Gloria Axiotis

#23 - 2B (profile)

Gloria was part of the large rookie class of 2002 that included Luca Capriglione, Marc and Don Greguoli, Don Harrison, and Sandi Isner.

It took about half of Gloria’s first season before the DRS captain found a permanent home for her in the field. Early on, she saw time as a catcher, secondbaseman, right fielder, designated hitter, pinch runner, and pinch hitter. But then by July, Gloria was entrenched at second base and has been the club’s starter at the position ever since. Despite playing only five of the team’s eleven seasons, Gloria has played a total of 109 games as the team’s second sacker. Peggy Jiantonio, at just 54 games, ranks a distant second.

Gloria is dependable and seldom misses games, and despite having never played softball prior to joining the taxmen, is conscientious in trying to do her best and shows improvement every season. In 2006, a full season of play saw her commit only 5 errors in the field, this following four straight seasons of averaging in the double-digits.

No one on the roster is a more blatant offender than Gloria in failing to adhere to the club’s dress code when it comes to arriving at the field in proper team attire. While her teammates wear red T-shirts, she wears a white tank top. If tournament rules require teams to dress uniformly, she cuts the sleeves off her team jersey and turns it into a belly shirt. And to cap it off, between innings, there’s no base coaching duties for her – she’s too busy kicking back in a lawn chair working on her tan. Her teammates might have a problem with all this, if she didn’t do such a good job in distracting the guys on opposing teams.

At the plate, Gloria has always hit the ball solid, though the result is usually a hard-hit ground ball. But after an off-season lifting weights (or so we assume) Gloria surprised everyone this past spring when she showed up and started belting the ball deep into the outfield.

In six seasons, Gloria has played 133 games, totaling 109 base hits, 117 runs scored, 50 runs batted in, a double, and 4 walks. Her best outings were a 2005 game against AAA in which she went 3 for 4 with 2 runs scored and 3 RBIs, and a 2003 game against the Rocky Hill Vets in which she stroked three singles and scored what was then a team-record 5 runs. Another career highlight included a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the 7th inning to give DRS an exciting 21-20 walk-off win over the Fighting Plankton.