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The Islandian Times
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Claxton Fights Off Belair Beach For RU South Crown
The Claxton Diamonds prevailed over the tough Belair Beach Sunbirds in a down-to-wire pennant battle in the Ruthlandian Union South Division this season, winning by just one game. They both won four of the final five games on the regular season schedule. Both teams lost on the last day of the season in a very exciting race.
Claxton jumped from fifth place to penthouse this season and captured its first RU South flag... Stacy Engel has the highest-scoring club in the IPA and his line-up is packed with fine hitters... the Claxton Diamonds (85-69) chalked up a .267 batting average, but hit 193 out of the park... pitching-wise Engel has a capable foursome that notched a 3.92 ERA... Claxton potent batting order consists of All-Star 1B Mike Luzzatti (.343/44/109/116), who had another colossal year... CF Dixie Baker (.260/32/114/92), LF Helmut Graczyk (.317/24/88/102), SS Erik Carducci (.285/18 81/61), 2B Paco Benitez (.281/2/37/93) and 3B Artie Sherman (.276/20/77/91)... Engel's starting rotation is All-Star Charlie Murphy (17-14 3.08), Peter Brenneman (18-13 3.96), Paul Grange (15-7 3.79) and Bob Grba (13-8 4.26)... Claxton is only average in the field with a .971 FA.
It's been four years since the Belair Beach Sunbirds (84-70) made the Pro Cup playoffs and they just barely missed making it this season... nonetheless the Sunbirds of Marty Pedroza had an impressive season and advanced from 6th place and a sub .500 record to second place in the standings and almost got a postseason spot... three All-Stars head up the squad, led CF Billy Martz (.320/29/114/94), 3B Zippy Parks (.304/11/61/98) and C Little Jake Bungarooba (.268/12/63/81)... SS Ronnie Nossek had a break-out season with a .338 batting percentage with 16 homers, 75 RBIs and scored 94 times... Pedroza could use some help on the mound, although he still has vets Tiny Lindgren (16-16 3.56) and Jeff Nieman (16-12 4.04)... comparing the line-ups, it's amazing that the Sunbirds came as close as they did to the champion Diamonds... Belair Beach is one of the best fielding club in the IPA with a .978 FA.
At the helm of the Waleska Westerners (76-78) is McGraw Johnson... he brought them in third for the second straight season... the Westerners finished 9 games back... Johnson's club is lacking long-ball power and hit only 101 homers... they have fairly good pitching with starters Toshiya Tamura (17-15 3.32), Wilson Whitmore (18-16 3.55) and Von Pearce (15-12 3.93)... but are sorely lacking in the bullpen... at the plate All-Star RF Kippy Doyle (.293/27/132/87) tied with Tommy Klegg of Red Bluff for the IPA RBI lead with 132... other good bats are 2B DePaul Lebat (.303/10/74/80) and 3B Grant Betzer (.322/8/72/96).
The fourth-place St. John Crusaders (74-80) are just an average ball club in all respects... manager Dickie Billings wound up 11 games off the pace... his best hurler is Ken Wheeler (20-13 3.00)... Teddy Garson (15-17 3.93) is also a quality arm... Billings has a decent relief corps, but suffers with his starters... St. John is short on hitters, too... RF Clayton Luck (.342/24/73/97) and CF Rusty Cannatella (.328/14/50/48) are the Crusaders best sticks, although Cannatella is platooned and played in only 114 games.
Holding forth in fifth place in the RU South are the Valka Blackhawks (73-81), who trailed by 12 games... manager Jaan Kurus must improve his offense as the Blackhawks only batted a .256 clip... RF Vic Gelder (.260/23/76/91) is one of his few productive bats... but Kurus has some fair pitchers in Connie Krueger (17-15 3.19), Erke Tonisson (13-17 3.44) and Jerry Harrison (14-14 3.77)... Valka gets little bullpen help.
The Crystal Lake Crushers (65-89) and Grand City Cybercats (65-89) were 20 games off the pace and were tied for sixth... Herman "Baby" George is the head man in Crystal Lake and this year the Crushers lived up to their name with 188 roundtrippers, but were next-to-last in both batting average (.258) and team ERA (4.33)... hence they finished deep in the second division... Crystal Lake's All-Star 1B Phil Gravelli (.320/36/96/94) continued to be one of the IPA's premier players... CF Mel Ballard (.287/31/82/85) also made the All-Star team... 2B Cristian Avajos (.243/29/95) didn't hit much for average, but did have some pop in his bat... George's only pitcher of note was starter Tony D'Albini (14-17 4.11).
Torry Joseph in Grand City suffers from offense... the Cybercats batted only .265 with just 72 homers, the fewest in the IPA by far... Joseph also had a poor bullpen... his only plus is his starting rotation of All-Star Emmitt Yates (21-11 2.35), Adrian Morris (11-16 3.69) and Paul Felkner (12-22 4.04)... Yates had a brilliant season considering his lack of run support... Grand City bats are few in number... the top hitters are 1B Marlin Kiefer (.323/9/81/86), LF Vern Tobin (.294/15/54/90) and RF Russ Baumer (.286/17/80/72).
Not too much to brag about in San Dimas (63-91), which had a terrible season and ended up in the RU South cellar after winning the pennant in 2008... the Rancheros were 22 games out of first place... skipper Paco Banderos' hitting fell off quite a bit (.260) and his pitching was almost non-existent (4.33 ERA) compared to the previous year... dependable Carl Schmitz (16-15 3.39) was the only decent starter and 1B Ron Armstrong (.275/20/87) only had a fair season for him... 2B Augie Ippolito (.255/19/86/87) was productive, but did not hit for very much average.
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