Scott “Ricky Henderson” Wolf about being the all time JCC stolen base leader (if we even keep these stats) but the one thing I don’t question is his knowledge of teaching kids baseball. The other night after one of our games I was pitching batting practice to my son Jacob and Scott stepped in and told him to hold his bat back in the exact same way that our team’s hitting coach is showing him. Guys, use Scott (And Z and a couple of other guys as a reference). They know how to coach.

I can’t remember if we had a blog since the J-Night at the Reds game but, if not, once it stopped raining it was another great night. 500 members of the community and plenty of us enjoyed the game (minus the Reds losing to the White Sox). Speaking of which, no team that will make the playoffs can go 2-4 vs. the White Sox and the Pirates and be considered anything but a sham. Speaking of bad baseball how about the Rockies who are 9-43 something right now. 

I agree 1,000,000% with ESPN 1530 host Mo Egger take on Trey Hendrickson. if any of us signed a contract 2 years ago and then said, “Well, I did really well and the market is paying guys ‘X’ so I want a raise,” and your employer says, “OK, here is a 75% hike” and you still say “No” that is on you. I will never understand this with pro athletes. You sign a deal, play the deal through. For once I’m on the Bengals side.

The Athletic today voted OSU the Team of the 2000’s so far, over Bama. I will be cancelling my subscription this afternoon.

And last but not least, Roger has a couple of random XU bobbleheads, even by his standards. I think one is a priest or the school president from like 2004 and the other is of Kenny Freeze with a towel over his eye. 

See everyone Wednesday night!

Marc 

A wonderful night for softball on Wednesday leads to a good blog a day late:

Leading off is Keith for Team Fogel who beat Team Wolf:

After a one run loss to open the season, and a not so close loss last week, Team Fogel got a win over Team Wolf last night. Mark Weisser was on the mound doing his magic for Wolf and Adam Heldman was making fine catches in deep left-center.

It was a close game at 6-5 in the 7th inning. Team Fogel had men at 2nd and 3rd with two out. Jeremy was walked to load the bases. Then it was time for the “big play” for Team Fogel. Joel hit a hard grounder in the hole between the 1st and 2nd basemen and two runs scored.

Matt Miller had two tomahawk hits and a deep drive over the right fielder, and as catcher cut down two runners. A Jeremy Fogel to Landon Kurtz throw from left center to 3rd base produced two bang-bang outs. Landon made additional good catches at third and Josh Rosen and Brad Gallop ran down a few balls in right center.

Eddie Gallop started that late-inning rally by leading off and lining a ball through the hole between 1st and 3rd . Jamie Kurtzer and the defense finished the game with a 9-5 win.

Next up is Ken Groh whose team beat Team Solomon:

Another close defensive game tonight with Solomon being carried by Dan McGrath, David Snyder and Cam Kirzner. Team Groh had Jack Cohen, Sam Castellini and Tyler Stansbury flashing the leather. From memory and not the book, Tyler Stansbury hit #3 out of the park putting Groh up 2-0 with Jack on base after a 4 foul at bat. Solomon plated 1 in the 2nd after a McGrath triple. Then Cohen tripled to make it 3-1. Eli Gould doubled and came around to make it 3-2. In the bottom of the 5th Solomon scored two to go up 4-3 but after Mathew Kraus collected his 1st JCC hit the team rallied behind him to score 3. Team Groh held off a bottom 7 rally to win 7-5. 

In the sad gm of the night Team AJ beat Team Brad:

This is about as bittersweet of a recap as I hope to ever write. Unfortunately, last night we lost Zach Fritzhand for the season to an injury, and we are thinking about him and hoping for a very easy recovery. He was having an amazing season so far (8-10 on the year with 7 RBIs in 3 games) and it stinks to see it end like this for him. We wish him nothing but the best.

