JCC Softball Cincinnati

August 24 Recap

By Marc Brafman

Ryan couldn’t have dialed up nicer weather last night and the action was just as hot as the sun. And it was a CRAZY night as the 2-3-4 seeds all lost to the underdogs. Will Team Z be this year’s Loyola of Chicago? We will find out in the coming weeks.

On Field one, Team Weisser knocked off Team Grefer

Mark for the winners:

We beat Team Grefer 5-4 in a very well-played game. Team Grefer had bases loaded with two outs with Dan Grefer at the plate. Ground ball to Weston Wolf who fielded the ball, ran to second and threw a strike to first for the final out.

Pete Soltesz with a very nice catch in LF. Key hits by Alexander Wold and myself and nice baserunning by Scott Wolf. Scott Wolf ended up fracturing his thumb while fielding a ball at 2b in the first.

Ben Margolis hit a nice home run to LCF for Team Grefer.

I will be in Europe the next two weeks with Jamie Kurtzer taking the bump in my absence.

On Field two it was Team Solomon getting back on the right track vs. Team Kamrass

Team Solomon began their playoff run with a total victory over Team Kamrass 9-3. This could have been the spot for a let down from Team Solomon. We had lost 2 straight and had the pressure of being the #1 Seed.

The game was tight for the first two innings with Team Solomon up 1-0. Great defense kept Team Kamrass at bay all game. Team Solomon turned on the offensive Jets in the bottom of the 3rd. We had three straight hits from Dan “Everything is So” Green, Adam “Metal Spikes” Cronstein, and Jeff “Captain America” Weisbrot. Tyler ” The Silent Assassin” Stansbury had a very long fly out scoring two on some heads up baserunning by Cronstein. Ryan “ROY” Marcus hit a very nice single to score Weisbrot to make it 4-0. Up steps Stuart “El Capitan” Solomon. He ropes a ball into the gap in RCF for an Inside the Park HR, which would prove to put the game out of reach.

The defense continued to hold for the rest of the game. Bottom 5, the game could have shifted towards Kamrass, but with two outs Adam lead off with a single followed by a perfectly placed ball from Weisbrot down the right field line that kicked by the RF, for an inside the park homer. Next Stansbury came up to the plate and hit a towering homer over the fence in straight away CF. This finally put the game away.

Matt “Swags” Wagner after the game, “This was a great team win. I really hope to stick to my roommate’s dad (Ricky) next week.”

On Field three Team Lefton Beat Team Brafman (and the sun)

Jimmy and Marc combo: For the third straight time Team Lefton and Team Brafman came down to the wire. This time Team Lefton got the better of Team Brafman winning a thrilling and very well-played game 8-7. Big shout outs go to Matt Brodoff at 3rd who made 3-4 really good plays to keep Team Brafman off the bases. Trailing 7-5 going to the top of the 7th Team Lefton got some timely hitting from Ricky Lefton, Jerry Kirzner and Stu Weinstein. After a fly out and a bases loaded walk to Cam Kirzner Lefton took an 8-7 lead. Team Lefton got out of a bases loaded two out jam to win the game in the bottom of the 7th. What a team effort Jimmy said afterwards. Big his from Ricky, Stu Weinstein, “The Special One” Mike Rothstein kept us in the game and we finally broke through. We are excited to get another shot at Solomon.  A special shout out to Griff Harris who somehow caught at least 3 hard hit balls hit directly into the sun. And as always, he made it look easy.

Over on the loser’s side Captain Brafman would like to thank his entire team and all the subs who played for him this year. We had a great year coming in 2nd in the first half of the season and had a lot of fun along the way. Last night just didn’t break our way. We’ll get them next year. He also hopes that Alan “Speedy” Lessure recovers from his leg injury that knocked him out of the game last night.

Finally, on field 4 another huge upset as Team Z took down Team Fogel.

David Wertheim for the winners:

David Wertheim here pinch-hitting for Captain Z this week. This is my first piece of writing since my infamous event columns for Paul Daugherty so sorry if I’m a little rusty. I’ll try to be quick to the points here.

