Category Archive
for: ‘Gameday Updates’

So its been a tough couple of days over at the commissioners office… power went down Wednesday night and stayed down until early Friday afternoon completely throwing our whole digital routine out of whack… but all the scores came in and the updates have been posted and we’re on to bigger and better places.

The Leaderboard stands pat again for the top 4 seeds for yet another week… everybody won… but damn if Perkins&Will didn’t give the Dobbins Group a run for their money… a 9-inning, 6-5 win for Dobbins that ended with a walk-off…  so close to losing one of our undefeated teams, but in the end we move forward with the same 4 remaining lossless.

In other action, both Gettys Group and Goettsch pulled off 1-run wins over Clune and SCB respectively… while Ruder Group, Cannon and JC Anderson won by 2-run margins over Old Stylin’, VOA and Power… the other two games were routes and that’s a wrap for Week 8 as we now move to…

…a makeup of our Week 1 wash out this year, where at this point in the season, the slate of games holds a little more significance than it would have had back in Week 1… over the next 3 weeks, the 4th place Dogz (5-0-1) are about to play each of the 3 teams ahead of them in the standings in successive weeks… that gets started next week vs. Dobbins Group… you also get a 4-2 Perkins&Will squad, resurgent in 2011 and fresh off almost knocking off one of the leagues undefeated teams… with a shot at theBuzz, also undefeated and just as hard to beat… and in a third matchup we have VOA @ Power, which could definitely be looked at as a turning point game for both of their seasons… so with an extended forecast that’s looking pretty good, I’m looking forward to next week…

IMPORTANT ABOUT NEXT WEEK > Remember that games are on LOWER Hutchinson Diamonds 15, 16, 17 & 18 (check the diamond maps)… also remember that we’re at different starting times than usual with the early games going off at 6:30 and the late games following at 7:30… 1 HOUR PER GAME, horns will come at 6:25 and 7:25… and the early games should expect to see other (Park District) games finishing up on the diamonds as they arrive… we need to allow those games to conclude in peace before making our way onto the diamonds. They have the priority. IMPORTANT > Also remember that Taste of Chicago will be going on so access will be trickier than usual, allow more time for getting to LOWER Hutchinson and expect parking rates to be more expensive than usual as well…

Pictures Next Week >  will be Dobbins Group directly before their game… I’m also going to try and do Ruder Group and/or Kelso Burnett before their early game if possible, but that will depend on what their turnout looks like and weather they arrive a little early or not… with all the stuff going on these may not be possible… we’ll see.

All for now, enjoy your Sundays…

It was a game day that looked to be in doubt due to a dire forecast leading up to things… but as it often works out, the terrible rains that were predicted never materialized and we were able to go about our business… It was the day of the annual Spring Fling which I know affected many teams (including my own), so I’d like to thank all of you that made sure you had a team out there ready to play anyway. Other than a forfeit of the late game on Diamond 3, everything seemed to go off without a hitch.

Not a whole lot to report after yesterday’s games as the Leaderboard stays the same for the top 6 positions as well as the bottom 4… some movement in the middle as the result of some close games that saw theBuzz dropping VOA 7-6, Ruder Group scratching out the 14-12 win over Power and Goettsch outlasting Clune 6-4. Next week the marquee matchup would appear to be Perkins&Will (4-1-0) trying to knock off the undefeated Dobbins Group.

Next weeks pictures will most probably be SOM, Perkins&Will and the Dobbins Group… I’ll catch up on those a little and then send an email out to the affected teams next week.

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there… we’ll see you next week.

So now things begin to calm down a little as they always do after the Corporate Challenge BYE week… not as much fog, rain or cold and most notably… more daylight as the Summer begins to take hold and we move to our later start time for the late games… it appears that all of us got in our scheduled 7 innings and all is right once again for the Design League. Congratulations to all for fighting our way through another Chicago May.

Following yesterday’s game day we didn’t see either of the teams on the snide get off the snide… nor did we see any of our undefeated teams fall… although one will next week as theBuzz and Cannon square off in the late game on Diamond 2… upstart Dobbins Group continues to roll and they’ve already won by forfeit for next week as Power has an immovable company event next Thursday… but perhaps the most interesting occurrence to me is the path that JC Anderson has taken so far this season… they’re 2-2, have scored as many runs as they’ve allowed while every one of their games has been a 1-run affair… can’t remember such a streak ever happening before.

