5 TOWNS SHUL LEAGUE July 2 - Game 2

SHUL LEAGUE GAME 2 WIRE: Shabbos ended with Havdalah and weather apps… Storms were brewing...Saturday night made Sunday morning look like a wash out…But Hashem loves the Shul League…Not only did two fields survive the storm like Bubba-Gump’s shrimping boat, but there was some sunshine during the games…Due to the puddles, Greis games were moved to Lawrence…There, once again, a lack of parity in the Shul League…Three mercies and one competitive game…In the 8am games, the 1-0 Meerkats battled the 1-0 Piermonts…The Piermonts were without their pitchers and the rotation put holes in their defense which the Kats kept exploiting…The Meerkats improved to 2-0 with the 13-1 win using the same recipe as week 1…Mikey Weiss pitched 5 stellar innings…Jordan Hiller continued his hot hitting, sparking the offense with his fellow table setters Yosef “Moscow Mule” Moskowitz and Yoni “YK” Kirschner

Dom’s Great Call of the Week

At LMS, early in the Pickwick v. Woodpeckers bout: Pickwick’s Chaim Samet was on 2B. After a base hit to left, Samet, slightly hesitant, came around 3B looking to score. Woodpecker left-fielder throws a one-hop bullet to catcher Mikey Tabak . Commissioner/Umpire Dom DeRosa was on top of the play of course. Tabak was not in the baseline but had to go into the baseline to catch the ball. Samet and the ball arrived simultaneously.

Samet correctly elected to slide and Tabak correctly did not obstruct. The ball was dropped, and Dom remained silent. There was no call to make because the runner did not touch the plate. Confusion abounds.

Samet realizes what is happen ing and dives for the plate, Woodpecker pitcher, Tuvia “Blitz” Blisko, who was backing up, picks the ball from the dirt and tags Samet before he gets to the plate. At lightning speed, Dom does all the calculations. OUT! Out on the tag! Great call!!!

The big blast came from Menachem “Ru” Ruvel as he hit a bases clearing triple in his first at bat since returning from Tummy John surgery…Across the way at LMS, the 0-1 Gumps battled the 0-1 Townies, and the Gumps just kept RUNNING…To the tune of 12-2 bounce back W… Gumps’ bats were on fire...Aharon Boehm - 4 for 5 with 5 runs scored…Noach Weichselbaum - 3 for 4 with 3 RBI…Chaim Thaler - 2 for 4 including a 2-run round-tripper...In the loss, the Townies found a bright spot in Andrew Dube making his Shul League debut…Dube jacked a HR to straight-away center that the Gumps are still chasing down…On the defensive side, team Captain Yaakov Schuss made a sweet catch and quick tag to nail a Gump at the plate…Akiva Boehm also sparkled defensively for the Townies with a spectacular diving stop and starting up a silky smooth double play…In the late games it was Pickwick falling the Woodpeckers 3-2 in a real defensive duel…The early innings had both teams loading the bases multiple times with less than 2 outs and each team getting out of it unscathed, including a wild play at the plate(See Dom’s Great Call of the Week)…On the other side of LMS, the defense was lacking, but the bats were raking…The Hoppers and Flames put up 28 runs combined (mostly on errors)… Flames showed a lot of life adding power-bat Yaron Markfeld, pitcher Yossi Golie (recently moved from Bookly and he can deal), and five tool player Ari Baruch Flames are on the rise, but the Hoppers are pros and were too much to handle…Hoppers remain undefeated…Meanwhile, at Woodmere… the Aces got their season started with a 10-0 win over the AC Units. Yehuda Konig had it going early, striking out the side in the top of the first…Alan Schiff connected early with a 2-out 2-run dinger down the left field line…Schiff would also add a 2-run single later in the game…. The Units would threaten in the 2nd inning, with the Aaron boys putting a single and double together for second and third and no one out…But a strike out, pop out and strike out ended the threat…The Aces broke the game open in the bottom of the third, putting up 6 runs to make it 8-0…Units threatened once more, but the attempt was thwarted by a perfect throw from center fielder Dovid Blum…Shout out to Rabbi Nossi Lieberman making a nice snag and tag at the plate… In the day’s hottest game, the 0-1 Privilege defeated the Tornadoes in a come from behind walk-off thriller…Exceptional pitching by Chananya Grinberg and superb defense behind him kept it tight…Former Captain Sruly Lieber went 2-3 with two singles – none bigger than the game tying hit, setup by a Tornado intentional walk of the previous batter…Jason Salzberg completed the fairytale ending with a walk-off base hit…Benjy “Sonic” Ashkenazi added 2 more hits to bring his average to .833.