Entering Week 18

Well, this SHOULD be the final week of the season, but late season rain outs have forced our hand to spill over into the off-week after labour day.  Not a big deal other than stats and playoff alignments will be a little bit delayed.

Lets take a quick look at last weeks picks.  I entered last week with a 17-13 record and +$40.00 in the bank.

Master Batters vs. Gruesome Devils:  The League average is 14.02 runs allowed per game.  The MB's are at 9.32; the GD's are at 19.55.  Barring a miracle....

The miracle didn't happen and the Master Batters won fairly easily and reduced their runs against. 

Hot Tub Woody's vs. Rusty Rebels:  They aren't as far apart as you might think.  But the Reb's have outscored the HTW's by 30 and have played 2 fewer games. Defense won't decide this.

And defense had little to do with this as the Rebs smashed their way to a victory.  

  

Sliders vs. Draft Kings  There is no one hotter than the Sliders.  There's no one more consistent than the Draft Kings.  Controlling the ball after its hit is the deal breaker here.

Consistency won over hot as the DK's powered to a huge win completing my Monday sweep. 

  

Son's of Pitches vs. Draft Kings   SOP is close.  But I stand by the earlier comment about the DK's consistency.  They can be beat, but you need to play your best.

As promised, a Draft King win.  

  

Hurtin' Units vs. Dusty Cleats  I view the last couple of weeks as a blip for the Units, they'll bounce back fine.  Not yet though, the Cleats are finally on the roll I've been expecting.

You think these picks are easy?  Yep, I nailed the underdog cleats to win and win they did.    

Grisslies vs. Dog Catchers  Not playing for 2 weeks is going to hurt the Grisslies.  

Guess what?  Not playing for 2 weeks hurt the Grisslies.  Look out next week though.  

Tap Masters vs. Sliders  Win or lose against the Draft Kings, I like the Sliders to get right back at it against the Tap Masters. 

BAM:  The sliders got their bounce back.  Who's perfect this week so far?  This guy.  

Beer Bros. vs. Gruesome Devils.  The Beer Bros offense has disappeared. The BB's are a -62 in the second half.  The next worse two are the Tap Masters and Gruesome at -41.  Its break out night.

There's getting it right and then there's calling your shot.  The Beer Bros. scored 24 runs over their last 3 games.  On the night I declared "break out night" they got 29.  Nice. 

Dodge City Rounders vs. Rusty Rebels.  In the 2nd half these teams are almost identical.  3-4-2 (DCR); 3-4-1 (RR).  Should be close, but Dodge has more power threats on a cool Keogh night.

You'd think I wrote these AFTER the games.  Dodge wins by 1 on a cold Keogh night.  Close enough?  

Son's of Pitches vs. Hot Tub Woody's. If SOP loses to the Draft Kings then this game is a lock.  July 9th was the last time they suffered back to back losses.

Busted....I didn't see this coming. Fairly close, but the Woody's pulled out an 11-6 win.    

Dusty Cleats vs. Tap Masters.  Both teams have played 8 games in the 2nd half.  The Cleats have given up 90 runs, the Tap Masters 135.  

And again.  The Tap Masters overcame injuries and in large part due to 6/6 for nights from Feehely and Ross, scored 22-10 win. 

Master Batters vs. Dog Catchers. 7-2 in the 2nd half (MB) vs 8-2 (DC).   The Draft Kings are getting better every game and have a runs against in the 2nd half of 8.8.  Impressive.  The Master Batters are at 7.0 runs against in the 2nd half.  Good luck.

Back in the high life again.  In what was a pretty thrilling game to watch The Master Batters got an 11-10 victory.  

Week Record:  10-2

Total Record:  27-15

Money:  +$120.00

And this weeks games:

Gruesome Devils vs. Dodge City Rounders:   Bigger, better, faster, stronger.  To quote Kanye.

Dog Catchers vs. Sons Of Pitches:  Health of the Dog Catchers captains remains a question mark.  If this was Vegas, this game would be taken off the board.  SOP are capable, but DC in a close one.  

Draft Kings vs. Grisslies:  Why?  We play close games against the Draft Kings.  A 2 run loss and 4 run loss in our last two games against them.  If we hit on all cylinders, it can happen.  

Dodge City Rounders vs. Hurtin' Units:  Rounding into playoff shape.  The offense is there.  The pitching has been very good.  The defense needs to be a little crisper to be a deep threat in the post season.  

