JCC Softball Cincinnati

May 5 Recap (continued)

 

May 5, 2021 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

What turned out to be a nice evening at Triple Creek saw plenty of close games and one blowout. Let’s get right to the action.

 

On Field One, Team Lefton beat Team Brafman (and the sun) 13-9. In a game marked by some very good defense from Griff Harris and Scott ” Why can’t we be” Friend(s) it was the hitting of Team Lefton that carried the day. Jimmy and Brad “The Human Rain Delay” Wagner both beat the shift to get key hits. Dee Harris and the Brothers Kunkel (who moonlight as a juggling act (or at least they should))  each contributed key hits in a 6-run inning that Lefton never gave back. “With the sun I was just trying to put the ball over the plate,” Lefton said post game. Jimmy also is going to advocate for a zero-strike zone in the future meaning hitters will have to come to the plate ready to swing with a 2×4 or an ironing board. He didn’t like that he walked me last night I guess.  For Team Brafman big shout out to Eric “the fastest man in the league” Zied for stepping in to pitch. He did a great job. He also contributed a couple of knocks. Brafman, “Playboy” Mitch Evans and Andrew “The Macho Man” Gage also had a couple of hits. 

 

Over on Field Two, Team Groh battled Grefer in a pitching duel for the ages: Ken reports after his 4-3 win:

In a rare JCC pitchers duel, Team Groh etched out a win even though “the living legend” Howie Schwartz pitched like he was 35 again holding Team Groh to 6 total hits. After a scoreless 1^st, Duffy Wolf hit a bloop 2 out single that drove in 2 runs. After a lead-off single by Ryan Baum, Bryce Anslinger doubled him to 3rd. An RBI grounder by Jim Beckett and aggressive baserunning by Bryce tied the game up 2-2 after 2. Tyler Wolf had a SF in the 3rd and Jeremy Fogel matched that with a two-out homer and was determined to score as he never stopped running and slid under the tag at home. At 3-3 thru 3 the pitchers and defense took over and the score remained that way until the bottom of the 7th. Groh doubled with one out and after 2 failed bunt attempts, Marc Simons hit a grounder to 2nd and was out on a close play at 1st but it did enough as the old man Groh rumbled around and slid headfirst ahead of the throw for the 4-3 win. Jeremy Fogel had 2 hits and was part of throwing out a runner at the plate and sub Josh Rosen had a triple and a nice diving catch. Todd Wasserman and Marc Simons had a couple of great defensive plays as well as Wes Wolf who probably accounted for half of his teams defensive plays at both ss and at 2b as Team Grefer had an effective shift. It was good to see Jeff Weisbrot and son at the game as he coached 3rd. He is looking to play again in a month or so. Groh also made a great diving catch that all of us on field one felt when he dove for the ball. Nice catch Kenny!

 

On Field 3, it was Team Schwartz taking on Team Loon and the setting sun 24-12.

Take it away, Taylor. 

Team Schwartz battled Team Loon in a high scoring affair. Both teams plated 2 in the first. Schwartz scored 4 in the 2nd, but Team Loon answered with 8 of their own as the whole lineup had solid base hits, to put them up 10-6. At that point, Jamey buckled in and only allowed 2 runs over the next 5 frames. Dan Perlmutter played excellent defense behind the plate. Everyone on Team Schwartz contributed on offense. Mike Rothstein was 5-6, Eric Goldstein with multiple bombs, and Taylor with a cycle. A big moment was in the top of 6 when B Rod hit a bloop 2 RBI single to put the victors up 14-12. Adam Cronstein snagged a screaming liner off the bat of Anton to keep the lead heading to the top of 7. This is when the wheels fell off for Team Loon. Electing to walk Pete Soltesz to load the bases with 2 outs, Corey Schwartz delivered a big knock to extend the lead. Following him, Corey Norris kept the rally alive, and the rest was history. Note: Double Corey hitting back-to-back is an electric duo in the middle of the order. I dare any other team to put forth a set of Corey’s that can compete with ours. Team Schwartz kept raking (along with some shakey defense) and scored 11 in the 7th to win 25-12. The team celebrated the Cinco De Mayo victory with shots of Jose Cuervo and Taco Bell.

