C'Ville's post game comments.

"Some's gotta win, Some's gotta lose, good time Chipmunks got the Blues".
In a perfectly symmetrical world, Danny O'Keefe's 1971 hit, "Good time Charlies got the Blues" would have made it to #2 on the charts.

In a World Series Bud Selig could only hope for in his wildest dreams, Mark Peschke's Kirkwood Jayhawks bested the C'ville Chipmunks in 7 games, decided in the last couple innings of game 7 by clutch relief by the Jayhawks and a missed 1-9 HR split to go ahead by the Chipmunks.

This was a series both MLB and Stratomatic could use as an advertisment for the excitement of good baseball.
Two evenly matched teams coming down to the last out of game 7 seemed apprpriate.
For example: -Both teams scored 37 runs over the 7 games.
-5 of the 7 games were decided by 2 runs or less.
-The two bullpens were incredibly dominant. Kirkwoods top 4 relievers going 22 1/3 innings while giving
up ONE earned run and going 3-0 with three saves (and an ERA of 0.40). The Chipmunks top relievers were nearly equal to the task, going 22 innings with 2 earned runs given up (ERA of 0.81), going
1-0 with 2 saves.

The keys to this series, like many of the best Series, came down to role players coming through in huge fashion.
In this case, platoon catchers for both teams provided both teams key offense. Kurt Suzuki hit .304 with 2 HR's and 6 RBI for the Chipmunks while hitting only 4 HR's all season and a .227 batting average.

The best individual story of the Championship came from A.J. Pierzynski, who wasn't even on the roster until game 7, after Mike Napoli went down with an injury in game 6. A.J. rolled a 3-4 in his first two at bats against Brian Bannister, pulling the friendly split card (HR 1-10, DO 11-20) on both occasions. The two blasts drove in 4 runs, setting the table for the game seven victory. He also added a key sacrifice later in the game, prompting a Tourette's level outburst at 1 a.m. in Carpentersville...

Other notable keys to the series-
Aaron Harang was injured after 3 innings of game one. While the Chipmunks eventually won that game, his injury and the early heavy use of the C'Ville bullpen was to play a key role in game 7, when Yovani Gallardo and George Sherrill were unavailable, due to usage..

While lefthanders Sherrill and C.J. Wilson did a commendable job of shutting down the Jayhawks in key situations, Wandy Rodriguez came up way short in his two starts (0-1, 12.15 ERA). Kirkwood's heavy lumber did somewhat better against right handers in the regular season, prompting Bill Hansen to start Rodriguez over Aaron Cook (10-6 in the regular season and 1-1 in the division championship against Mike Gahalla's Philadelphia Road Kyll) on the World Series roster.

Kirkwood also managed to shut down two keys to the C'Ville offense, Prince Fielder and Chase Utley. While Fielder and Utley lead the Chipmunks in the Philadelphia series, hitting 5 HR's and driving in 12 runs, the two were held to a combined 9 for 56 (.161) with 2 HR's and 4 RBI in the World Series.

I'd have to put my MVP vote for the Series with Heath Bell of the Kirkwood Jayhawks. Bell went 2-0 with no runs scored in 8.2 innings of two hit relief in three appearances. "Just friggin unbelievable" was the mumbled quote coming out of Bill Hansens post series locker room. Mark Peschke was unavailable for comment, seeing as he woke up his entire family at 1:22 A.M. to share the happy news and spent the rest of night doing the happy dance in the front yard of his north shore estate.

Once again, congratulations to Mark Peschke of the Jayhawks for a great, hard fought, well deserved Series win...
To the rest of the league, congrats on another great season. To Brian and Chris, for opening up their homes for game play and for introducing Netplay into league use. Hopefully by next season we can work out some of the tech bugs that made the netplay conversion a little bumpy.

Get to work on the upcoming draft and let's look forward to the new cards...It's been a great league, let's try to find enthusiastic managers to fill any/all voids made after this season..