Master Batters vs. Hot Tub Woody's:  Shocked.  I know.  

Rusty Rebels vs. Sliders:  The Sliders and Rebels should be a good match up.  Neither team has an elite defense but both can be good.  The Sliders will out hit the Rebs in this one.  

Tap Masters vs. Dusty Cleats:  The Cleats bounce back from last week's blip.    

Hurtin' Units vs. Sliders:  An interesting match up here.  Similar offenses, but the Units bring more leather to the game.  

Beer Bros. vs. Rusty Rebels:  Its not that the Beer Bros. aren't trying.  But they seem to be running in mud.  Working really hard but not really moving.  Following up last weeks offensive explosion will be difficult.   

Sons of Pitches vs. Grisslies:  Yes, the Grisslies WILL run the table after their take down of the Draft Kings.  

Gruesome Devils vs. Tap Masters:  Expansion cousins that have had tremendous success since joining the league.  This year there is a real possibility of finishing in last and 2nd last.  

Grisslies vs. Dusty Cleats:   Rob and Pully know each other pretty well.  These teams rarely see a blow out against each other.  Looking for a close Grisslie victory.  

ORDER OF FINISH. 

With 16 games remaining until the end of the season, nothing has been decided.  There are a few "likely to happen" but its really a crap shoot. 

This chart shows each teams maximum possible points.  

For each of these listed below it shows the range of possible finishing positions.  Except for the top few and bottom few, it would take a perfect storm to actually reach the highest and lowest position, more likely is somewhere in the middle. 

• The Draft Kings could finish as high as 1st place and as low as 2nd place (hold the tie breaker against the Dog Catchers)
• The Master Batters can finish as high as 1st place and and as low as 3rd place.
• The Dog Catchers can finish as high as 2nd place and as low as 3rd place.  
• The Beer Bros. can finish as high as 4th place and as low as 9th place.
• The Sliders can finish as high as 4th place and as low as 9th place. 
• The Dodge City Rounders can finish as high as 4th place and as low as 10th place. 
• The Rusty Rebels can finish as high as 4th place and as low as 10th place. 
• The Hurtin' Units can finish as high as 4th place and as low as 10th place. 
• The Grisslies can finish as high as 4th place and as 14th place
• The Sons Of Pitches can finish as high as 6th place and as low as 14th place. 
• Hot Tub Woody's can finish as high as 9th place and as low as 14th place.
• Dusty Cleats can finish as high as 9th place and as low 14th place.
• Tap Masters can finish as high as 9th place and as low 14th place. 
• Gruesome Devils can finish as high as 9th place and as low as 14th place. 

STATS

For most of these stats, i've tried to capture the top 25.  Its a little longer than normal. 

1st half

Congrats to the 1st half winners, the Master Batters. 

At the half way point of the season, "for those about to rock", Bill Sallustio was the league's most improved batter.

Our at bat leader (yawn....) through 13 games was Adrian Barry followed by Gord Tanner.  No wonder no one can tell them apart.

No surprise to Mr. Barton leading the way, but it was a terrific start for a bunch of guys, 10 of which were .800 and the middle of the season.

At the half way point there were 8 people on pace to register more hits than anyone in the previous 4 seasons.

Anicete and Darrell were on pace to take down the vaunted #61.  but that pace is tough to maintain.

2nd half

Her are your standings in the second half.  Only the Master Batters and sliders can catch the draft kings.  

So second half most improved.  This is last years end of season batting average against what you've done in the 2nd have of this year.  What I find interesting is that there are 5 sliders hitting over 100 points better than last year.  Might have a lot to do with their jump up the standings and a 9-1 second half record.

At bats in the 2nd half is of course just a whole number.  Its not at all surprising to see the Draft Kings (25 games), Dog Catchers (25), Beer Bros., (25) and Woody's (25) on the list.  Its'll be interesting to see who is still on the list next week when all the 23 games played teams get their at bats in.

A lights out 2nd half by Cam Clark!  10 over .800, but only one over .900

2nd half hits isn't a surprise to me at all. If you see a lot of ball (like me) you know that "hot" isn't always reflected in average. Cam Clark? Hot.  Average and total hits.  Dave Potocki?  Doesn't show up in the 2nd half average conversation, but total hits?  You bet he does. And not cheap hits either, he seems to be in the middle of every Dog Catcher rally.

Well, I'll admit that hit tiny little aspirations of maybe, just maybe, winning this one.  It aint gonna happen.  I have more games left than anyone.  But its too big a gap.  Now my friend Mr Feehely has 3 games left and legs 15 years younger than mine, he might be able to run these guys down.