 

Finally on Field 4, it was Team Solomon vs. Team Bachelor Party aka Kamrass 8-4

Stu reports in from the winners:

Great game last night! I thought we played well in all areas of the game.

A few big shout outs;
Mike and Andy- Awesome pitching and catching performance. As someone
who gets scared when the batter swings and misses, Andy, you looked
great back there. it must be the shin guards! Mike, way to keep the
batters off balance and mixing speeds. I think they had two or 3 hard
hit balls all night.

Mark Wolfe- Went 3-3 last night and started the big 5th inning.

Danny- Welcome back to softball. We missed you.

Michael,Tyler, Adam- All played great offensively and defensively.

Let’s continue to string hits together and play great D!

 

League notes:

Thanks to Ep for buying the wings last night at the Silver Spring house along with plates of chips. the real question is will the king of post-game eating try any cicadas on is chips in a few weeks. Speaking of the cicadas…For those of you who were in the league 17 years ago, what are we in for? The snow, the rain last week, the sun every week and now this. What did we do to make Moses so upset with our league? 

 

Last night it was brought to my attention that David “Slim Shady” Wertheim doesn’t believe that any of us over 30 should be able to root for our college teams. Not only is this one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard in a while (second only to Tony “I invented baseball don’t forget it” LaRussa pitching to Jessie Winker with a base open and Babe Farmer on deck yesterday) it also doesn’t make sense. Not only would I be out of a job, but I need to ask him why he feels this way. When asked what he would be doing on a college football Saturday in a few years instead of watching OSU, he said cutting his grass or raking leaves. Have fun with that..

 

Shout out to Howard Goldwasser for being the Soup Nazi of the Kona Ice truck last week at the first in-person event at Adath. Howard made sure that each kid only got one squirt of Tigers blood flavor and if they got any more than that it was NO ICE FOR YOU. 

 

Jimmy Lefton doesn’t believe Clayton Kershaw is a 1st ballot hall of famer because his post season record isn’t that great. I guess pitching your team to all those post seasons doesn’t count, right? 

 

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, it was 46 years ago this week that Pete Rose was moved from LF to 3rd base to make room for George Foster. The Reds who were 500 at the time went 42-11 over their next 53 games won over 100 games and the World Series. So, the next time you read about Nick Senzel or Gino moving spots, remember that Pete was an All Star at 5 spots and always did what is best for the team.

 

I know we are old and get hurt a lot, but how about A’s pitcher Jesus Luzardo, who broke his pinkie on his pitching hand when he slammed it down on a table while playing video games and had to go on the DL. Nice move!

 

April 28 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

Before we get started with the blog, I’d like to publicly state that I couldn’t have been more wrong about last night. Driving to the game in the rain, standing in the rain, bitching about the rain while we were at the fields, I thought there was ZERO chance we were playing. And I let everyone know it (including Rick) what a waste of time it was for us to be out there. But as I found out last night, when he’s not going around town being Handsome, Sam Castellini can read a weather report. As he informed me “I’m a lifeguard for a living and I know my way around the weather app.” From about 5:45 on he told us that the rain would stop at 6:15 and he was spot on. So, I will admit to being way off on the rain and I couldn’t be happier we played. Commish, sorry for being a loud pain in the ass.