Just a reminder that the games that were rained out in Week 1 have been rescheduled for 06/30 on LOWER Hutchinson… there’s still a possibility that those games will move to UPPER, but as of right now we’re on LOWER. Please adjust your schedules.

Also a reminder that next Friday (06/10) and the Friday after that (06/17) Upper Hutchinson belongs to the Design League if any of you care to schedule a practice or a scrimmage.

Pictures Next Week > will be Perkins&Will and Goettsch just before their match up at 6pm on Diamond 4.

Another strange game day of Design League Softball out there yesterday as the fog rolled in… wouldn’t say it affected are ability to play, but it definitely added a surreal element to the proceedings… playing Power yesterday it struck me that one of the things that makes the Design League cooler than Players or CS&S softball is that when you play a team in our league, you end up knowing most of the players on the opposing team which makes it more fun. Not as much for our newer teams but the longer you stick around the more that feeling grows… just a lot better than the anonymous squads you run into week after week in those other leagues. Anyway…

Cannon eeked out another close one, 9-8 over Clune… Dobbins Group continued there rookie roll remaining undefeated with a 13-7 win over Gettys Group… Kelso-Burnett got off the snide with an extra inning 9-7 victory over Old Stylin’ and Perkins&Will saw the benefit of getting out for some early batting practice with an 11-5 win over VOA.

In the late games, the Dogz and Power Construction played an eventful hour and 20 minute 6-inning game that ended in a tie in pretty much complete darkness. JC Anderson continued their 2nd season resurgence with a 6-5 win over SOM. Goettsch dumped Ruder Group 17-9 and old salty veterans theBuzz put a 15-2 hurting on the SCB squad.

Pictures In Two Weeks > First of all a big thanks to the squads from Cannon, Clune and Power for making the first day of pictures go extremely smoothly. Much appreciated… coming up in two weeks I’ll be photographing Perkins&Will and SOM before their 6 o’clock game on Diamond 3… and then Getty Group before their 7:15 game on Diamond 2. Email reminders will go out a couple days in advance of that.

Of note and open for discussion over the next couple weeks is that Upper Hutchinson belongs to the Design League on 2 Fridays in June, the 10th and the 17th… these are in addition to our regular game days on the 9th and 16th respectively. We’ve already decided that not enough teams were willing to commit to “double-header weeks” to allow us to make them game days… but the fields are ours for practices, scrimmages or whatever you’d like to propose on those two Fridays. Feel free to post your thoughts to the comments on this Forum post or just shoot me an email… whatever you’d like to do, arrange it amongst yourselves and let me know what you need in terms of diamond time.

Please remember that if you have anything you’d like to say, ask, question, etcetera… please feel free to do so here by clicking on the “comments” link up near the top of this post under the heading.

So were off to a better start now… starting to get some games in as the weather cooperates a little… if you were to believe the forecasts from earlier this week it almost seemed like another rain-out for sure… but all went off without a hitch and there was actually some really close, great games yesterday.

Cannon (2-0-1) squeaked out a 7-5 win over P&W (1-1-0). The Dogz (2-0-0) needed the bottom of the 7th and a 2-out walk-off hit to down the Ruder Group (0-1-1). JC Anderson (1-1-0) and theBuzz (2-0-0) also pulled off 1-run wins over Gettys Group (0-1-1) and Clune (1-1-0) respectively… SOM (1-1-0) went 8 innings with SCB (0-2-0) for the 1-run extra inning win 6-5… and one of our two rookie team the Dobbins Group ran their record to 2-0 with a 15-6 route of Goettsch (1-1-0). A day filled with a lot of close games.

One note on next weeks games is that the start times have been adjusted on the schedule keeping them at 6 and 7 for the time being… we still don’t have enough light to go to the 7:15 start time on the later games, but once we’re through the bye week it will no longer be a problem.

Pictures Next Week > Next week we start the arduous picture process. Remember that pictures have to happen on the day they’re scheduled, however I’m always willing to meet you for a re-take on some future date that might be better for you in terms of turnout, the arrival of shirts, etc. First up next week will be; Cannon & Clune before their 6pm game on Diamond 1 and then Power before their 7pm game on Diamond 1. An email reminder will go out to these (3) teams next week Tuesday.