Season

Continues to be one of my favourite stats. This could actually change a heck of a lot in the next 10 days. Congrats to everyone on this list thought, huge turn arounds!

There haven't be power rankings at all this season.  There is some history to this stat and whether by fluke or not, it seems to work.

There has been much talk about who's in 1st place by points or by baseball standings.  Depending on your preference its either the Draft Kings or the Master Batters.  I think you all know how I feel about that by now.

However, according to this stat, it doesn't much matter.  The top 3 teams a CLEARLY the top 3 teams 4 points between 1 and 2.  4 points between 2 and 3.  And then it spreads out.

You up to the moment standings.

I think this is year 8 of me trying to take our small number of stats that we keep and manipulate them into something to share.  I did it before I was the league statistician, of course when I had that and still now, when I can, now that Lou Conforti is the official stats gatherer.

And in all my years of doing this, I'm fairly certain that this is the first time that I've seen Cliff Tuckers name at the very top of any list!  Way to go Cliff!!!

It'll be interesting to see how this end because of the disparity in games played.  My prediction for the top 5 in this category at the end of the season is Feehely, Richards, Dwyer, Barry and Schrank.  We'll find out soon.

Sadly, this race is over.  Cam made it interesting with a lights out 2nd half, but Scott's lead was too big to overcome.  It would be nice to see Dude climb back over the .800 mark

Again, games played makes a huge difference here.  So does being hot.  My prediction for the top 5 in 10 days is Richards, Clark, Barton, Dude and Behan.

Well....Ani leads a this point and Jerry will have to score one more than his average to catch Lahey's 59 from last year.  Doucet's legendary 61 looks safe for another year.

My predicted top 5 in this category is Muirhead, Richards, Feehely, Clark, Goncalves.  But we have a shot at 12 guys having over 50 runs scored.

That's it for this week gang.  12 of our 16 remaining games are going to be played between Monday and Thursday and will probably decide very little for end of season positioning.  

Yet another year where everything is up in the air with a hand full of games remaining.  

Entering week 17.

Dammit.

I got so bogged down with the tournament last weekend that I forgot to put in my picks this week. But of course, the opening phrase reminds of my two most favourite "dammit's"

#1 has to be Jack Bauer.  Jack was / is as kick-ass as kick-ass could possibly be.  He could kick Chuck Norris' ass.  Ya, I just said that.

Yep, Jack is all that and a bag of chips.  

Ha!  He dares to dis' The Chuck. 

So the second best dammit has to be Bones.  Not our Bones, but the Bones from Star Trek.  Now there was a classic.  

Okay, enough of the dammit's dammit.  

Here's where my picks were before falling off of the rails.  

12-10 +$20.00.  

My last picks were:

Hurtin' Units Vs. Rusty Rebels, I'm going off book on this one, I think the Scott Peters vacation will hurt the Units

Result:  RAIN
Master Batters Vs. Dog Catchers.  Master Batters are smart pick in what appears to be a close game, Hipkin is nursing an injury, not sure if he'll play.

Result:    RAIN
Sliders Vs. Draft Kings.  I've been burned plenty by the Sliders, but I think they've run into their match with the Draft Kings.

Result:  RAIN
Draft Kings Vs. Tap Masters.  Draft Kings will enjoy a 2 win week.

Result:   Draft Kings win 15 - 3
Hot Tub Woody's Vs. Dodge City Rounders - Dodge will make up for last week's disaster.

Result:  DCR pulls out a 11 - 7 victory.
Sons Of Pitches Vs Gruesome Devils - All those close games are starting to pay off for the Sons.

Result:  And another close one, SOP by two 21 - 19
Dusty Cleats Vs. Beer Bros.  Dusty Cleats minus Pully....tough game to pull out.

Result:  Missed this one huge, Cleats demo the Bros 17 - 4
Dodge City Rounders Vs. Grisslies.  Have fun Dodge, the Grisslies run the table after this game. 

Result:   Huh?  Grisslies win 24 - 5.  Go figure.
Beer Bros. Vs. Sliders.  This isn't your parents Sliders.  This is a very hot team, they split the week.

Result:   As predicted 30 - 13 Sliders.
Dusty Cleats Vs. Hurtin' Units. Peters or no Peters, double your bet on this one.  They're good.

