Month: August 2025

With all the rain on Wednesdays this second half of the season (and dubious rainouts), it was nice we finally got the second half of the season over with. Thanks everyone once again for making this another great regular season and to the Commish for getting all of the games in. It’s not easy, we all know that. 

Now onto the action. 

In the early games Team Simons shocked the softball world by taking down mighty Team AJ.

Marc for the winners:

Team Simons beat team Goldhoff in a bit of a head scratcher on a hot Sunday morning. The game was tight until Griff broke it open with a Grand Slam putting team Goldhoff firmly ahead with a 12-7 lead late. Team Simons had some choices to make so they slowly started grinding its gears because hey, lets face it, we aren’t exactly demons on the basepaths. It wasn’t the 4th of July, but a hit parade began and did not stop until 10 runs crossed the plate. Team Simons did not let another run score, winning the game 17-12. 

Team Simons plays Team Wagner in the Play-in game while Team AJ plays the winner of the play in game as the #1 seed

On the Field 2 it was Team Wagner vs. Team Fogel

Keith Kombrinck here reporting on Team Fogel win #7 with a 9 – 7 win over Team Wagner.
Team Fogel had to play with its regular players while Team Wagner was missing their pitcher Corey Norris, Matt Leader, and Eric Zied.
My recall of the game is very shaky, but Jamey helped with an email. I think Brad Gallop began the scoring in the first with a solid single. Jeremy Fogel followed with a line-drive double. Ryan Baum followed with a hit, and we scored 3 in the first.

Team Wagner came back with hits by Steve Zawatsky, Anton Loon, and sub Marc Brafman, to score two in the top of the second.

The middle innings were a back-and-forth affair that included some fine defense. The lefty
playing 3rd for Team Wagner made some nice catches and throws, and he included a ricochet off his glove right to Joel Buckley at shortstop who then threw the runner out at 1st. The Team Fogel fielding highlight came when Brad Gallop playing 2nd base chased down a bloop hit down the 1st base line and threw a strike to 2nd base to cut down the runner going to 2nd . Nice catch and tag, Nick O’Brien. Jeremy Fogel and Josh Rosen were chasing down balls in the outfield, and Joel Fogel was making the plays at 3rd base.

The big inning for Team Fogel came in the bottom of the 6th when trailing 7-6. Brad Gallop
tomahawked a triple into left-center, Joel singled, and Josh Rosen clubbed one over the left fielder. Three scored in the inning.

In the top of the 7th , Fogel’s infield managed 3 force-outs at 2nd base – game over. But your observant reporter trotted into the bench to prepare for another inning until he saw teams shaking hands in the infield. Again, it was hot!!

Team Fogel takes on Team Brafman in the first round of the Battle for the Youk award while Team Wagner is in the play-in game vs. Team Simons.

In the 11:30 games it was Team Groh vs. Team Wolf.

Kenny for the winners:

Wolf jumped on Groh early batting thru the entire order and producing 6 runs. Howie was vintage early 2000’s for 4 innings only allowing 3 hits and 1 run. Wolf added a few more to lead 9-1 heading into the bottom of the 5th. Coach Groh started it with a bloop double to left then Bryce Anslinger, David Solomon and Jon Ruben each had 2 hits in the inning as Bryce doubled and Jon capped it off with his 1st triple of the year. Tyler Stansbury had a 2-run double, Sam Castellini and Jack Cohen had back-to-back triples and everyone else got a hit or an RBI. Wolf scored 2 more but couldn’t overcome the big inning. Thanks to Jack for playing all 16 games, to Todd Wasserman for coming and coaching and for my team for only needing 3 subs for the entire season. We have 3 MVP candidates in Tyler, Jack and Pete Soltesz and two great rookie years from Chris Von Holle and Mathew Kraus.

Team Groh will play Grefer while Team Wolf will battle Team Solomon in Round 1 of the Tournament.

And it was Team Brafman vs. Team Solomon.