 

Now onto the games

 

On field 1 we had Team Groh vs. Team Kamrass: Groh won 15-9

Eppy came out firing and Kamrass got the jump on Team Groh to lead 5-1 after 2 innings. In the 3^rd, rookie Zach Michelson (3 hits and 2 runs) led off with a single and the hits just kept coming as Brodoff, Groh, Simons and Baum all drove in runs as Groh took a 6-5 lead which they never relinquished. Super sub, Mathew Brodoff, drove in two more runs with a triple in the 4th as Groh extended the lead to 9-5. Brodoff had 4 hits and drove in 7 runs in the game! Kamrass fought back as the score narrowed to 10-8 heading into the 7th inning but with one out consecutive hits by Anslinger, Beckett, Wasserman and Michelson broke open the game and both Fogels also crossed the plate as Team Groh built a 15-8 advantage. Kamrass was robbed by what captain Ken Groh called “one of the best catches I’ve ever seen made from the past (and future) defensive player of the year, Jeremy Fogel.” Missing was Jeff Weisbrot who tore a ligament in his knee and will miss a couple of months. Groh added, “Our permanent sub, Jack Cohen, tore a ligament in his foot and is also out for a while.” Coach was very happy to not get rained out!

 

On field 2 it was Team Solomon vs. Team Lefton. Lefton won 15-5

Team Lefton continued their strong start by defeating Team Solomon 15-5.  Everyone contributed on offense. Chris Kunkel had two big hits driving in 4 runs. Team Lefton also flashed the leather with great plays from Scott Friend in LF, Brian Goldberg in RC and a game ending, diving stop by Dee Harris at SS.   Game Ball was presented to Chris Kunkel for his hot bat and key hits.  Also, the entire Lefton team tipped their cap to Stu for an amazing catch he had in the game.

 

On field three we had Team Schwartz vs. Team Grefer. Grefer won 9-5

Team Grefer defeated Team Schwartz 9-5 behind great pitching from Howard Schwartz and solid defense behind him. Wes Wolf had a triple and a home run. Tyler Wolf had 3 hits as well. Gary Grefer had 2 hits and threw out two runners attempting to steal second base. Sub, Dan Green, played a great game at third base.

 

Finally on Field 4 it was Brafman vs. Team Weisser. Brafman won 17-7

 

Behind the continued hot hitting of Ben “Raindance” Rosenberg (who went 4-4), Rabbit Yitz and Mark “Big Blue” Tenenholtz, Team Brafman poured it on early and late to defeat Weisser 17-7. Brafman jumped out to an early 5-0 lead with RBI hits coming from Jeff “Delino DeShields” Fink, a sac fly from “Macho Man” Andrew Gage, a huge bases clearing triple from Rabbi Yitz and an RBI single from Brafman. Always nice to get the bats going early to put the pressure on the other team Brafman said post game. Not to be overlooked in the hitting was some fine defensive plays by the Commish, Rick Tenenholtz, who fielded a spinning bunt and stepped on home to force out a run and by Eric “The fastest man in the league” Zeid who made a great over the shoulder catch at 2nd base and “Pretty Boy” Mitch Evans who made all the plays at 3rd. Sam “The Hit Man” Hecht, Zach “The Wild Horse” Zackem and Alan Lessure also contributed at the plate. The one play Brafman would like to point out is when Mark Tenenholtz airmailed the infield, the backstop, the tree behind the plate and the first row of cars with a throw from LC. Said Mark post game, “I honestly thought I was throwing that ball on a line and it just sort of slipped.” Not since The Mad Hungarian Jason Faust threw a pitch over the backstop has there been a throw like that. Team Brafman improves to 2-0.

 

JOSH “MR. CUB” ROSEN and STEVE “ZZZZZZ” ZAWATSKY continued their hot start to the season at both the plate and in the field…..

 

Z made a heads up play on the first batter in the opening frame, MITCHELL EVANS, when he backed up a bad throw to first base and gunned him out trying to advance to second base……Afterwards, the veteran catcher said, “I always back up plays at first base, but this is the first time that I’ve thrown someone out trying to advance. I bet the scouting report is now out, that I back-up bad throws.”

 

Also, of note, first round pick, DAVID “MR. ALL-WORLD” WERTHEIM, smacked a double, but missed first base by a country mile……..first base coach ROGER “MR. BOBBLEHEAD? ROSENTHAL noticed it, but didn’t say anything until the next pitch was thrown…..”I mentioned it to Marc (first basemen/captain MARC BRAFMAN) after the next pitch and he didn’t make a big deal out of it.”

