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  Until we're inspected and our licence is rescinded (means taken away).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.