There was a large crowd of about 25 people watching a much-hyped matchup on Field 4 between the No. 3 seed Team Fogel and the No. 6 seed Team Zawatsky. The game started slow, with a 3-2 lead for Team Z after three innings, but the underdogs exploded for 12 runs over the last four innings en route to a 15-7 coast-to-coast upset victory, with Fogel not leading for a single second of the game.

Zawatsky preached a “why not us” mentality to his team before the game, and the entire lineup seemed to take this message to heart. Every single player on Team Z had at least one base hit, with five players (Wertheim, Ryan Silverman, Harry Meisner, Rabbi Yitz, and Andy Gollin) notching at least three hits each. The defense was solid as usual, with pitcher Ken Groh enjoying an excellent outing that included a three-pitch strikeout of Scott Friend to end the game. Larry Newman played a solid second base (as always) and had two hits, while Oren Shmoel made some big catches in the early innings and had a couple hits of his own. Phil Ganson, who was very vocal on the bench and in the field, played a good game at third base and hit some balls hard. It was truly a team effort for a squad that had been underestimated by many.

Next week, Team Z will take on Team Weisser on Field 4 in a battle of lower-seeds for the right to advance to the championship game. Who would’ve thought! Come out and watch what should be a great matchup (and use up those concession cards).

League notes (short version)

Reminder that the games start at 6:00 PM moving forward

Sign the Jason Faust shirt

Get your ASG votes in. The game is coming up soon on a Sunday at Triple Creek this year

Oy Vey 5K is in Nov. Registration coming soon

See everyone next week. Just because your team lost doesn’t mean you still can’t come out to watch and cheer on the other teams

Marc

 

August 21 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

After a lot of rain and more rain and more rain, we finally wrapped up the regular season on Sunday. A big shout out to Ryan “Hi Ho” Silverman for managing to get the entire regular season in. Let’s hope he has dialed up more good weather the next couple of weeks.

 

Team Grefer won the second half of the season behind the Living Legend, Howie Schwartz. Team Roger ended their season fighting till the end. Roger would like to thank his team for their hard work and dedication to the season. See you guys on the field next year…

 

Now onto the post season preview 

 

On Field 1, we have Team Grefer, 2 seed vs. Team Weisser, 7 seed. “We have really hit our stride the second half of the season,” Captain Kyle said post game Sunday. “With Howie throwing strikes and our offense doing just enough each week, we feel we can hang with anybody. We know that Team Weisser won’t go down without a fight, so we are ready for an exciting game on Wednesday.”

 

As usual, Mark Weisser had plenty to say leading into the post season: “We will be ready for Wednesday. You can never count out a team with the Wolf pack. Those guys know how to win.”

 

On Field 2 it is Overall #1 seed, Team Solomon vs. Team Kamrass who won their way into the post season on Sunday by beating Team Roger. “We know we have our work cut out for us,” Micah said, “But I am confident in Eppy and our team to get the job done. No one thought we could win it last year and we shocked the JCC world. We plan on doing the same this year.” Never at a loss for words, Stu said his team is ready for action. “Since day one when I drafted Jeff ‘The Natural’ Weisbrot later than he normally goes, we have played with a chip on our shoulder.” Maybe one of the hardest and deepest teams in recent JCC history Team Solomon looks forward to continuing to mash the ball this post season. “We have former MVP’s, we have future MVP’s, we have the rookie of the year, we will be ready for anything that the rest of the league throws at us.” Stu promised.

 

On Field 3 we have round three of Team Brafman, the 4 seed vs. Team Lefton, the 5 seed vs. the sun.

 

“Our last game went into extra innings,” Brafman said. “I expect this game to be just as close as the other two. Losing Anton, the heartbeat of our team, on Sunday hurts but we will be ready to come and play Wednesday night.” Jimmy is excited for another shot at the post season trophy. “My team, all 12 of us, will be there ready to go. I’ve got my arm ready to go, and anytime a team has Griff we can’t be overlooked. I expect us to get our revenge on Team Brafman this week.”

 

Finally on Field 4, we have Team Fogel, the 3 seed vs. Team Z, the 6th seed.

Two rookie captains go at it for a chance to take on the winner of Solomon and Kamrass. “I’ve loved my first year as Captain,” Jeremy said. “I’ve learned a lot and just like David Bell I am doing the best I can dealing with injuries to my team and the weather.” Z echoed the same thought. “I love my team. We are ready to go, and I expect to pull this one out just like we have the last couple of weeks. We will be ready for whatever Team Fogel tosses our way.”