Result: Did not see this coming 11-10 for the Cleats.
Sons of Pitches Vs. Grisslies.  Sorry SOP, but I did say we'd run the table 

Result:  RAIN.
Tap Masters Vs. Hot Tub Woody's.  Its time. 

Result:  Pulled this one out of my ass.  11 - 3 HTW!!!

Results for the week, 5 - 3

Results so far:  17 - 13, + $40.00.  

This week will be easy.  

Master Batters vs. Gruesome Devils:  The League average is 14.02 runs allowed per game.  The MB's are at 9.32; the GD's are at 19.55.  Barring a miracle....

Hot Tub Woody's vs. Rusty Rebels:  They aren't as far apart as you might think.  But the Reb's have outscored the HTW's by 30 and have played 2 fewer games. Defense won't decide this.

  

Sliders vs. Draft Kings  There is no one hotter than the Sliders.  There's no one more consistent than the Draft Kings.  Controlling the ball after its hit is the deal breaker here.

  

Son's of Pitches vs. Draft Kings   SOP is close.  But I stand by the earlier comment about the DK's consistency.  They can be beat, but you need to play your best.

  

Hurtin' Units vs. Dusty Cleats  I view the last couple of weeks as a blip for the Units, they'll bounce back fine.  Not yet though, the Cleats are finally on the roll I've been expecting.

  

Grisslies vs. Dog Catchers  Not playing for 2 weeks is going to hurt the Grisslies.  

Tap Masters vs. Sliders  Win or lose against the Draft Kings, I like the Sliders to get right back at it against the Tap Masters. 

Meeting :  I have the over-under set at 3 for the number of comments from Hugh Armstrong that stop the meeting with laughter.

Beer Bros. vs. Gruesome Devils.  The Beer Bros offense has disappeared. The BB's are a -62 in the second half.  The next worse two are the Tap Masters and Gruesome at -41.  Its break out night.

Dodge City Rounders vs. Rusty Rebels.  In the 2nd half these teams are almost identical.  3-4-2 (DCR); 3-4-1 (RR).  Should be close, but Dodge has more power threats on a cool Keogh night.  

Son's of Pitches vs. Hot Tub Woody's. If SOP loses to the Draft Kings then this game is a lock.  July 9th was the last time they suffered back to back losses.  

Dusty Cleats vs. Tap Masters.  Both teams have played 8 games in the 2nd half.  The Cleats have given up 90 runs, the Tap Masters 135.  

Master Batters vs. Dog Catchers. 7-2 in the 2nd half (MB) vs 8-2 (DC).   The Draft Kings are getting better every game and have a runs against in the 2nd half of 8.8.  Impressive.  The Master Batters are at 7.0 runs against in the 2nd half.  Good luck.   

STATS

Due to time I'm just going to run the full season and 2nd half stats.  If you want the 1st half click here

Also, for the sake of ease, each stat is top 10 plus ties. 

Here are the standings as they appear on the league website.  You'll see that the Draft Kings are tied for 1st with the Dog Catchers.  The truth is that the Dog's are in 1st place by the tie breakers.  The 1st tie breaker is fewest losses.  

More to the point is that neither team is actually in 1st place, the Master batters are.  In "baseball speak", the Master Batters are in 1st place by a half game.  One day I'd like to have real standings.  I'll probably never win that one.  

So what's this 2nd half standing show you?  The Sliders should be feared for one thing.  The Dog Catchers, Master Batters and Draft Kings have been remarkably consistent.  

At bats is kind of an attendance award.  But it also usually favours "top of the line up" guys.  You won't see too many 7 or 8 hitters on this list.

Congrats to Steff Kapp and Adrian Barry for being the 1st to break the century mark.  I think your going to have a lot of company this year.

With the variation in games played, the 2nd half total will go down to the wire.  

Not a lot of action at the top due to badly timed rain outs and work conflicts.  Still 6 guys over .800.  

Not a lot of action although Brian Richards went 7 / 10 last week and dropped!

This is interesting.
The Beer Bros. have played 24 games.
The Draft Kings, and Hurtin' Units 23 games.
Dodge City Rounders 22.
This leaves the Sliders, Rebels and Sons of Pitches all at 21 games.  So with the extra games to play, even though it looks close, this is going to be Brian, Scott or Cameron.  They've all been too good to go cold at the same time.

Add the Dog Catchers to the 23 games played list and the Grisslies at 21.  2nd half honours are going to be Clark, Dwyer (egad), Richards or possibly Ford.