 

The Bobblehead King added, “My point is, the first baseman should be checking to see if the runner tags the base or not. Marc was NOT doing his job.” (Brafman replies-the umps have enough trouble calling balls and strikes I am not worried about a missed first base) 

 

League notes from Roger:

 

STEVE “MR. WINGMAN” EPPSTEIN had two guests in attendance as his son, DAVID, and his lovely wife, NIVEA, came in from DC to see if the elder EPPSTEIN still had it……the verdict is still out…….

 

**JIMMY LEFTON, the lawyer, and brother RICK LEFTON had it out in a discussion whether the presidential election should be decided by electoral votes or popular votes…..who do you think won that one?

 

Staying with sports……congrats go out to the XAVIER women’s golf, tennis and swimming teams for capturing the BIG EAST titles…..way to go LADY MUSKETEERS!!!!!…..and I don’t care who gives a damn!

 

Brafman league notes:

A HUGE congrats to Tyler Wolf and Urban Blooms for being a big part of the Bengals’ jersey release hype video. If you’ve seen it, Joe Burrow and the boys are sitting in front of a big wall of plants and T was the one that set that up. Congrats, buddy. (One Bengals or NFL note) Does anyone REALLY CARE that much about the draft to sit in front of the TV from 8 till midnight tonight? Do you care who the Packers take or the Seahawks? I get it if you’re a Bengals fan like me you want to see if they go with Chase or the guy from Oregon, but can’t I read about this tomorrow and it will be the same as wasting all this time watching it tonight? Is Trevor Lawrence going to suit up tomorrow for the Jags? I have never understood why the draft is such a big deal.

 

Keeping it in the Wolf family, I am jealous of Brandon Wolf, who actually got to see a live concert at Red Rocks last week. Let’s hope we can get out to Riverbend this summer.

 

One more music note…earlier this week was the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead Playing a show at the Fillmore East with the Beach Boys. No word on if Uncle Jessie was playing the congas with the Beach Boys.

 

Keep the Leftons in your thoughts as Rick’s sister-in-law, Sarah, who a number of us know is battling cancer. She is a real warrior.

 

In a couple of weeks, both Corey “I see your Schwartz is as big as mine” and “Pretty Boy” Mitch Evans will be moving away for new jobs. Good luck guys. We’ll miss ya. 

 

From this point forward we are now required to refer to Mike Rothstein as “The Special One.” 

 

Eric Zied would like to mention that the Jewish Committee on Scouting will be marketing veterans’ graves at Covedale Cemeteries at 10 am on May 16. If you want to help, see him on Wednesday at the field.

 

Kudos for Gary Grefer for staying in shape in the offseason by playing winter ball down in the Mexican league. He was one of the few guys that Jose De Leon struck out, which the Reds TV guys keep bringing up as proof that he can pitch. 

 

If you or your family are looking for the best Jewish baked goods in town, make sure you check out the website for Sweet Butter Bakery. Order your Friday night dinner pastries now!

 

Finally what blog post would be complete without this week in the Rogerland. Twice he asked me if I had an extra Wyoming Cowboy hat. When I said I could check the team store, he said, “No, I’m only interested in game used ones.”

 

See ya on the field next week. Let’s hope for no rain.

Marc

April 28 addendum

by Stu Solomon

Well, we finally got to play!

Our team has a lot of promise but we still had some rust to shake off.
After giving up a 5 in the top of the first, we gave up 8 runs the
rest of the game. Great D from all 4 outfield positions. Stu “El
Capitan” Solomon had a great running grab in RCF to rob team Lefton of
extra bases. Michael Askin “For Trouble” and Adam “Super Sub”
Gerhardstein help down the left side of the outfield with speed and
finesse.

Offensively we had our moments but couldn’t seem to come up with the
big hit to stay within reach. Tyler “Super Star (in a Molly Shannon
voice)” Stansbury went 3-3 and Stu “El Capitan” Solomon went 2-3 with
2 RBIs. Andy Gollin and Alexander Wold both had a few nice hits.