Please remember that if you have anything you’d like to say, ask, question, etcetera… please feel free to do so here by clicking on the “comments” link up near the top of this post under the heading.

So it was bizarro world out there on the Diamonds last night… left was right and up was down… but before I get into that I wanted to start the preparation for this coming week, which of course holds the 2-day finale of our 2010 Season… by the time next week is over, all of us will have played 4 games, 4 of us will have played 5 games, 2 of us will have played 6 games and the Design League will have a new champion (or a repeat champion, however the chips may fall)…

In short, next Thursday is the last game of the regular season… if it were to rain, then the brackets you see today would be the final brackets going into the Tournament. If not, we’re assuming right now that all games will go down as they did yesterday. 5:30/6:30 on UPPER Hutchinson. There’s a chance we’ll get lucky and be able to run all (8) games at 6 o’clock, but we’ll plan for the former. No matter how games were to go down next week, all final scores will need to be reported to me on the field as I only have Friday to get the Big Board for the Tournament printed. From there, the Tournament is one week from tomorrow on LOWER Hutchinson. the diamonds haven’t been finalized yet but my preference is 10, 11, 14 & 15… all back to back and as close to a bathroom as possible. I’m working with the Park District and I’ll post information as I get it but most likely, all the final specifics won’t come until next Friday. That said, all you need to know right now is to have your teams out on Lower Hutchinson by 8:30 AM next Saturday.

So now back to what went down yesterday. The most bizarre aspect of things to me is that even though there were many surprises in how games turned out… only VOA and theBuzz switched seeds on the Leaderboard. From there though you have massive potential for the exchanging of seeds next week as the Leaderboard is holding a lot of bunches of teams that are close to each other, both record-wise as well as runs allowed… so there’s a lot of interest there.

The only thing we know for sure at this point is that REX Electric has clinched the #1 seed in spite of dropping their first game of the season to VOA (the winning lineup is pictured above). REX of course finished their inaugural campaign last year at 1-11-0… so nothing but praise for what they’ve been able to accomplish this season… perhaps the biggest regular season turnaround in Design League history… worst to first, literally… but as many of us know, Tournament Day is a whole different beast… let’s see now if they can parlay that 1 seed into a Championship… that’s the trick.

In other action, Goettsch dropped the Dogz 5-4 in a briskly played 7-inning game that took only 50 minutes. Clune got into a slugfest with JC Anderson yet eeked out a 15-14 win. VOA upset REX 9-3 as has been previously mentioned… and then perhaps most interesting, Ruder Group and Cannon played to a 9-9 tie that ended on a controversial call involving a Cannon base runner that was tagged out after hitting a game tying base hit after over-running the bag at 1st. Ruder Group claimed he made the turn into fair territory towards 2nd… As the play happened after the action seemed to be over… few actually saw the play in question… only the shadow knows for sure… all these scores are significant because with only one week to go, seeds 2 through 5 are still up for grabs in a very tight race.

A study of the Leaderboard also illuminates other knottings… TheBuzz is 1 game behind VOA record-wise but even with them for runs allowed… and VOA is behind Ruder Group by virtue of just a single tie and are identical to Ruder in both runs allowed and runs scored. We’ve never had to go to the head-to-head tiebreaker for the regular season, but that’s a possibility… for those interested, Ruder Group beat VOA 11-10 in Week 1 of the season… how bizarre is that? Ruder Group plays Kelso-Burnett next week while VOA plays Power.

Loosely speaking, the 1 seed as well as 14-16 are pretty much set… 2-5 are in flux… and basically, a lot of changing places could happen from 6 through 13 as well, most significant is next week’s matchup between Gettys Group and Goettsch who currently have identical records, are separated by only 8 runs allowed and are battling for the 8-seed which comes with one extra home game on Tournament Day. theBuzz is sort of stuck in-between these two packs and could move up or down… So damn… I can’t wait to see what next week brings.

One thing I know next week will bring for sure though is a lot of emails… I wish it wasn’t so but it’s what’s necessary to get 2010 in the books… Please be patient and diligent in following the threads… one more week and then you won’t hear from me again until the Spring ;-)

One way or another, best of luck to all next week… let’s play some softball, have a great time and crown a new Champion.