 

Quick League notes

 

If you haven’t yet, please sign the league shirt for Jason Faust’s dad Marty who plans on framing it in their house. Don’t ever forget how much the league means to all of us. 

 

Continue to stop by Marx Bagels to get Sweet Butter Bakery treats. They are the best.

 

The JCC Oy Vey 5k is back. It’s the second Sunday in November. Please sign up and run/walk. All the money raised goes towards the JCC athletic programs, which includes softball.

 

Somehow Roger has been married now over 30 years. Congrats to him and bless his wife.

 

Ryan “The Hebrew Hammer” Baum celebrated a birthday last week. Happy birthday! 

 

Author’s note. I believe a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Wes Wolf got married. I meant Tyler. Sorry about the confusion.

 

Jeremy Fogel got to play a game on the field last week at GABP. Unfortunately, he doesn’t play SS so the Reds don’t want him.

 

Good luck everyone this week. 

Marc

 

Editor’s note – Blog master Brafman mentions below that Fogel and Zawatsky will be playing for the chance to take on the winner of Solomon/Kamrass.  However, the winner of Fogel/ Zawatsky will play the winner of Grefer/Weisser.  The winner of Brafman/Lefton will play the winner of Solomon/Kamrass.

 

August 10 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

Commish Silverman set up a shrine to the sun God Helios in his backyard and it must be paying off as we had another night of softball last night without rain. Keep it up, Ryan. We all are grateful for your sacrifice to the gods. 

 

Now onto the games.

 

On Field 1 we had Team Weisser vs. Team Zawatsky.

Mark, as usual, keeps it simple for the winners:

We beat Team Zawasky 8-2 yesterday. After giving up 2 in the first we held them scoreless with solid defense. Brad Wagner had two big hits and 4 RBI, and Duffy Wolf had a big two-out hit with 2 RBIs.

 

On Field two it was the game of the season as Team Fogel battled Team Solomon.

Jeremy for the winners:

In a highly anticipated matchup between Team Solomon and The Men in Navy Blue, there was not much offense left on the table and trace amounts of defense brought to the field. A shootout from start to finish, Team Fogel prevailed by a final score of 20-19. Let’s get to the action…

 

Jumping out in front early, The Men in Navy Blue hit around in the first inning and had five players cross the plate. It was a hit parade early and that persisted for both teams through the first few innings. The score jumped from 5-4 to 8-8 and just like that it was a good ol’ fashioned offensive duel. Through four innings Team Solomon lead 14-13 and they would hold onto that lead by a score of 19-17 heading into the last frame.

 

Captain Fogel led off the seventh with a base knock and came around to score on a Tait Cunningham hustle double. With the tying run on second and two outs, “switch hitter” Andrew Gage stepped up to the plate and channeled his clutch gene with a game tying double just inside of the bag down the first base line. Gage would come around to score on a single by Bryce Anslinger and The Men in Navy Blue carried a one-run lead into the bottom of the seventh.

 

With the meat of their order coming up and having scored in every inning thus far, Team Solomon stepped to the plate with a chance to walk-off this back-and-forth game. Jamey, as he always does, kept his composure and stuck to his gameplan of firing missiles to Mark Franklin and dotting the black edge of the plate. The first two hitters were retired via towering fly balls to Fogel and Nitzberg in left and right center field before a two-out single kept the game going. A groundout to third ended the game and The Men in Navy Blue celebrated around the mound.

 

The interim manager, Spark Fogel, had this to say after the game. “I love the resilience of this team.  Top to bottom everyone contributed last night and has been doing so all season.   I’m working feverishly to rejoin this group of guys for a championship run.”

