It was a cold windy day on Garfield’s Century Field last Sunday, as Taino’s clashed with Bad Intentions for the Cal Ripken divisional crown. There was no love lost between these two teams as they put their high-powered offenses on display. Both squads met once in the regular season, where Bad Intentions took care of their championship opponent pretty handily. However, that team finished their regular season winning 9 of their final 10 games and were averaging just over 23 runs per game for the playoffs. Tainos was looking to prove they weren’t that same midseason team against the top ranked team in the league.
Before the playoffs began, the winner of the Joe Carter Division was anyone's guess.
Arsenal was coming on strong of late, North Bergen Dawgs had the best record & BigBigWillies were coming into their own.
On a brisk/windy day at Lambeau Field (Ok, it was Century Field in Garfield), it was Arsenal & BigBigWillies who took to the concrete grass for a championship dog fight.
Game 1 belonged to Arsenal in 5 innings. They had a 9 run 2nd inning & closed the game out with 13 in the bottom of the 5th. Everyone on Arsenal had at least 2 runs scored. Sean, Jared, Alex & Abel led the way each tied with 4 runs scored a piece. Speaking of Alex, Mr. Clean Up hit for the cycle & them some, adding a single, 2 doubles, a triple & of course a Homer. Andrew led the squad in RBI's with 5.
Arsenal rocked 7 Homers in this one (awesome showing for a Championship game).
Leading the way for the Willies was Steve, who had 6 RBI's off of 3 hits (1 of which was a grand slam!). Speaking of hits, Will batting in the #3 spot absolutely tattooed s Homer off the side of a poor man's house. I have covered games at Garfield all year & haven't seen a Homer go that distance, impressive!
Game 1 Final:
Arsenal - 27
BigBigWillies - 15
Whomever took the over for Game 2, congrats on your wallet getting thicker! Arsenal saved their best bats for last, scoring "45" (not a typo) "45" runs in a 7 inning shoot out! It would take me all day to say who scored what, so let's just some it up saying that Arsenal had a combined 10 Home Runs! Insane! Sean had 12 RBI's in this one! Alex had 3 Homers in 7 At bats! Even pitcher Tom joined the slug fest with a Homer in the 7th inning!
Big Big Willies didn't play bad at all on offense. Will had 6 RBI's off of 2 Homers, Pitcher Quaz added 5 RBI's. Omar had 8 RBI's towards he bottom of the order & Junior chipped in with a 2 run Blast to deep center. BigBigWillies just couldn't get off the field defensively allowing 25 extra base hits & 9 walks.
Final Score:
Arsenal - 45
BigBigWillies - 28
Until next season!
Last Sunday morning turned out to be a slugfest between the Young Bucs and the top seeded Bad Hombres for the Kirby Puckett Division Championship. The two teams came in with just one head-to-head matchup in the regular season. The result was a split with both teams producing 29 runs apiece. Both teams swept their way through the first round of the playoffs and into the heavyweight bout. We had high hopes for an exciting matchup, and we certainly were not disappointed.
It was a chilly fall day with some big gusts of wind. This made for a difficult morning for the pitching and defenses. However, both teams played very well in the field. There were a minimal number of errors committed. Unfortunately for both sides though, there is no defense for the long ball. And long they were. For a while there, we weren’t sure if Cliffside Park was hosting a championship series or a homerun derby. The only saving grace was the 6 homerun limit per team, which made for a little more strategy than just brawn.
