So to some, Taste of Chicago is a seething cess pool that turns our relatively quiet corner of the South Loop into Grand Central Station… to others it makes downtown Chicago feel more vibrant and alive than it usually is… I probably fall somewhere in-between these two extremes, although I’m glad that next week should bring better traffic and more reasonable parking rates… In the end, the most congested day of the Design League season seemed to go off with out much if any problem at all.

From what I’ve been told, the Ruder Group win over Power Construction was a pretty exciting game where Ruder was down 6-1 at one point and fought back for an 8-7 victory. Power has run into a streak of bad luck recently… but take it from me, you don’t want them in your bracket come Tournament Day, no matter what seed they’re coming in as… so I’m reserving any sympathies until after the fat lady has sung here in 2k10.

In another top half of the Leaderboard battle, theBuzz upended VOA 13-5, finding their offense once again after scoring only 6 runs in their previous 3 games. To VOA’s credit though, they’ve figured out that you can have pizza delivered directly to the diamonds, skipping all the inconvenience of patronizing one of the many South Loop establishments… as I reminded VOA though, beware that even though the police enforce Park District drinking laws rarely on Upper Hutchinson, it has been known to happen… and if it does, it’s $85 tickets for all. Best bet is to keep unopened beer hidden in bags or a cooler… and dispose of empties right away as opposed to throwing them all on the ground for later pick-up… Don’t draw attention to yourselves.

Although Old Stylin’ mounted a bit of a late inning comeback… REX held them off 13-7 to remain the Design League’s only undefeated team here at the conclusion of Week 8. Perkins&Will is the next team with a shot at taking them down and that will happen in the late game next week on Diamond 2.

IMPORTANT > This new interface was put in place as it includes an easy method by which to add your own comments. As I’m personally only on one corner of Upper Hutchinson every Thursday… reports on what happened on the other diamonds are more than welcome… as are inquiries about the rules or anything else that’s on your mind after a particular game day.

No pictures are scheduled for next week other than an SOM re-take… I’m also able to retake REX or Perkins&Will if either team is interested.