Farewell Boys and Girls of Summer! Under-40 MVP smashes 5 home runs off Over-40 MVP in Sunday finale

Farewell Boys and Girls of Summer! Under-40 MVP smashes 5 home runs off Over-40 MVP in Sunday finale

(top row) Terry, Sam, Howard, Charles, Scott, David Esan, Michael Bobry, Blake, Brad, Zev (bottom row) Kylie, Seth, Michael Raff, Joe, David Kramer (with ballot box), Neil [Photo: Helen (Howard’s wife, Sam’s mom) ] 9/04/16

a abrtlett

Topps @1990 #396 A. Bartlett Giamatti, 7th MLB Commissioner and former President of Yale University 4/38 – 4/89 [from David Kramer’s collection]

a back[Baseball] breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall all alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

A. Bartlett Giamatti, Take Time For Paradise: Americans And Their Games

In 1990, Topps issued a card honoring the 7th Commissioner of baseball, A. Bartlett Giamatti. Once the President of Yale University who walked the Quadrangle wearing score-2-1the cap of his beloved Red Sox, Giamatti died of a heart attack 9 days after issuing a lifetime ban against Pete Rose for gambling on baseball.ghosties

Today — despite the sparkling late summer skies belying the chill of Autumn around the corner — at the field behind Brighton High School, we felt saving-ballGiamatti’s twinge of the heart. It was the last Sunday Game at the Corners.

throwing-basesAnd what a season. Kid Hansen hit the longest shot. We recovered the ball lost in the shadi-2creek. Evicted an umpire. We watched aghast as Casper scored the winning run. Shadi celebrated the 4th of July at the game. Marty showed us how to play 19th Century baseball. And Talker hit a three run walk off game winning home run. (FULL SERIES AT END.)pitching

brad admiring

Like Ruth in ’32, Brad admiring his called shot.

Still we saved some drama for the Sunday finale. In the bottom of the 7th in a tie game with runners on first and third, Rosenbaum strode to the plate to face Kramer.

the last pitch of the season

Last pitch of the Sunday season. Rosenbaum vs. Kramer. Esan on third representing the winning run. 9/4/16 [Photo: Dave Rogasevsky]

A fitting match up. In the season highlights voting, Brad had won Under-40 MVP, while Kramer garnered Over-40 MVP by the very slimmest of margins. Already having torched Kramer for 4 home runs, a double and 10 RBIs, Rosenbaum looked to end the game in walk off fashion.

waitign for pitch

My last at bat. Now heart broken, facing the fall all alone. [Photo: Zev]

A fat pitch a little low but in the zone. Then, as the Yankees announcer Jon Sterling might say, the ball flying over the fence was an A-Bomb for A-Brad! And both MVP’s jumped for joy. They were on the same team.leadoff single

This game each team pitched to themselves. Kramer had pitched, except when batting. So he was cheering for each A-Brad-Bomb. Actually, Kramer had started the rally with a single off Raff. After a force out at second, he returned to the mound to throw the walk off pitch, then walking off himself.

As for the offseason awards, Brad won despite a series of nagging injuries. Riley probably had a stronger season, but like Willie Stargell of VOTING SO FAR-page0001the ’79 Pirates, Brad was very much a spiritual leader.

I eeked out Over-40 MVP by a razor thin margin. garnering votes as Most VALUABLE because of an ability throw easy pitches, sometimes pitching for both teams. Brad’s rampage today may have swayed some undecided voters.

Neil was considered to have the best softball instincts. Neil knows the game well from having been commissioner of Brighton Baseball for a couple of years.

The elder statesman of the game, Charles has a great attitude. Not wanting to pick favorites, Charles skipped the voting.

Anthony’s great attitude was proven when he was the one who recruited all our Girls of Summer.

Daniel retreving ball

Bobry thinks that is his son Daniel retrieving the home run Daniel just hit.

No doubt a performer on the Yiddish vaudeville stage in a previous life, Raff claimed wittiest in game banter.

In the mental lapse category, when Bobry saw he had some competitors after the initial voting round, he started yelling to his teammates, “Let’s get a triple play!” — when there were already two outs.

Blake won most obnoxious handily. But he was also seen stuffing the ballot box in his own favor.

bfm

Photo: Talia, BFM volunteer. 8/28/16

Sam and Howard really poured it on as the season progressed. Though clearly over 40, Howard was placed on two ballots as both Over 40 and Under 40.

sad look

It will be a long, cold winter. Photo: Dean 9/4/16

The players will keep busy in the off season. Bobry will no doubt keep showing up at field wondering, where is everybody? Brad’s Brighton High School volleyball team will be defending its state title. This year Raff believes he will roll a 301 or 302 game at the B’Nai Brith Bowling League.

And the last pics from the Brighton Farmers Market around the corner from the Game at the Corner.

Anon, players at the Corners. Until we meet again.

2015 Game at the Corners

Pick up softball games still exist

At Young Woman’s College Prep, Brad Rosenbaum aiming to hit 1.000

2016 Game at the Corners

The Boys of Summer are back at The Corners

Ball in creek disrupts Game at the Corners; Blake hits for the cycle

Casper scores the winning run at The Corners

Umpire added to Game at the Corners. Players subtracted

Who’s counting at the Game at the Corners

Celebrating the Fourth of July at the Game at the Corners. And much more.

“Crooked Arm” Brancato brings 19th Century base ball to the Game at the Corners

First Girls of Summer at the Game at the Corners; Talker wins it with three run walk off homerun

About The Author

dkramer3@naz.edu

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle  blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C  ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones.  So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.

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