Stu for the winners:

In what was ultimately just another regular season softball game, Team Solomon got the best of Team Brafman 14-2 after locking up the second half title by default earlier Sunday. Special shout out to Team Simons for the win!

Stuart “Little” Solomon conceded a pair of leadoff triples and 2 runs to start the game, then settled in for one of his best pitching performances all year – finding the zone late in at bats when he needed to the most and forcing soft contact. The hardest hit ball all day came right back to Stu for a line drive out off the bat of Yitzi “Golden Boy” Creeger. Tom “Back to Back to Back” Emanski and Fred  “Crime Dog” McGriff would have been very pleased at the defensive fundamentals displayed. 

The bats were hot early and often on this fine Sunday. Cam “Mr. P&G” Kirzner went 3-3 and Jeremy “Dr” Dock was on base 3 times, both scoring 3 times. The Two Lefty Sensations Dan “Coconut Water” Mcgrath and Ben Charlton”Athletic FC” used their speed and tenacity to create mayhem on the basepaths. Lastly, Old Man David Snyder was 2-2 with a double and two runs scored. 

Shoutout to Benny “The Jet” Charlton and Matt “LeBlanc” Brodof for traveling leaps and bounds from Portland, Oregon and New Buffalo, Michigan, respectively, to make it back in time for the game despite the lack of postseason implications. Just for the love of the game. 

Brandon Lindsay had this to say after the game. “It was all about the Melon Electrolytes we all drank before the game. It allowed us to have clear eyes and full hearts.”

So to recap

AJ and Stu will battle it out this Wednesday for the Regular Season Championship 

Wagner and Simons will play in the play-in game.

The post season battle for the Youk award will begin next Wednesday.

Team Goldhoff vs. Winner of play-in game

Wolf vs. Solomon

Brafman vs Fogel

Groh vs. Grefer

League notes:

Happy birthday to:

Griff Harris

Ken Groh

Ryan Baum

The Oy Vey 5K is on November 9th. Please sign up to help support the JCC and all the athletic programing including the softball league.

I saw that the JCC launched a non-kids swim team. I have no clue who else they swim against but I want to see Howie out there living his Maccabiah games memories.

This past weekend was the 56th anniversary of Woodstock. Ryan Silverman and I might be the only guys who care, but since I write the blog I thought I’d share that with you all. And I will continue to say that this footage of Sly and the Family Stone (who were playing at 4:00 AM) is still the single greatest music performance ever captured on film. Here is a snippet Sly and the Family Stone – Final of “I Want To Take You Higher” Woodstock again this was at 4:00 AM!! 

I am not the biggest fan of Reds GM Nick Krall but I do have to give him credit for the three moves he made at the trade deadline. All have paid off. But since he is the same guy that signed both Moose and The Candy Man and did nothing at the 2023 deadline, I only give him some credit. 

I don’t know who the slowest guy in the league is currently but I bet that if they played the Bengals defense last night they would have run for a first down. 

Finally, since Roger is the resident NHL expert in the league he will be giving a detailed power point on Wednesday of all of these guys: All the Jewish NHL players to watch in the 2024-2025 season – Jewish Telegraphic Agency (I know it’s a little old but still) 

Good luck to Team Simons and Wagner in the Play-in game and to Team AJ and Team Stu for the Regular season title this week.

It was HOT out there this Sunday but that didn’t stop the action on the field. Let’s start with the early games. 

AJ kicks things off with his recap of their come-from-behind win of Team Stu.

An amazing win for the Goons this week as we came back to walk off Team Solomon 13-12.

The game started big for Team Solomon as they jumped on us in the first couple innings with a 7-0 lead. Big hits came from Jeremy Dock with a triple, Matt Brodof and Alex Kraus.

After that super-sub, Jeff Finkelstein locked down on the mound and we started chipping away. Two in the second, 2 more in the 3rd off a 2-run homer from super-sub, Harry Meisner, 2 in the 4th to make it 8-6, and then 3 in the 5th to make it 9-8. Team Solomon came back on us in the 6th and scored 4 runs off hits from Steven Shapiro, Matt Brodof and Dan McGrath.

