Glenview Strat League

2009 Season

2009-03-08T19:24:00.000-07:00

Ahh... Spring is in the air, April 1st (opening day is fast approaching) and it's time for another season of Strato...

Game on and can't wait to see everyone's keepers going into 2009.

C'Ville's post game comments.

2008-11-16T08:11:00.002-08:00

"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..

World Series - C'Ville vs Kirkwood

2008-11-16T08:11:00.001-08:00

In a series worthy of World Series status, the Kirkwood Jayhawks topped the C'Ville Chipmunks 4-3 in an absolute battle to the last strike of the last game...

It was an even match with a multitude of comebacks and big time drama...The unexpected hero was A.J. Piersynski, who wasn't even on the World Series roster..only a game 6 injury to starting catcher Mike Napoli opened the door for A.J. to be the hero. A.J. responded by hitting two clutch home runs on identical 3-4 rolls in consecutive at bats to sink the Chipmunks..
None the less, the Chipmunks scraped back and had the split pulls in the 8th and 9th inning that could have changed the outcome...

Stats to follow tomorrow...congrats to Mark on a hard fought and deserved championship..

Divisional Series - C'Vile vs Philadelphia

2008-11-16T08:09:00.001-08:00

Chipmunks vs Road Kyll.

A crazy afternoon of Strat finished with the Chipmunks finishing off Mike Gahalla's Road Kyll 4-3 after leading the series 3-0 at one point. Aaron Harang wrapped it up by giving up only 2 hits in 7 innings in the finale. This was after getting completely toasted in his first two starts..

Prince Fielder hit 4 home runs in the series while hitting .423 to lead the Munks..
Mike stormed back after the first 3 losses behind Todd Helton, who hit .500 in the series...Road Kyll hit .286 for the series, which featured a number of huge come from behind finishes...

Congrats to Mike on a hard fought series...
The Chipmunks will face the Deadwood Jayhawks Sunday night for the World Series Championship...

Congrats to Bill Hansen on a fine season and his first World Series appearance...

Wild Card Series - Suspects vs Assassins

2008-11-16T08:06:00.000-08:00

Usual Suspects vs Chicago Assassins.

The Suspects came out of the gate swinging and in the first game, first pitch Grady Sizemore lead off the game with a Home run. I knew then this was going to be a quick and short series because whenever I would come back, the Suspects countered nicely.

Congrats to Larry on a fine job knocking out the Assassins early.

2008 Season

2008-04-13T16:17:00.000-07:00

We are off and running for the 2008 season with expectations high and who looks good on paper. This is why we play the games to see who has the luck and what manager makes the right moves!

This is our first year playing with a new manager who's only contribution is via Net-Play with no actual contact in person. I'm impressed so far with his ability to be available to knock out a series or two with anyone that's available. I believe everyone will get comfortable playing via Net-Play from the confines of their own home without having to travel to a remote location.

I wish everyone the best of luck and may the best team win.

Rule Enhancement

2007-10-09T11:01:00.000-07:00

The constitution states that the bottom 4 teams with the worst records will be placed into a Lottery pool but there isn't any exceptions to the rule in which I'd like to add/modify. I feel that exception to the rule should be if a team qualifies for the playoffs be disqualified from the lottery pool and the next team be added by default. Plus, the team that Wins the World Series should receive the last pick in the draft.

GSL Updated

2007-09-27T09:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like nobody in this league likes to BLOG or send their own comments about how this is league is going or anything in that nature!

I'm in the process of putting together an Encyclopedia of stats from 2002 to the present. I'd like to look back to see who has or holds certain records!! Wins, Saves, Homeruns (Barry Bonds has that record back in 2002.... 85 ) etc. I currently have only a handful of players left from my inauguration year ( Berkman, Edmonds, Jeter ) to name a few. I think it's quite exciting to be able to put together stats and such to see how players have done!!

Now, we are going into our 6th -7th year and so far only 1 team has been able to win the Championship that actually won a division!! It's nice to see the competitive nature of all different sorts of managers and I know a couple of managers don't like each other but that's party of baseball. Very Competitive and I'd be lying if I said I was a good sportsman!! This is why I'm trying to push for netplay, it's great to play someone that isn't next to you and Cheer your team on!!

This should be an exciting finish, we are 3/4 of the way there and I'm having a good year ( 30 Games over .500 ) but still chasing a team that's 45 games over .500... WTF!!

We'll see how it plays out!

GSL 2007

2007-07-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

The season is off and running faster than antcipated. It's been a season where we are ahead of schedule with finishing off the regular season and getting into the playoffs!!

For me, it's been a surprise to see for the first time in years that some of my players are in the league leaders!! Berkman has 40 hr's thru 83 games and Arroyo, Capuano are exceding there expectations with 10 wins thus far!!

I can't believe one division has 4 teams over.500 and the other has 1 team over.500

This should be an exciting season with a spectacular finish. Race to get into the playoffs, cause anything can happen once your in the post season!!!