 

Stats and shoutouts:

• Jeremy and Tait scored four times each in the shootout last night, with Scott and Pat scoring three times a piece, seemingly on base every time
• An outstanding catching performance by Mark Franklin who did not let up any past balls, although it came at the cost of his hitting as he said he was unable to bend his knees at the plate due to all the crouching while catching
• Shorty with three base hits yesterday started and continued many important rallies, not forgetting to point to the sky after each knock

 

On Field 3 it was Team Brafman vs. Team Grefer vs. Team Sun

Kyle for the winners:

We beat team Brafman 21-13 in a total team effort. Down 10-4, our team showed great fight to come back and get the win in a long game that took all of two hours. MVP goes to Chris Kunkel who went 5-5 and had a great running catch in short right field. AJ Goldhoff had 2 hits and 3 walks in the leadoff spot, Ben Margolis went 4-5 at the plate, and Josh Rosen, Howie Schwartz, Zach Michelson, and I all had big hits. Sub Cam Kirzner also had a great game with a lot of action at shortstop.

Capt. Brafman adds that we played a hard game but the bats of Grefer and the sun didn’t help the cause. Joel “Hallelujah” Buckley had a great game at SS and at the plate. A big shoutout to Todd “The Mayor” Wasserman who hung behind the plate in what was the longest 7-inning game in JCC history and also had a couple of knocks. 

 

Finally, we move to Field 4 where Team Kamrass played Team Roger

 

On a lovely night for softball, Team Kamrass vanquished Team Rosenthal 14-9. Highlights included a diving catch from Adam Heldman, a few web gems at third base from Scott Raskin, an over the shoulder catch from Jared Kamrass, and a critical slide into first base by Mark Levine. Eppy pitched a great game.

Lots of strong hitting performances throughout the lineup.

Watch out. Team Kamrass is heating up for the tournament run.

 

League notes:

I’m sure by now most of you know but Rick Lefton’s sister-in-law lost her battle with cancer earlier in the week. We are all thinking of Rick and his family this week.

 

Ryan “The One-Man Gang” Marcus starts a new job at Princeton Jr. High this week. Good luck, big man. Try not to scare the kids.

 

A BIG and I mean BIG week for James “Lynn” Swan. First, it was his birthday and then he got engaged. Congrats and happy birthday!

 

Happy 21st anniversary to Corey Norris and happy 15th anniversary to Bryce Anslinger.

 

Somehow in one of the funnier mailing issues I’ve ever seen, Roger, who as we all know eats, sleeps, and poops XU basketball got mailing labels sent to him from UC with the UC logo on them and everything. He plans to sell them next week on his blog for $25 cents so if you want to be Roger Rosenthal when you mail out your bills, he is happy to share them with you. 

 

Call out to all JCC softball historians…has this ever happened in our league? Last night in Amarillo, Texas a kid in the Cards organization named Chandler “Can I hit anymore homeruns” Redmond pulled off a homer cycle. That’s right he hit a solo, 2 run, 3 run and grand slam homer all in one game. It’s only the second time in the history of baseball at any level that someone has done that. Amazing…and to think the Reds haven’t had a player hit for the cycle since Eric the Red did it in 1989. To put that in perspective Christian Yelich has hit for the cycle twice THIS SEASON vs the Reds.  

 

David “BP” Snyder doesn’t like me talking about the Reds in our team chat. He would prefer we talk about FC Cincinnati which honestly might be better for all of us.

 

Scott “why can’t we be” Friend(s) got to play golf on the old course in Scotland. Even for someone like me who doesn’t play golf, that is a pretty cool bucket list item, especially the picture of him and his family on the bridge. 

 

If you want to watch a special on how not to run a music festival, check out Trainwreck, the 3-part special on Netflix about Woodstock 99. 

 

Finally big shout out to Mike “Flash” Creemer and Eric “Jeter” Goldstein for leading all the Cincy kids out in San Diego for the Maccabi games.  They looked like they had a blast and came back with a lot of wins and medals. 

 

See everyone on Sunday.

 

August 3 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

A nice night for softball last night. Ryan must have sacrificed a live chicken or something to get us a Wednesday without rain. 

 

Let’s get right to the action. 

 

On field one we had Team Weisser vs. vs. Team Stu

 

Stu for the winners once again:

 

What a game from Team Solomon, as they continue their undefeated second half 11-8 against Team Weisser. ROY Frontrunner Ryan Marcus had this to say after the game. ” This was a gritty win for this team. We never got down on ourselves and knew we could and would fight back.”

 

Team Solomon started very sluggish on both sides of the ball (I know this is a football expression, but it works). On offense we only had 8 hits through 5 innings. On D we had several miscues in the outfield including 2 flat out drops by the man writing this recap. 