Congrats to Jerry the 1st person to break the 50 run plateau this season.  By the looks of things he'll have company.

Running the numbers quickly based on games played....if everyone maintains the same pace Jerry will end up at 59.09 runs and Cam will have 58.19.  Needless to say one run is going to do it.  Also, we're on pace to have 13 guys score 50 or more runs.

The second half is a completely different story.  Everyone above me and Cam has played 23 games compared to our 21.  So this is really a 3 horse race with me (seriously), Check and Cam having the hammer right now.  It'll look different next week!

This is everyone who's average is at least 100 points better than last year.  Lets see what happened over weeks 14, 15 and 16.

Jeff Sagert, up .048
Paul Gyori, up .046
John Stiff, up .043
Mike Olliffe, up .026
Chuck Cragg, up .023
Martin Ranby, up .016
Scott Barton, up .007
Mark Bickford, unchanged,
Cliff Stacey, unchanged,
Doug Dwyer, unchanged,
Lou Conforti, down .002
Brian Richards, down .006
Sandy Bell, down .008
Craig (Dude) Escott, down .013
Chris Parsons, down .037
Rick Greenfield, down .044
Bill Sallustio, down .048.

That shows recent trending, but below is by season improvement.

 Have a great week!!!!

The Beer League

First off it was a tremendous weekend.  Thank you all for donating your time and energy to support the league.

I've been honoured and surprised, to be honest, to have a number of people comment on the Beer League and how much fun it was.  And thank you.  I love doing what I love doing.

But aside from that, I've actually had a person complain that the team from Hammell was stacked and 'obviously' the best team.

Why does this bother me?  Because its wrong.  Because its uninformed.  Everyone is allowed to have opinions.  I especially enjoy opinions that I don't share because it gives me an opportunity to learn.  That's a good thing.  But opinions that are ignorant (by definition, ignorance is the absence of knowledge) drive me crazy.  So instead of a yelling match that really does nothing except prove who has more hot air, I thought I'd explain the beer league.

Why?  So when someone explains to you that the Hammell team was stacked you can correct them.

Can we not just congratulate the champs for fuck sakes and say, "well played!"????

UGHHHHH

So here are some points.

1.  The last time we gave away beer tickets for winning a beer league team, Chris Ross was president of the league.  Jamie McClean was president for 2 years and Steve Ross (no relation) has been president for the past two.  So it has been AT LEAST four years since we gave our beer tickets and I suspect more like five

Why?  Well, we have a liquor license for one thing.  And whether you have a special occasions permit like we do, or a fully blown license like the Rusty Nail, you are governed by the same laws of the Liquor Licence Act, and one of those laws is that you are not allowed to provide free alcohol under any circumstances.  Don't believe me?

Section 18.2, subsection (2):  "  he licence holder shall not permit free liquor to be offered or given to a patron as a prize in a contest. O. Reg. 230/03,"

But that still won't be enough for some.  Some will say, 'whats the big deal', its all in fun.  Sure.  Until we're inspected and our licence is rescinded (means taken away).  And then those that are complaining now will be the first to say we were stupid to give it away.  Loud and uninformed will remain loud and uninformed.

What people also conveniently forget is that the league gave you back your beer money.  When we stopped with the beer tickets, we dropped the price of the beer league from 20.00 to 10.00.  What does that get you?  It gets 10 bucks in your pocket, or 3 beers if you by twenty dollars worth.

So here is the deal for next year.  Admission is still $10.00.  But if you WANT to pay me $20.00 and have me buy you a beer after each of your wins, I'm totally down with that.  Lets play the math game:

You have to sweep the round robin (3-0) to actually get the value of your $20.00 enrollment.  But that's just you as an individual.  Take the whole beer league.  If there's 10 teams again and roughly 120 people....some one has to win every game, so it nets out at half the people breaking even and half of the people not realizing anything from their extra $10.00 deposit.  $10.00 X 60 people, that's $600.00 buck in my jeans while paying off the other 60.00 peoples beer by using their own money.  That's 33 JAK Fund Shirts.

That's a foursome in the HTKP golf tournament.

Don't turn your back on math, it can be your friend.

2.  The teams aren't even.

And this is where I lose my fucking mind.  James Taylor and Steve DeLand submit a team every year.  Other guys are in and out from one year to the next, but Steve and James have been consistent.  There is a rule in the beer league, that you would only know if you involved in it OR bothered to ask.  The rosters of these two teams tentative.  They have to come in within a certain range of all the other teams that I put together.  Both guys know that I will either give players to them or take players from them to adjust their overall ratings to conform to the rest of the teams.  This has happened to both teams in the past.