After scoring 3 in the bottom of the 6th, and getting through the top of the 7th, the stage was set. Down 12-11 in the bottom of the 7th, Ryan Small led off with a double, Dee Harris moved him over with a single, Ian Conwell knocked Ryan in with a single, and Big Sam Klinkowitz came to the plate. He hit a Klinko Bomb to the warning track scoring Dee and the game was over.

This was a true team effort with everyone making an impact as they have all year.

We hope to finish the season strong against Team Simons on Wednesday.

Keith K files this report for Team Fogel.

Keith Kombrinck here reporting on Team Fogel win #6 with an 18 – 6 win over Team Simons.

Team Fogel had subs Brad Wagner, Steve Zawatsky, James Swan, Eric Zied, and Kade Carlyle. Maybe Team Fogel should play subs every week?

Team Simons super sub was their 3rd baseman, Dylan Smith, who hit 3 home runs. Lucky for us, two were solo shots.

Our super sub was Kade, who tracked fly balls in left-center like Jeremy and had 4 hits. I had 3 hits, but my exit velocity averaged 60 mph whereas Kade’s was around 100.

Team Fogel scored 5 in the 1st with hits from Swan, Carlyle, Rosen, Zawatsky, Kurtzer, and Wagner. Team Simons came back with 2 in the bottom of the 1st including a home run by Mike Askin. In the 2nd , singles by Nick O’Brien, Zied, Kombrinck, and that man Carlyle again plated 2 more.

The middle innings were a blur for me. It was hot!! I recall Weisser throwing all those bottom-of-the-zone pitches, causing me to ground out and others to pop up. Nick O’Brien ran left, ran right, and speared two line-drives at shortstop, and Brad Wagner made several fine plays at 3rd base. Our other outfielders, Rosen, Swan, and Zied made running catches.

Team Simons threatened to score each inning, but Jamey Kurtzer kept them in check by refusing to issue walks. He capped his performance in the bottom of the 6th by nabbing a line-drive just above his head and firing to 1st to double-up an overconfident runner.

Thanks to Brad Wagner for serving as our replacement coach. It looks like Team Fogel has avoided the play-in game. In a be-nice-to the old guy gesture, Brad gave me the game ball for my 3 hits and catching all the throws to 1st base. I appreciate it.

In the 11:30 games 

Kyle for the winners over Team Wagner.

We beat team Wagner 19-18 in a back and forth battle. Ken Groh pitched a solid game on the mound subbing for Mike Gray, and Landon Hawkins played a great game defensively making all the plays in the infield.

Offensively Billy Bernstein had a great game at the plate hitting liners all over the field and an inside the park homer. I had a good game with multiple hits, and the rest of our order chipped in well with big hits from Brian Goldberg, Gary Grefer, and Oren Shmoel to come back in the top of 7 and hold a one-run lead to end the game.

Finally there was the “Game” between Team Wolf vs. Team Brafman

I’ll write the recap for Team Wolf. Let’s just say that Team Brafman didn’t have their best game while Team Wolf hit the ball all over the yard. the final score was something like 27-12. It was so bad for Team Brafman that Jimmy Lefton waved the white flag and asked to be taken out of the game and we used two position players to pitch. When that didn’t work Jimmy came back in and might have given up another 10 runs. Hitting leaders for Team Wolf were the entire team. Wes, Tyler, James Swan, Pat Feldman, Andy Beck  all had at least 3 hits. You know it’s a long day for Team Brafman when Shorty Adams goes 3-4 with a double. And while there were no home runs, somehow most of the hits were bullets all over the field to all fields. “We’d like to thank Commish Adam for lending us his bat,” Captain Wes Wolf said post game. “We hear he got it from Chris Sabo which might explain our extra pop.”  When you give “The Living Legend” Howie Schwartz 11 runs in the first inning, unlike the Reds bullpen, he is going to let that stand up. The only bright spot for team Brafman was Mike “The Bagel Man” Margolis going 3-3.

