Mike Graf

#15 - 1B, DH, 3B (profile)

Mike is a friend of Scott Deslaurier’s whose DRS career started innocently enough when he was asked to fill in during a 1997 game when the taxmen were shorthanded. Team captain Jim Chakulski was off running as a member of the agency’s team in the U.S. Healthcare Corporate Classic 5K Road Race, which left Scott as acting interim manager. Needing help fielding a team, Scott pressed ‘ol buddy Mike into service. Mike spent some time in first base and at catcher, scored two runs and drove in two more to help propel DRS to a win over E Coli Happens at the DMV fields in Wethersfield.

That might have been the end of his softball playing days had Mike not returned to the club the following season. Playing a little more consistently, he participated in 6 games.

But his sophomore campaign in 1998 was just a warm-up act to a much more active 1999 season. Mike would play 10 games, and had 11 base hits, 8 RBIs, a double, 2 triples, and 2 sacrifice flies to rank as the team’s top rookie.

It was during 1999 that Mike had his shining moment in one of the most exciting games in team history. In the opening game of the Cove Cup tourney, DRS trailed CPTV entering the final inning. Mike belted a clutch two-run double to help keep the taxmen in the game and force extra innings. Neither team scored in the 8th, and the drama continued into a second extra frame. Then in the 9th, DRS mounted a five-run rally to run away in a win that was closer than the final score would indicate.

At the end of 1999, Mike moved out of Connecticut and seven years passed.

Then unexpectedly, out of the blue, Mike shows up at the Cove Cup this past season. Content to look on as a spectator, Mike was shocked when asked to pinch hit after DRS built a good-sized lead during the final game of the day. Showing he hadn’t lost any of his Cove Cup magic - the opposition was again CPTV after all – Mike lined a single through the hole at short then promptly came out of the game in favor of a pinch runner.

Though now living in New Hampshire, Mike likes to follow the team through emails and the website, and hopes to visit again next summer and catch another game or two.