April 14 Recap

By Marc Brafman

 

On a picture-perfect night at Triple Creek, for the first time in two years, 8 teams took the field and man was it nice to welcome back all the guys that sat out last year and welcome in the rookies. Once again kudos to Rick, Mike C, and the staff at Triple Creek for getting the fields in tip top shape. Let’s go to the recap

 

Field One

Team Brafman defeated Team Grefer 11-9 in somewhat controversial fashion. 

 

Team Brafman got the scoring going in the first with a 2 out single by rookie Ben Rosenberg (H-Bomb) to take the lead. After Grefer came back to take a short 2-1 lead Brafman’s team stormed back to score 5 in the top of the 2nd. Big hits were from Rabbi Yitz (who went 3-3), Sam “The Hitman” Hecht and the Commish Rick T. Another big play was a perfect bunt laid down by Alan “Family truckster” Lessure which not only moved the runners up a base but scored one.” I’m just trying to make contact and move the runners along,” Alan said post game. “I’ve been in this league over 45 years, and I know that getting the ball in play is all that counts.” (Side note…when Alan faced off against Howie, that’s about 95 years combined JCC softball playing between the two. We should all be so lucky to play that long) Team Grefer came back to take a short lead, but once again it was the combo of Rosenberg, Yitz and Hecht that powered the Brafman offense. On the defensive side of the things, the two plays that stand out were Mitch Evans snagging a hot shot down the third base line and throwing out Adam Wolf at the plate and Fink snagging a comebacker up the middle. The controversy came at the end of the 6th with darkness coming quickly the ump called the game an inning early. “Not since Gabby Hartnett hit his famous homer in gloamin’ in 1938 has so much been made over sunlight at a ball game,” Brafman said post game. “Despite what Team Grefer was saying post game, we would have been happy to continue to play. But hey, the ump couldn’t see the strike zone for either team during the game so maybe he was worried he couldn’t see it at night either.”  One final note on this game. It’s always nice to see teammates get excited for their players and the reaction from team Grefer when Scott Wolf got his first hit was what makes this league so special. 

 

Field two:

Team Schwartz defeated Team Kamrass 18-12

 

Team Schwartz picked up where they left off in the playoffs last year by defeating Kamrass 18-12 last night. “We hit the ball well,” Taylor said post game. Mike “Dirty water” Rothstein went 5-5 and played a solid SS. Eric Goldstein had two big hits and rookie David Perlmutter had a 2-run single in his first ever AB. “I was proud of the middle of our order because they had their hitting shoes on. Corey (Schwartz and Norris), Cronstein and Soltesz all had multiple hits. And since I’m the best player in the league and the clear #1 pick, I was even comfortable moving myself to 3rd base this season. Look out Wagner I’m coming for you!!” Not to be overlooked, Adam Heldman hit an inside the park homer for Team Kamrass. 

 

Field 3

Team Lefton defeated Team Weisser 20-17

“When the final score is 20-17 in week one of the JCC softball league, you know what type of game it was,” Jimmy said post game. “We are happy to get the win, and like we predicted at the start, our team will go as far as Griff “Benedict Arnold” Harris will take us. As I told Brafman this morning there were a lot of good plays but more bad plays in this game for both teams. I think we will get better as the season goes on. But one play that did stick out to me was the amazing, backhanded stop at 1st by Mike Margolis in the bottom of the 7th. That helped us win.”

 

Recap from Roger from the losing team:

HIGHLIGHTS…

 

Josh Rosen……………5 for 5

Steve Zawatsky………4 for 4

 

Scoring runs wasn’t the problem for Team Weisser, thanks to some hot hitting off the bats of Josh “Mr. Cub” Rosen (5-5), Steve “Z” Zawatsky (4-4), “Handsome” Sam Castellini (3-5) and “Stormin” Norman Frankel (3-4), but the defense was in hibernation form. It was downright offensive!