What we've learned over the years is that their submitted teams need very little tinkering if at.

3.  When you look at our club teams in the Oldtimers League, and add up the rating of the 1-12 and divide by 12 you get an average rating of 6.5.  Tim Schrank's Tap Masters Beer League team was ranked 6.5.  They were the 8th best team in the Beer League by rank.  The 9th best team by rank was the Master Batters at 6.75.

So when you look at a team that wins a game or two and you go, that's way better than our teams you are are right.  They are better.  7 teams were better than our club teams, one was the same, two were worse.  And one of the ones that was worse happens to be leading our league right now.  So when you look at the Master Batters who have been strong this season, if not dominant, and see EIGHT (8) teams ranked better than them, I can see people incorrectly thinking that a team is "stacked".

The truth is that they are all stacked to some degree, but it would actually take paying some attention to figure that out.

4.  The 60+ Merchants did NOT get screwed!

John Harrett approached me last year wanting to put a team in the beer league comprised of his 60+ Merchant team.  Not that there isn't some good players on the squad, but their overall ranking is far higher than other teams.  I was uncomfortable with this.  John assured me that they were there for fun only and didn't give a damn about the scores.  He had some last minute cancellations last year and I asked Jerry Muirhead to play with them.

As expected they got crushed in all three games last year.

As promised, They had a great time.

Jerry finished the weekend and asked to play with them the next year.  He had a great time.  He played with them again this and Beechey has asked to be on the squad as well.

They're still ranked much lower than our other teams but there's something to be said about having fun.  This year they garnered (earned) their 1st Beer League point by tying the eventual (stacked) champions in the 1st game.

5.  While we go through all of the balancing of teams and coordination with captains all roster changes are communicated to everyone up until 12 hours before the tournament.  The work put in by everyone involved is over the top.  To complain about anything is cheap.

6.

    

Now here is your breakdown.  

You can in the average ratings column how the teams worked out by ranking.  

The only team that you can make an argument for finishing where they ranked was James' team.  They were in a 3 way tie for 2nd and finished 3rd.  

The Kool Kids were hurt by player scheduling which was really unfortunate.  This one bothers me and if I could redo it I would.  While I don't think any team was a travesty, this team struggled on the field.  They did NOT struggle at the pavilion.  Thanks Paul, you did a great job.  

2 Bales, 1 Strike.  They were 0-3.  Sucks eh?  I don't think so.  They lost a well played game to the eventual finalists, 10-5.  Then as luck would have it, they'd play their 2nd game against another team that went undefeated in Paul's Pounders.  That score was 8-4. Their 3rd game was against Gruesome Twosome and they lost 10-6.  So a 5 run loss, and two 4 run losses.  They never gave up more than 10 runs.  You can't possibly know who is going to win a tournament before it starts, and there is NO WAY to know Bales' 3 round robin games would be against 3 of the 4 teams that made the playoffs.  That being said, the 7th inning mattered in every game.  They played great and were a couple of hits from moving on.  Well done Al!

The Tap Masters finished 8th.  They played the JAK Fund at 8am Saturday.  The score was 6-4 and I felt lucky to get through that game.  Like Al, their second game was against a team that go undefeated in Paul's Pounders and they would lose that one by 2 as well, 10-8.  Their last game against Hammell was a bit of beat down at 21-14.   That being said, they averaged giving up 11 runs a game while scoring just under 9 runs per game.  Sounds like close ball to me.  Thanks Tim, sorry I forgot your dad.  Dammit.  

The Merchants at 7 were a good news story.  They opened with a tie against Jimmer's Hammell team which shocked a lot of people.  Hell, it surprised me!  And it made me nervous because we had them next.  The JAK Fund defeated the Merchants 10-5 and that game was NEVER safe.  Very much alive heading into Sunday, they lost 11-9, in a great game, to the Master Batters.  So this was undoubtedly the worst team in the tournament by rank.  No one can question that.  And what happened?  They were a combined -5 against the two teams that made the finals.  They were combined -7 against the two finalist and the 1st place team in our league.  Their average score was 10-7.6.   Tough to get a lot closer.  Way to go John!

