Season & Playoff Previews
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Another DNL season is about to get underway. Do we FINALLY see a different team capture the DNL strap? Do we FINALLY see a team that steps up and knocks the 5 Time, 5 Time, 5 Time, 5 Time, 5 Time DNL Champs off their perch? I said "finally" one too many times which reminds me of something that I need to get off my chest. Excuse me a sec.............FINALLY !!!!!!! The Lump has come back to LP Legion Baseball!!!!! Ok, now back to the DNL .
As I scan the rosters, I see some teams that have the fire power to get the job done. We got good ol Tommy Simcho and his Quinn Construction crew lurking. We have my buddies from Mulligans lurking. Klingensmith made some noise last year before falling by the wayside late. By the way, I gotta give props to Mulligans itself. They have the coldest draft beer around!!! Now my mind is on heading up Mulligans for a Cold One or 19. Highlands failed to reach the playoffs but did indeed pull off some good wins. Who knows what they have up their sleeve for the rest of the DNL this year. Clancys seems to be an enigma, I'm not even going to fathom a guess as to what they may do this year. Some good ball players on that roster but can they get their sh errr I mean act together this year and make a solid run? Will Terry Thompson and his squad take another step forward and possibly go .500 or better? Do some damage in the Playoffs perhaps? Could be quite interesting on that front. It looks like he has a lot of the same group back and another year of playing together certainly does not hurt the cause. I been hearing that a few of Bowser's mainstays will not be playing this year. Lou Kammermeier has defected to Clancys, Kevin Abraham has announced his retirement again (he'll be back by the end of the month) and Corey Rodgers is steady night turn in good ol Mt Oliver. Nothing new to Rooty Pooh Andy Brettschneider(Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Andyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy). Ever since I've known him he has a knack for falling in sh&t and coming out smelling like a rose. I challenged Andy to do something no other DNL team has ever done which is go for a perfect season. His reply was a long burp followed by a "We'll see Jimmy, thanks for the hoagie..........Byeeeeeeeeee Jimmyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
As for who will win the Regular Season title? Initially I was going to put all my chips on Bowser but after giving it some more thought I am leaning towards Mulligans. Mulligan's games always have the potential to be quite entertaining. Several powder kegs on that team. I'm still in awe of them having 5 guys thrown out of the game all at once last year. That's Quality baby! Classic ! I know Rube has kept himself in check during the High School season so I'm sure it won't take much to induce a classic meltdown once the DNL season starts (Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Rubyyyyyyyyyyyyy). I'm also looking forward to Coach Kuzma filling up an Ump or 2 this year. Maybe the League Dr can make sure these guys take a couple of Thorozine before each game to keep them calm lol So as far the Regular Season goes, I am looking at Mulligans and Bowser as 1-2 and I'm thinking Quinn at 3 and Klingensmith at 4. I'd love to put Clancys in the mix but they always seem to fall by the wayside of late so they need to earn their bones in my book
Unfortunately I probably won't make it to as many games this year due to my commitment to LP Legion but I will definitely be keeping tabs on things. Wish me luck because I have a really young team. With that all being said, I hope to see a very competitive and exciting DNL Season. Good luck to everybody and I look forward to posting a Mid Season report here. My apologies for not being quite as entertaining as usual but my usually fertile mind is in somewhat of a sleep mode. I promise to do better next month . See you all at the games!
SEMI FINALS PREDICTIONS
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Hello One and All,
We have arrived at the most exciting part of the DNL Season, the Semi-Finals and subsequent Championship Round. Quite a bit transpired over the 2nd half of the regular season. Mulligan's had a commanding lead over the pack at the midway point and kept on rolling going 10-1-1 in the 2nd half, their lone loss being a meaningless (at least in their case) drubbing at the hands of Bowser. Clancy's remained strong and didn't wither like they have been known to do in the 2nd half. The Pub went 9-3 to hang onto 2nd place. Bowser got their act together in the 2nd half and leapfrogged Klingensmith, Quinn and Graham's by going 9-2-1. Klingensmith is a tad hot at the moment winning their last 4 regular season games and taking out Quinn in the play-in round of the playoffs. The play-in round win earned them a date with Regular Season Champs Mulligans. Clancy's and Bowser will go toe to toe in the other Semi's matchup. Now for the semi finals predictions.
Klingensmith vs Mulligans
If there was a team that had Mulligan's number this year then it was Klingensmith. Mr Sikorski mowed them down once and he is quite capable of doing it again...................and again. Lets say he does indeed do it 2 more times but does the Klingensmith crew have somebody capable of keeping the Mulligan's bats in check enough to get a 3rd and deciding win? Mulligans lineup is much too lethal to be silenced for 3 games. Chances are that even the dynamic Mike Sikorski won't keep them entirely silenced but he can definitely slow them down enough to give their bats a chance to win it against a basically average Mulligans pitching staff. Back to trying to get that 3rd win though. Will Scott Manko be around to pitch a game? Maybe Anthony Iorio will be that wildcard pitcher that gets Klingensmith that chance. I don't know though, that's a buzzsaw of a lineup to keep in check for 3 games. Klingensmith will definitely lose if they try to get into a slugfest with Mulligans but as the saying goes, Good Pitching will stop Good Hitting and Klingensmith has the edge in pitching so I am going to shock even myself and say that Klingensmith does the improbable and stuns Mulligans to move onto the championship round. I realize that I may be considered nuts by going this route but my gut is telling me an upset is in the making. The Klingers in 5!
