SBL Notebook, Week 18

Suddenly the league awoke, as if from a dream, to find itself in another time, another place . . . say, around 1998, or 2003, or any year in between. We were back in the chicks-dig-the-longball era, and while the experience is sure to be ephemeral, it certainly was a glorious week, wasn't it? Twelve teams combined to smash 112 home runs, an average of 9.3 per team . . . and six teams reached double figures, the first time all season that half the league has made it to that promised land. Leading the way were the Moaners, whose 15 HRs came within a whisker or two of equaling their total for the previous THREE weeks combined. Then there were the Godfathers, with 13 . . . The Inmates and the Cherry Bombers with 12 each . . . The Zero's and DamianUnited with 10 apiece. This truly was a first-in-flight week for the SBL, at least by this year's modest standards. It wasn't just home runs, either; offense spiked pretty much across the board. The league averages for RBIs and runs were 35 per team, with five totals in the 40s . . . nine of the 12 teams reached the 30s in TB . . . half the league had OBPs of .349 or better. If you weren't hittin' this week, you may as well have stayed home. . . . This was also -- and this surely wasn't a coincidence -- probably the worst pitching week in the SBL this season, with not a single team recording an ERA in the 2s. There were four in the 5s, however; a couple in the 4s, and two more in the high 3s. . . . When the smoke had cleared, the National division had recorded another interleague victory, but at least the American division made it respectable this time, losing only 20-16. That counts as a moral victory for the battered AL, which has won only one of the six interleague weeks contested so far, and just last week got shellacked 28-8. . . . There was also a change at the top of the NL race, where the Inmates rode their Big Fat O (12 HRs, 46 BI, 36 TB, 36 runs, .377) to a 6-0 week that moved them back into first place, a game ahead of the Godfathers, who went 4-2. And, for now at least, those two have separated themselves from the NL pack, with the Derelicts, the Bombers and DamianUnited having dropped back by eight, 10 and 12 games, respectively. . . . The AL race was just more of the same, with the Zero's continuing to roll along without a care in the world, their 5-1 record this week taking them to an remarkable 33-4 in the last six weeks, and to 77-35 overall, keeping them comfortably ensconced as the Best Team In Ball. The Moaners also went 5-1 and hopped over the Bammers into second place . . . but remained a very distant 13 games out of first, with 50 left to play.