The 6th place Funky Shorts were captained by Cal (and Bev) Steeves.  They had a win and two losses.  They opened with a tough 9-7 loss to the Master Batters.  The MB's had a 7 run inning late to make the difference.  But the Funky Shorts picked themselves up and knocked off the Kool Kids 18-11 to make their last game still meaningful.  Unfortunately, they ran into one of the very few blow outs of the tournament, losing 21-10 to Hammell.  Well done Cal (and Bev), you were one lousy hit away from entering Sunday at 2-0.  

The 5th place team and last team that didn't make it out of the round robin was the Master Batters.  If ANYONE has a right to complain about this tournament its the Master Batters.  They went undefeated and were eliminated.  That sucks.  Its easy to look back and say we should have a game tie-breaker format, but that too is fraught (full) with problems.  For the record, there were no complaints from the MB's.  Not even, "awww...too bad...that's kinda shitty..."  Nothing.  Not a word.  The 9-7 comeback against the Funky Shorts started their weekend, then a 14-14 tie against the Gruesome Devils put them in a position to move on with a big win.  They won alright, 11-9 against the troublesome merchants.  But the win wasn't big enough as +/- would made the difference.  Terrific work Dave!  You have a future in retail and keep your bats away from your co-captain.  

The Gruesome Twosome finished 4th and moved to the semi finals by running rough shot over the Kool-Kids 13 - 1.  This game was somewhat controversial in that it was declared a "mercy" after 5.  That shouldn't have happened.   I have to own that one.  Gruesome then had their 14-14 tie with the Master Batters putting them in a must win position position against 2 Bales, 1 Strike. They would escape that game with a close 10-6 win.  

The Hammell Toes finished 3rd in the round robin.  They opened with a 9-9 tie against the Merchants which I think raise a few eyebrows.  They would recover and role two 7's, beating the Tap Masters 21-14 and the Funky Shorts 21-10.  The Hammell team was the only one that could get their bats going at the same time, everyone else was sporadic.  Great job as usual James, but I think a lot of credit goes to Cam's pool.    

Then the 2nd place Paul's Pounders.  An interesting story.  They opened with Randy Hipkin as their pitcher before moving on to Paul Piellusch due to injury, before moving to Tito because of a second injury.  But as I've been told, that's not new, its the same thing every year.  Despite the obvious injuries, they won the 1st game against the Tap Masters 10-8.  Then a hard fought 8-4 win against 2 Bales and 1 Strike.  At 2-0, a seven run victory over the Kool Kids would secure 1st place.  The Pounders would get the win and be happy with 2nd  by earning a 16-11 win. Good job managing the pitching rotation Paul.   

Finally the JAK Fund team opened with a very tough 6-4 win against the Tap Masters, that would be followed by a hard fought 10-5 win over 2 Bales, 1 Strike.  The 3rd game on a very hot Saturday turned out to be a must win, but we didn't know it at the time.  JAK Fund would eke out an 11-6 win over the Merchants to go 3-0 and win the round robin.  

We all know that the Hammell Toes and the JAK Fund would go to the final and that Hammell EARNED and 11-4 victory.  

Congratulations.  Legit, hats off to the team.  

But the argument here is the round robin.  

There's your after the round robin standings.  What separates the top 5?  A single point.  Who has the best defense?  JAK Fund, but a long shot.  But who has the 4th best defense?  The 9th place Bales team.  Who had the best offense?  The Hammell's by a long shot.  But the 4th best offense was the Funky Shorts.  

JAK didn't have a top four offense and made it to the finals.  Hammell didn't have a top 4 defense and made it to the finals.

Finally, here is the actual game background.  

Out of the 15 games it takes to get through the round robin, here is a break down of how the games finished.  

So without repeating the whole thing, 11 out of 15 (73.33%) of the games were decided by 5 runs or less.  

My gut reaction is "WOW"!  Those are some close ball games.  But then I start thinking that I should double check with how it measures up with the league.  So I looked at the 1st 15 games of the season and the last 15 games of the season.  Just so its equal.  

  

Interesting.....hmmmm.  So 33.3% of the games were decided by 7 runs or more .... they were blow outs.  A full 1/3 of the games.  53.3% of the games were decided by 5 runs or less.  Nearly half the games, but a full 20% less than in the beer league.  

Lets look at the last 15 games we've played.  Maybe it gets better as the season goes on.  

  

So now, over half of the games are blowouts?  Only 40% of games are decided by 5 or less runs?

Now let me get this straight....'cuz I'm not always the quickest.  We have a league that everyone says is better than sliced bread.  Despite the fact that I do indeed LOVE bread, I do agree that the league kicks ass.