 

Through the first 5 innings, there were some great defensive plays to keep the game close. Jeff “Captain America” Weisbrot had a great running catch in deep RCF. Ryan “Macrodosing” Marcus had three very nice putouts at third after not having a ground ball hit to him in 4 weeks. Adam “The Mad Scientist” Cronstein had a great outfield assist to 3rd to nab the career stolen base leader Scott Wolf. Some offense was provided by Matt “007 aka Swaggs aka Swaggy G aka Ms Wagner aka The Accountant” Wagner with a huge double to RF scoring two.

 

Then came the top of the 6th with Team Solomon down 7-4.  After a long flyball out from future Teach of the Year, Ryan Marcus, Stuart “El Capitan” Solomon roped a triple to LCF in what has been called the hardest hit ball of his season. Corey “Chuck” Norris and Gregg “Triple G” Harris hit all game going 3-4 and 4-4 respectively. Corey had a single next, followed by a Gregg Harris double. Adam “The Bad Guy” Cronstein’s infield single scored one, followed by a huge two out single by Jeff Weisbrot, plating two to put Team Solomon aka The Purple People Eaters on top 9-7 (this may be a run-on sentence, but I’m too stupid to know how to fix it and I don’t care.). In the top of the seventh, we added two more to seal the game 11-8.

 

Big shout out to Corey Norris who pitched and fielded his position expertly. I’m not sure who rated him as an 8, but thank you.

 

Our whole team looks forward to playing for other teams on 8/14. Call them today captains because they are going fast!

 

On field two it was Team Kamrass vs. Team Grefer

Kyle for the winners:

We beat Team Kamrass with a final score of 15-12, I think. It was an overall ugly game with a lot of defensive miscues on both sides. Offensively the top contributors were Chris Kunkel and Zach Michelson each going 3-4, with Chris getting a JCC homerun on a ball to right field that was nearly caught. Everyone on the team chipped in offensively with some key hits. 

 

Apologies to Mark Tenenholtz for intentionally walking him 3 times. They were missing some of their top hitters, so he wasn’t as protected in the lineup (and last year I think he had nearly 10 RBI’s in a game against us).

 

On Field three

It was Team Brafman vs. Team Lefton

 

Marc for the winners:

Team Brafman held on in the bottom of the 7th to force an extra frame where their bats came alive for a 16-10 win. “It’s always a close game when we face Lefton,” Brafman said post game. This game was no different. Neither team ever led by more than 3 runs in this back-and-forth affair. Big hitters for Team Brafman were Eric “The Mouth of the Midwest” Gruen who set the table for us with 5 hits I believe, Todd “The Mayor” Wasserman with a booming double and a go ahead single in the 8th. JZ hit his first homer of the year a three-run shot in the gap. And David “BP” Synder also had three hits. On defense, sub Tait Cunningham made a couple of key plays at 3rd, Alex Krause was great at 2nd base and combined with Joel “Hallelujah” Buckley for a great 4-6-3 DP in the bottom of the 7th. “Handsome” Sam Castellini continued his outstanding fielding in the outfield this season and sub Jamie Kurtzer kept Lefton off balance all night. 

Team Brafman would like to give props to both Griff Harris and Cam Kirzner from Team Lefton for seemingly being everywhere on defense and for Alan “King Salsa” Lessure for his fine catch in the 1st inning off the bat of Brafman. 

 

Finally on field 4 we had Team Roger vs. Team Z

 

Pinch hitting for Roger this week is D-Sol for the winners

It was a complete team effort.  Ace, Keith Kombrinck, and battery mate, Brian Goldberg, kept the opposition off balance all night allowing only 3 runs and 1 walk.  We were flashing the leather all day in a gold glove caliber game across the board that saw 0 errors.  3B Norm Frankel made some great throws for putouts and RCF James Swan showed off his basketball skills with a couple of leaping grabs.  The team OBP was .513 led by SS Evan Pierson going 3-3 with a walk, LCF Michael Askin 2-3 with a walk, and 2B David Solomon going 3-4. 

 

League notes:

 

Ryan informed the captains last night that we have had 8 games rained out this year. That is half the season for those of you keeping score. Let’s hope the next couple of weeks are better…

Congrats to Todd “The Mayor” Wasserman on his 19th wedding anniversary.