 

“Balls that would have probably been outs were not,” captain Mark Weisser said afterwards. “We weren’t making the routine plays, but it was due partly to the sun and it being the first game of the young season.”

 

He added, “I fully expect us to get better as the season goes along, or else I might go a bit crazy on the mound.”

 

Howard Goldwasser was heard after the game, “I didn’t commit an error, so don’t blame that on me.” It should be noted that no balls were hit to him!

 

Weisser concluded, “I like this team and we’ll be alright. This was just not our night.”

 

Finally, we head to field four where Ken Groh reports:

 

Team Groh 19 Team Loon 9

 

Trailing 2-0, Ken Groh tied it up with a 1-out single, and later scored to make it 3-2 after 1. The 2nd inning saw a Jeff Weisbrot grand slam increase the lead to 7-2. Rookie Zach Michelson and Todd Wasserman scored in the bottom of the 3rd to make it 9-2 Groh. After Team Loon plated two runs in both the 4th and 5th innings, the game was 10-6, but Team Groh broke the game open scoring 5 to lead 15-6. After giving up 3, Bryce Anslinger ended the game with a triple as Groh won 19-9. Jeremy Fogel (4 hits and 3 runs) and Ryan Baum (4 hits and 2 runs) had great games, but Jeff Weisbrot was the player of the game with 3 hits, 4 runs and 6 RBIs to lead Team Groh. Groh drove in 4 but was more impressed with the great defense that saved many runs on this great opening day!

 

Special notes:

Ken Groh was happy to have his good friend Jason Faust drive down from Columbus to watch the game! “He keeps a terrible scorebook, but I was very encouraged to see him back at Triple Creek.” 

 

Rookie Zach Michelson collected his 1st career hit in the JCC an RBI single up the middle – congrats Zach!

 

Sad news…Jeff Weisbrot will miss the next month of the season.

 

Team Solomon recap:

I forgot Team Solomon was on the bye this week so when I asked Stu for his recap this is what he sent me:

 

After coming home from a hard day working in the coal mines, I was able to cut the grass. After Kate and I put the young’uns to bed, I re-watched OU’s magical run in this year’s NCAA tournament before Kate and I made sweet love till dawn. 

 

League notes:

Fink speaks for most of us today when he reported that he feels like he ran a marathon he was so sore this morning.

 

One huge mistake I made in the pre-season preview was forgetting that Team Lefton has 4 sets of different families and not three. Somehow, I forgot about Dee and Griff Harris…

 

If you ever wanted to see Bob Ross play softball, you get your wish watching Rafi play for Team Kamrass

 

Dr. Bob Pelberg is in the running for play of the year. On a ball that was clearly foul, and had zero chance of going fair, he did a full Pete Rose dive to make sure the ball was not going to come back into play. 

 

Andrew “Macho Man” Gage brought out his Macho Man Randy Savage sunglasses last night announcing that he didn’t care how dorky he looked. They were great glasses.  It should be noted that later in the game he had to borrow Team Capt. Marc Brafman’s sunglasses because he needed them to be darker. DIG IT!!

 

Now that it’s springtime, if you are looking for Jewish baked goods you can’t go wrong with these: https://www.facebook.com/Sweet-Butter-Bakery-110547014434942/

 

Because you all care so much about my opinion on UC basketball, I am VERY happy about our new coach. I think he is going to get us back on top in no time, and since we got cheated out of a real crosstown shootout this past year, I look forward to beating XU at Cintas this year in front of their fans. 

 

I know there are a lot of music fans in the league. How two such titans of rock ‘n’ roll can come up with this crapola of a song is baffling to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN9YLLQl7gE

 

If getting Covid or herpes interests any of you, Roger is selling a collection of used plastic stadium cups. (On a side note, I once went to a bachelor party for one of my friends from college. He gave us drinks in his older brother’s vintage 1986 Houston Astros stadium cups with pictures of Mike Scott, Glenn Davis and Nolan Ryan on them. That was almost 20 years ago, and we still make fun of him) So if you want to be that guy please contact Roger ASAP.

 

See you on the field next week.