“I wish I had Trevino to pitch for me in the 5th inning,” Brafman said post game. Maybe his 30 MPH eephus pitch would have prevented the other 13 runs from scoring. 

Team Wolf looks to stay hot vs. Team Groh while Team Brafman looks to get back on the winning track vs. Team Stu.

League notes will return on Wednesday.

On a muggy night the action on the field was almost as hot. Let’s get right to it.

On Field 1 it was Team Grefer vs. Team Wolf. Our third shift stringer called in from the Bananas game in Baton Rouge last night to let us know that Team Wolf won.

On Field 2 we had Team Solomon vs. Team Simons.

Stu for the HOT winners:

Team Solomon walked off Team Simons 9-8 to extend its winning streak to six straight games since the start of the second half.

Stu’s squad plated its first five hitters to jump out to a 5-2 lead June 18 before the game was suspended in the top of the second. Seven weeks later, it was more of a back-and-forth affair on Field 2.

We added two runs thanks to aggressive base running from Will “.i.am” Coleman and Alex “Sauer” Kraus, then Michael Askin and Jeff Weisbrot hit two inside the park homers to bring it back within one at 7-6. Stu later returned the favor to get Askin looking on strike three, and his defense rallied behind him with a clutch double play and some running catches in the outfield.

Sub Joel “Sparky” Fogel provided the spark we needed with a sixth inning triple that ricocheted into right field, and Eli “Gemstone” Gould scored the game-winning run in the seventh. The rookie led off with a single, got moved over to second on a fielder’s choice and came around to score on an error at first base that bounced out of play.

Dan “The Man With the City Plan” McGrath had a timely catch of a hard hit liner from Mark “Poker Face” Weisser that could have been the doom of Team Solomon. Two big hits by Brandon Lindsey “Lohan”. 

Solomon will return to Field 2 on Sunday looking to avenge its first half loss to Team Goldhoff while Simons meets Fogel on Field 1.

On Field 3 we had Team Wagner vs. Team Groh

Kenny for the winners:

All-Stars Tyler Stansbury and Jack Cohen led the way going a combined 7-7 with Tyler scoring 4 times and Jack driving in 5. After scoring one in the 1st, Team Wagner scored 5 in the 2nd and led 5-3 after 3 when the games were called on June 18. After a Ken Groh walk and Bryce Anslinger double, the hobbling Groh took home on a wild pitch and Danny Meisterman drove in Bryce with a single to tie the game at 5. Sam Castellini and Chris Von Holle helped Groh take a 7-5 lead only for Team Wagner to pull ahead 8-7 after 5. At 8-8 with 2 outs, Mathew Kraus singled and Jack Cohen hit a 3-run triple to give Team Groh them the lead as they went on to win 11-9. 

And finally on field 4 Team Brafman vs. Team Goldhoff

AJ for the winners:

Another really good win for the Goons as we took out Team Brafman 7-2 in the First Place battle. This was another team effort with everyone really getting a chance to have their moment.

The story of the game really was the first inning where we jumped on them early and scored 5 runs thanks to hits from Adam Cronstein, Griffin Harris, Me, Ian Segall, super sub Landon Krantz (triple), and Ian Conwell. 

From there our defense shined, with big plays from Michael Heldman, Sam Klinkowitz and Segall we were able to hold their offense in check for the most part.

We will hope to keep it going in another big game on Sunday against Team Solomon.

For Team Brafman the only offensive star was Gary “The Coach” Fisher who went 3-3. As usual the fielding for Team Brafman was great. 

League notes:

Only James “Lynn” Swan celebrated a birthday this week. Also let’s wish James good luck as he is taking over (on a short term basis) the JCC Pre-School. This is a BIG BIG job and we all know James will crush it

Happy anniversary to Dee Harris. 

I bitch about the Reds a lot (more on them soon) but did you guys see that the Blue Jays outscored the Rockies 45-6 over the weekend? They had 63 hits, the most in a three-game series in over 100 years. 