 

If you are in the market for good baked goods and enjoy Marx Bagels make sure you grab some Sweet Butter Bakery goods on the way out

 

Congrats to Weston “Big Bad” Wolf on getting married a couple of weeks back. The wedding had a Mardi Gra parade built in and looked like a lot of fun. 

 

Jeff “Capt. USA or The Natural” Weisbrot, depending on which nickname he is going by that day, won Bronze at the Maccabiah games in Israel. Just like the Reds, Team USA was done in by bad pitching. But Jeff reports that he had a great time, and we are all proud of him for representing our league on such a large scale. Next time we expect to see Grff, Mark Tenenholtz or Anton out there. Come on boys, make it happen. 

 

Speaking of Maccabiah games, kudos to Mr. Mike “Flash” Creemer and Eric “Jeter” Goldstein for taking kids out to San Diego from Cincy for the Maccabi games. Eric’s daughter is playing softball and former players’ Aaron “Straight outta” Compton and Greg Leader (of the Pack) sons are playing baseball. What a great experience for the players and for Mike and Eric. Good luck Team USA and Cincy.

 

More news on the Wolf Family. Duffy Wolf last week had some of his art deco pictures on display here in town. If you haven’t seen Duffy’s pictures before, make sure you check out his Facebook page. They are really something.

 

Disturbing news from Mr. Bearcat, Cam Kirzner. He keeps posting pictures of himself with his arms around a pretty girl. When League notes asked who she was, he said, “It’s my girlfriend.” When asked if she too was a Rally Cat (Bearcats cheer team) he told us, “No she goes to Miami!” Cam might get his Bearcat card pulled for that answer.

 

Things you don’t know about your teammates until you ask. Fink has been out the last week and when I asked why, he told me he has been a collector of sports cards for years and he and his son were going to the National Convention in Atlantic City. I can’t wait to hear what he comes back with and what he sold. 

 

Congrats to former Commish Brad “The Human Rain Delay” Wagner on the birth of his first daughter Maddie. We all can’t wait to meet her.

 

Random Twitter picture of the week. For some reason I follow Weird Al Yankovic on Twitter and yesterday he posted a picture of himself, Pee Wee Herman and Little Stevie Van Zandt bowling. So many questions need to be asked about this. Why were those three together, why were they bowling and what in the world did they talk about? (FYI…if you have XM radio I highly recommend Little Stevie’s Underground Garage. You get some amazing music and great stories. 

 

Finally, let’s discuss the Reds and the moves they made. While I sort of understand them trading Castillo, and they should have traded Pham and Drury, I can’t understand why they traded Tyler Mahle. If you go to a game the Reds have a minor league report and if you believe Nick Krall he keeps talking about building from within and keeping it with player development. Well, Nick-TM was the 3rd best home-grown pitcher the Reds have had since Tom Browning. (Cueto and Leake where better). Anyway, he is under team control for at least one more year after this year and with the three rookies formed a pretty good rotation. But nope, let’s get more prospects which stand for haven’t done JACK SQUAT yet and start planning for 2025. Since we are giving up on the next two years or at least next year when they are still on the hook for Fat Moose and Joey, here is my advice for the Reds front office. Just like Darth Vadar did in Empire Strikes Back, they need to hire Boba Fett and freeze the three rookie pitchers and Tyler Stephenson in carbonite, hang them in the Reds Hall of Fame so we can come see them like Jaba Did to Han Solo in Return of the Jedi and then, in 2025, unfreeze them at Redsfest. This way they won’t get any older, get hurt or require Tommy John surgery before the next round of “prospects” are ready to go. Even in retirement Doc writes way better than me so I’m going to quote him from his Facebook page here:  “This team has offered no proof that it can turn the 19-year-old bus rider into anything but a 24-year-old bus rider. Without that credibility, the most recent trade deadline wasn’t reassuring. It wasn’t a reason for optimism. It was a dispiriting march toward further irrelevance. Some of us (ALL) are tired of waiting for a future that always arrives elsewhere.

 

See everyone next week, and remember UC has their home opener on September 10. Hell, I’m even excited for OSU vs. Notre Dame the week before.