Clancy's vs Bowser
Bowser is hitting their stride right now as they usually do this time of year. That's not good news for John Jumba and his crew. I don't see a sweep here but I think Bowser will take this series in a very convincing 4 games. Ladys and Gentlemen, Klingensmith vs Bowser for the Strap!
Bowser vs Clancys
As I expected and predicted, Bowser took out Clancys in 4 games. However, the series was much closer than many people, myself included, expected. Game 1 saw Clancy's make a furious comeback from a 10-1 deficit in the 7th Inning to lose 10-7. Game 3 seen Clancy's sneak an extra inning affair from Bowser. Game 4 featured a pitchers duel between Jim Onder and Dan Laird, both having pitched more than good enough to win. Only a defensive meltdown by Clancys prevented them from forcing a Game 5 and possibly moving on to play Klingensmith in the Championship. So a tip of the cap to the Clancys squad for making that series a much more competitive one than a lot of people were expecting. John Jumba and there crew are definitely heading in the right direction and could very well be playing for the Championship next season. Good Luck John, Lou and the rest of the squad
Mulligan's vs Klingensmith
Ok, so how crazy am I now for picking Klingensmith to upend Mulligan's in the Semis? Truth be told, Mulligan's went into the Playoffs on a pretty sour note. Their last game of the regular season was a thorough beating at the hands of Mike Finocchi and Bowser. Mulligan's really wanted to beat Bowser and send them to the Opening Round. It would have been great strategy had it worked. Bowser would have had to burn up an already thin pitching staff and had they got by Quinn then Mulligan's would have been picking the table scraps of what pitching Bowser did have left.
Klingensmith matched up pretty well with Mulligans. If any team in the DNL has the pitching to slow down the Mulligan's buzzsaw of a lineup then it is indeed Klingensmith and that's exactly what they did. Did they shut down Mulligan's ? No. Its next to impossible to shut down that lineup all together unless you bring in Cliff Lee or Ray Halladay. What the Klingensmith pitchers did do is slow them down enough for their bats to put up enough runs to win. I wasn't the least bit surprised at Klingensmith winning the series however I was shocked that it was a 3 game sweep. Hell, even some of the guys from Klingensmith were shocked that it was a clean sweep. Klingensmith can hit with the best of them in the league, especially of late but they have a tendency to be streaky. Mulligan's has more than enough bats to win it all but what Jeff Kuzma needs to do is get himself at least one shutdown pitcher, naturally 2 or 3 would be much better but if they could get that one hammer of an arm then I think that would be enough to reel in that elusive Championship Strap. I love that Mulligans crew and they know that. As I've said before, they are a collective bunch of guys who used to torture me to death back when they played Legion ball for their respective teams. Samolovitch, Scruggs, Yeschenko, Donnelly, ect..........I gotta quit talking about it, too many bad memories at the hands of those guys::::breaks out into cold sweat thinking about the brutality those guys inflicted on the LP pitching back in the day::::
----Championship Round Prediction----
Ok, here we go!! #3 seed Bowser vs #4 seed Klingensmith for the DNL Strap!!!
I'm assuming Game 1 will feature the Premier Pitching matchup of the DNL season. Bowser's Mike Finocchi vs Klingensmith's Mike Sikorski. An Ex-Highlander vs an Ex-Tiger. Lets address Mr Finocchi first, my 1st encounter with him was in the Legion County Playoffs out at Bethel Park in 2003. He was playing 3rd base that fateful day. I won't get into great detail about the game itself but word on the street is that his old Legion coach Roger Eyerolles still has a size 11 hanging from his ass Haaaaaa Heeeeeeee. When I brought that game up to Mike one time his comeback was "Your just lucky I didn't pitch". Maybe so, who knows. Anyways, the potential Finocchi vs Sikorski pitching matchup is quite intriging. The 2 best the DNL has to offer at the moment. 175mph of fastball between the 2 of them, maybe a tad more if both are really on their game. Both can throw sliders from hell also. Lets say this matchup occurs twice during the series. In that case I'm going with a split of those 2 games. Bowser will most likely march Jim Onder out to the mound twice, Jim is quite capable of holding those left handed bats from Klingensmith in check and has done so in the past. Klingensmith still has Anthony Iorio, Scott Manko and Ryan Jacobs in their hip pocket thus giving them an advantage in the depth department pitching wise. Klingensmith is definitely the hotter of the 2 teams right now having won their last 7 games in a row and in convincing fashion for the most part. Although Bowser won their series vs Clancy's 3 games to 1, it was much closer than it looked on paper. I'm looking at more pitchers duels in this series than I am slugfests although don't rule out a game or 2 of the higher scoring variety. Naturally pitching is going to be the telling tale but the deal breaker is going to be who plays smarter baseball. Both teams know what smart baseball is but which team will actually apply Baseball 101 and use it to its advantage the most? I've been going back and forth on this series the last 2 days which is why I haven't posted til Friday Afternoon. Bowser is very ripe for the pickings this year but I think they still have another rabbit in their hat so I'm going with Bowser in a very exciting 5 game series. Good luck to both teams and I'll see you at the games.
JimmyJam
JimmyJam's Pizza