If last night wasn’t the most Cincinnati sports night of all time I don’t know what was. The Reds, Bengals and FCC all played. All three lost..

I’m sure Roger has been following the ongoing saga of people throwing green dildos onto the court at WNBA games (Roger will be re-selling them on his blog), but today I read that somehow cryptocurrency might be behind it. I have no idea what one thing has to do with the other (even after reading the story), but I just know it’s dumb.

For all of us that root for real college football teams, I can’t wait to see Texas Tech finish 3-4 in the Big 12 this year. They spent 25 MILLION on NIL this off season. Let me say that again, 25 Million!! on a team that I don’t think will win the Big 12. Good luck with that.

Reminder that the JCC night at FCC is this Sunday. I think tickets are still available. 

And the Oy Vey 5K is coming up this fall. It’s a fun event with all the money raised going back to the league and the Blue Jays program. Please sign up. 

As for the Reds, they continue to be who we thought they would be (now a better fielding team), a team that for the most part can really pitch and can’t hit a lick. Maybe one day ownership will care about winning now and not down the road to a future that is 30 years and counting in the making.

See everyone on  Sunday.

Hey, we got two straight weeks of softball in this half of the season. Sure it was like playing inside of a dog’s mouth out there but it’s better than sitting at home on Wednesday, right?

Let’s get to the action.

On Field one we had Team Groh vs. Team Stu

Stu for the winners:

No Stu, no problem for Team Solomon – who made it five straight wins Wednesday in an 11-10 nail-biter over Team Groh on Field 1.

Dan “Spuds” McGrath filled in on the mound, where he overcame a shaky start before settling in and throwing his best stuff. Back-to-back second inning homers from Chris Von Holle and Bryce Anslinger put Groh in front 3-0 and powered them to a 5-2 lead after three. Then our offense woke up.

We plated four runs in the fourth inning and five in the fifth thanks to clutch hitting and aggressive base-running up and down our lineup. Cam “Diaz” Kirzner, Steven “Seagal” Shapiro, William “H. Macy” Coleman and Alex “Trebek” Kraus each finished with multiple hits and two runs apiece.

Down 11-7 entering the bottom of the seventh, Groh knocked in three but left the tying run stranded on the bases as our defense stepped up to make the final outs of the game.

Next week, Team Solomon resumes its June 18 showdown on Field 2 with Simons while Groh gets Wagner on Field 3.

On Field 2 it was Team Grefer vs. Team Brafman 

Marc for the winners:

In a tight game Team Brafman walked it off with a thrilling 8-7 win over the battling Team Grefer. Team Brafman was led by Rabbi Yitz who tomahawked a homer early in the game and super sub Michael Askin who went 4-5. Leading 6-2 going into the top of the 7th, Grefer battled back with something like 5 straight two-out hits to take the lead. A huge triple by Kyle Grefer just off the glove of Rabbi Yitz tied the game and Mike Gray’s single got Grefer the lead. After two quick outs in the bottom of the 7th Askin got on base and was driven in by Mike “The Special One” Rothstein who had a fine game in the field and the plate. Next, Zach Mayer hit a rocket to RF and Rothstein was able to score from first to seal the win. Not to be overlooked a great fielding game by Corey Meyers in LF and all of Team Brafman who again shows that fielding the ball leads to wins. “As has been the case all season, this was a total team win,” Brafman said post game. Everyone on the team did their part to help us get this important win.

Next week Team Brafman looks to stay on the winning track by taking on Team AJ. 

On field 3 it was Team Wagner took on Team AJ

AJ for the winners: 

Another big win for the Goons last night as we took out Team Wagner 18-2 in 5 innings.

This was a true team effort as everyone contributed on offense and on defense. The biggest shout outs go to Ian Segall who had 3 hits including a homer over the fence, Jamey Drennan who had 4 hits, 3 RBI and dominated on the mound, Griffin Harris who had 3 hits including an inside the park homer, and Super Sub Anthony Skrapits who had 3 hits and 5 RBIs.

We hope to keep it rolling next week as we make up our game against Team Brafman.

