Entering Week 13

Well then.  Last week's BLOG was kind of embarrassing.  Probably the worst formatting and most missing words EVER!

I will endeavor to improve.

Let's recap, shall we?  Last week's game....

Monday turned out to be bloody night on the diamond.  The poor Gruesome Devils lived up to the first part of their nickname.  T'was Gruesome indeed.

First, early in the game, Brad Moye got in great position at Short to field a hard one-hopper.  The one hop turned out to be a bad one and the ball glanced off the tip of his glove and hit the bridge of his nose.  Its was the most blood on the field since the Dave Argue incident a couple of years ago.  Then in the 5th, There was a line drive on the infield, the runner on 1st took too big a jump and the fielder threw back to Bob Candy to get the double play.  The throw would have been great had their been no runner in the way.  The ball glanced off the runners shoulder and into Bob's mouth.

Tough day at the office.  When they went down to nine with the loss of Brad, the Dog Catchers provided a catcher.  When Bob went out, they needed to recruit a fan to finish the game!

The Devils got thumped but were inspired by the return of their injured team mates, who were back the next night and came up with a stirring 10-8 win.

Overall, a great week of ball.  3 blow outs and 9 games where the last at bat was meaningful.

There's never a week that goes by that I don't learn something at the Legion.  This week?  Check it out.

So just one more thing before I take a more robust look at stats than I did with last week's crap blog, lets handicap next week's games.

Predictions and willing to make small wagers.

Beer Bros Vs. Master Batters  12 - 17.  Master Batters prevail on defense.
Sons Of Pitches Vs. Dusty Cleats 15 - 21, Two teams that play better than their record.
Hurtin' Units Vs. Draft Kings 8 - 16, Units have good sticks.  But Draft Kings defense is elite.
Hot Tub Woody's Vs. Sliders 11 - 26, two teams moving in opposite directions it would seem.
Dog Catchers Vs. Hurtin' Units 12 - 14, these teams look even to me, but someone has to win.
Draft Kings Vs. Master Batters 8 - 7, coin flip goes to Draft Kings on this one, for no good reason
Grisslies Vs. Gruesome Devils 18 - 8, Grisslies have been playing great defense for 5 games now.
Rusty Rebels Vs. Dodge City Rounders 17 - 15, Sandy tames the Dodge bats.
Dodge City Rounders Vs. Dog Catchers 11 - 17, Dog Catchers are too good with the leather.
Tap Masters Vs. Rusty Rebels 18 - 16, Only one win back of tying the Rebs, they get it here.
Sliders Vs. Sons Of Pitches  11 - 14, it was a nice long run Sliders, but the SoP get off the snide.
Dusty Cleats Vs. Hot Tub Woody's 12 - 6, two terrible offenses, but the Cleats have a very  good "D".

STATS

So we'll start with people who had perfect runs at the plate in week 12.  Nice to see lots of power hitters in the list too.

Standings - pretty normal stuff, eh?  Except the Draft Kings aren't just in 1st, they're in 1st with games in hand.  Only 3 losses through 17 games?  Their offense is only "okay".  But their defense is light-years ahead of anyone else.

This is how the standings looked after everyone's 13th game.  The Master Batters were the winners of the 1st half of the season

The second 1/2 has the usual suspects + the Sliders trying to stake claims on quality play.







We are making progress on whittling down the number of people who have hit successfully in every game. Still 31 people left.  When we get to 20, I'll publish names.

And our players who have scored a run in every game are:

Anicete Goncalves
Derrell Hager
Keith "The" Beechey

Once again, anything that you see that says "1st half" means that it came from your team's 1st 13 games.  And of course, the 1st half ones aren't going to change now that everyone has past that point of the season.

Come on Adrian .... let other kids play!

Seriously?  How about you miss a game or two?  And you know what, for 3 years I couldn't tell Adrian Barry from Gord Tanner.  Now those two and The Whale are preventing me from actually leading something.

Scotty Barton seemed to be well on his way to another batting title at the halfway point.  Fantastic starts to the year among all those .800+ hitters.

In the second half we have a complete new cast of characters who are hot with one exception.  Cam Clark who was a blistering hot .844 in the 1st half has been perfect through 18 AB's in the 2nd half.

A couple of weeks ago it was beginning to look like the title was done.  Not so much anymore.  Scott and Cam are neck and neck....this should be fun to watch in the coming weeks.

Congrats to Scott Barton on leading the league in hits for the 1st half!

Ya I know, pretty impressive eh?  Well as much as I'd like to be all braggy, the Grisslies and Master Batters have played one more game than SoPs or Dog Catchers.  But still....fun is fun.

The total hits race is wide open right now too.

No surprise seeing the two guys who have scored in every game having also led the league in runs for the 1st half.  Ani and Darrell are at the top and Beechey tucked into 3rd.

And there is Anicete still near the top.  But I think The Whale might pull away in this category.

Two extra games this year will see many of our records fall this year.  It won't be long until the 47 runs in 2012 is eclipsed.  It will be interesting to see if anyone gets on a good enough roll to go after Terry's record 61 runs from 2013.

And here is everyone who has improved their average by at least 100 points over last year.  Looks like it will be Brian "Frank The Tank" Richards or "For Those About To Rock" Bill Sallustio who wins this.