As for the game last night, the Goon Squad came to play in a big way with a 15-1 win in 5 innings vs Team Wagner. Every single person contributed on offense and defense, which was very needed with our 1 and 5 out for the night. We really broke the game open in the second inning starting with massive contributions from the bottom of our order. Sam Klinkowitz hit a Klinko bomb that got him a 2-run triple, followed by hits from Michael Heldman and Howard Goldwasser. The rally was on and we scored 8 runs that inning.

Like I said though this was a team effort through and through. Jamey Drennan pitched great and had 4 RBIs, Adam Cronstein was a vacuum in LCF, I went 3-3 with a triple and three runs, Ryan Small and Ian Conwell had 2 hits as well. Our MVP on the night though is the aforementioned Howard Goldwasser with 2 hits and the biggest catch of the game.

Next week we will play Team Wolf with a chance to keep it rolling.

Finally on field 4 Team Brafman got another win vs. Team Grefer

Thanks to a couple of Subs (Michael Askin and Anthony (Not Alex) Skrapitz) and a great pitching performance by Jimmy Lefton, Team Brafman won 10-7 over Team Grefer. This was a team win all around with big hits coming from Captain Brafman, Zach Mayer, Corey Myers and Jeff “Oscar Meyer” Wiener (who also played a great first base). The defense led the way especially the left side of the infield of Meyer and Skrapitz who were perfect all night. Zach “The Wild Horse” Zakem played a great game behind the plate who kept the ball in front of him all night.  For team Grefer, Dan Bernstein hit a 3-run homer that might have just landed. 

Team Brafman looks to continue their winning ways after their bye week next week.

League notes

Instead of the normal League notes I wanted to share Rick Lefton’s post from earlier this week from his leading the Cincy delegation on the March of Living. I took this from Rick’s Facebook page but I thought it was important to share with the league. Thanks Rick for taking all the Cincy kids over to Poland this year.

It will be impossible for me to describe our day today…there is no way that words can match the range of emotions and circumstances we experienced today. The March of the Living “March” and ceremony were today…we marched from Auschwitz to Birkenau with over 7,000 other delegates as a reminder to people everywhere that our people…the Jewish people…survived the Holocaust and the people marching “The Living” were there to “March” in memory of those who perished and could not march for themselves.

Our delegation was honored and surprised to be selected to lead “The March”…we were moved to the front and given the important task of carrying the March of the Living banner at the front of the pack! Such a cool experience for our students as they were given unexpected VIP treatment and were placed right in front and next to press row so there will be plenty of images and videos from news outlets featuring our group! It was a once in a lifetime experience and very impactful!

Once we completed that task, the March of the Living ceremony in Birkenau kicked off and we settled in to enjoy what’s typically a very meaningful ceremony. There was rain in the forecast but it was looking like it would hold off until later in the afternoon…but that was not meant to be. Rain started shortly after the start of the ceremony (which normally lasts about 2 hours)…no big deal…we were prepared with rain jackets, ponchos, and umbrellas but it was obvious very quickly that severe weather was bearing down on us. The ceremony was abruptly ended about 20 minutes in and they announced that people needed to evacuate Birkenau and to please stay off the railroad tracks because lightening was in the area…oy. The sky opened up and we got pounded by the heaviest rain I have ever been in with no shelter anywhere in sight and thousands of people trying to hustle back to the fleet of buses used to transport everyone. It was terrifying and being in a place built to be terrifying for other reasons made it even more surreal. There was panic…real panic in that crowd. 

Fortunately with the help of local security, police, and volunteers working the event we made it out and back to the bus OK but soaked to the bone. I didn’t hear any complaining from our students as it was not lost on them where we were, and the real unspeakable tragedies that had happened there over 80 years ago. I was extremely proud of our group and it made a memorable day an extremely memorable day! 

We finished up the evening with a nice dinner at the Krakow JCC which has been doing incredible work supporting refugees from nearby Ukraine. The Krakow JCC CEO Jonathan Ornstein who is a transplanted New Yorker shared the details of the vital work they are doing…it was a real pleasure to be there as a fellow JCC Professional and a great way to end an unforgettable day! 

Sorry for the long post…this whole day could be a book someday so you got off easy!

See everyone next week