Finally on field 4 Team Wolf Took on Team Fogel

Wes for the winners:

Team Wolf returned to its winning ways against Team Fogel in a true JCC barnburner, outlasting them 18-15. 

After Team Wolf plated 2 in the first inning, Fogel jumped out to an early lead with 6 in their half. The teams then switched places and found themselves tied 8-8 after two. Team Wolf capitalized on a gapper by Drew “Fart” Hart that fell on the warning track beyond the outstretched glove of platinum glover Jeremy Fogel. 

In the next inning, Team Wolf was up one with two on and Wes Wolf at the plate when one of the more unusual plays happened. Wes shot one through the RF/RCF gap, and ended up right behind the runner from first base as he was rounding third. Brad Gallop took the cutoff at second base and delivered a perfect throw to ageless catcher Keith Kombrink, who tagged out the Team Wolf runner with Wes close behind. Wes avoided the tag and slid in safe at home, capping off the only fielder’s choice home run this league has seen in a while. 

Team Wolf plated four total in the third and continued scoring in each inning of the game. Stand in pitcher, Scottie “quit booing Halloween’s in October” Wolf capped off the night on the mound by shutting down team Fogel in the sixth and seventh to earn the win. 

League Notes

A big shout out to two of our captains who are getting busy on and off the field. Wes (and Haley) and AJ (and Olivia) who are both expecting future JCC softball players. Congrats guys, that is really exciting news.

Birthdays this week all softball alumni.

JZ

Ben Sandor

Tait Cunningham 

The Oy Vey 5K is Nov. 9. Please mark it down.

And Jewish night at FCC is next Sunday night.

Last week I mentioned that my daughter Maya was playing in the Maccabi games in Tucson. (She got a bronze in mixed doubles tennis) and while I am sure that she will have life long memories it will pale in comparison to what Howie did back in the 60’s. He was in Brazil playing basketball for Team USA or Team Cincy when the swimming coach asked if anyone could help out the relay team since they were down a member. Howie, who swam at the old JCC in high school said sure I can help. Little did he know that on his relay team would be Mark Spitz (for you young guys, look him up). Needless to say they won all of their relays and Howie even got a piece of Spitz mustache to take home as a keepsake.

With the baseball HOF induction last week I forgot to mention the Dave “The Cobra” Parker story that relates to softball. I might be off a little on the story but the version I have heard is that when he retired from baseball he was asked to join the league. He showed up to play with metal spikes and when he was informed that he couldn’t wear them packed up his gear and walked off never to be seen again on the fields of the JCC. My Dave Parker JCC Story is that I was the head of the JCC sports camp and Dave Parker II (who gave a great speech on Sunday) was a camper. Imagine a big black kid towering over all the little Jewish kids and you get the idea of what type of athlete he was. It was very cool when Dave came and talked to the camp one day during our baseball week. 

I’m happy to get on my soap box on the Reds if you want to ask me in person. But since they seem ok with being OK then I guess we have to live with it. Did they get better the last 24 hours. Yes, I think they did. But since we don’t play baseball in a vacuum the Pads, Mets, Phillies all also got better. I wish I had the job security that Nick Krall has. Be lousy at my job, never do anything to make the product better and still be employed. Last night’s Reds game was made special by the fact that Jacob and I saw two people wearing Nick Senzel and Stewie Fairchild jerseys. Why in God’s name would anyone want a Fairchild jersey? 

I’m glad the Bengals got the first round guy in and now Trey is back at camp since I guess losing 250,000 for sitting out isn’t the best strategy if you are trying to MORE money. Wake me when the season starts.

Dee, Roger, Jacob and I were talking post game about the amazing amount of Elly bobbleheads and how the Reds need to be creative moving forward. I know I’ve mentioned this in the past but instead of the 10th Elly, won’t you want Eddie Milner, Gary Redus or even the aforementioned Stewie Fairchild? Call it Reds Bums of the Past series. Fans could vote on it. Roger would make a lot of money and we won’t get a 10th Elly. 

See everyone next week.