Why?  The rating system makes everything even.  Does it?  Really?  Sure it helps a lot and I wouldn't dare change it, but we have a hastily put together 10 team league that has a combination of made up teams and submitted teams that a) had 119 out of 120 people have fun and b) played nearly '75%' games to close finish compared to less than half of the games our league being close over the same number of games.  

Weird.

So the Hammell team wasn't stacked?   Seriously?  They won because they played really well at the right times and hand some good fortune along the way?  They overcame a mediocre defense with an awesome offense?

Some people can not rationalize a loss (even in a fun league) without finding a way to cast blame.  This time its with the way the teams are set up.

Entering Week 15

Week number 2 of my foray into the seedy gambling side of life.  Week #1 was a 4-8 record.  At $10.00 per game I'm at -$40.00 dollars so far.  Not so good.  Lets look at week #2.

Hurtin' Units, Nailed it.
Dog Catchers, Nailed it.
Draft Kings, Nailed it.
Rusty Rebels, Nailed it. (this is why Pete Rose got in trouble)
Master Batters, Nailed it. (but I didn't predict the forfeit)
Sliders, big miss as the Sliders win their millionth in a row.
Master Batters, Nailed it.
Sons Of Pitches, Nailed it!
Hurtin' Units, Nailed it!!!
Tap Masters, burned by the Tap Masters, dammit.

8 wins, 2 losses!  Pretty awesome.  So overall I'm now 12-10 and am plus $20.00 bucks.  I can make that stretch a LONG way at the August tournament!

Now for this week games....

Hurtin' Units Vs. Rusty Rebels, I'm going off book on this one, I think the Scott Peters vacation will hurt the Units.
Master Batters Vs. Dog Catchers.  Master Batters are smart pick in what appears to be a close game, Hipkin is nursing an injury, not sure if he'll play.
Sliders Vs. Draft Kings.  I've been burned plenty by the Sliders, but I think they've run into their match with the Draft Kings.
Draft Kings Vs. Tap Masters.  Draft Kings will enjoy a 2 win week.
Hot Tub Woody's Vs. Dodge City Rounders - Dodge will make up for last week's disaster.
Sons Of Pitches Vs Gruesome Devils - All those close games are starting to pay off for the Sons.
Dusty Cleats Vs. Beer Bros.  Dusty Cleats minus Pully....tough game to pull out.
Dodge City Rounders Vs. Grisslies.  Have fun Dodge, the Grisslies run the table after this game.
Beer Bros. Vs. Sliders.  This isn't your parents Sliders.  This is a very hot team, they split the week.
Dusty Cleats Vs. Hurtin' Units. Peters or no Peters, double your bet on this one.  They're good.
Sons of Pitches Vs. Grisslies.  Sorry SOP, but I did say we'd run the table
Tap Masters Vs. Hot Tub Woody's.  Its time.

Speaking of the tournament, we're set with 10 beer league teams and all the team captains have been notified.  The schedule should be ready for Wednesday.

STATS
1st half stats
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2nd Half stats

Even with the missed game of stats, we have two Master Batters at the top!  The Dog Catchers and Rebels may make their presence felt before its all said and done.

Cam Clark is simply on fire.  Nice run Cameron, keep it up!  Four Grisslies are in the list too, sign of changing fortunes.

Damn you Cameron Clark.  My one week reign as the leader of anything has come to an end.

Et tu Chuckles?

These are the year to date stats.  

So this week had an interesting anomaly.  The Dodge City Rounders forfeited against the Master Batters who lead the league in EVERYTHING.  Dodge did us all a favour because the poor Master Batters, while gaining 2 points, had zero at bats and zero hits and zero runs for the week.  Its keeps a lot of people in the game.

That being said, even with no stats, the Master Batters STILL have the top 4 in ABs.

 We'll, this batting race got a whole lot closer, didn't it?  No .008% between 1st and 2nd.  Cam was 5/5 this week and Scott 4/5.  Not much room for error.  Two former batting champs on the list with Mr. Lahey and Sandy Bell.

The top 10 here amuses me.  Really good player (Baron, Richards, Clark, Behan, Parsons, Stike, Beechey) and guys that play a lot (Barry, me).  I say that with the greatest admiration Adrian.

Runs are funny.  You've gotta get on base to have a chance, but you're largely dependent on other people to score you.  Its kind of a team stat.  We've now got 5 guys that are potentially within a week of running down the 2012 leaders total of 47.