Owners Dropping Like (Pop) Flies

Looks like this year's version of the Sun Baseball League draft could be the most sparsely attended to date.

With owners of the Zero's, Godfathers and Derelicts already confirmed no-shows, now comes word that the owner of the Bat-Faced Barristers will not be there because he apparently feels a need to be respondible to his famly and his job.

That makes at least four owners -- or one-fourth of the league -- who will not be in Chino Hills on Thursday night.

The Barristers' lack of representation will not matter nearly as much, however, as the late arrival of the owner of the Pontiffs, who has live-blogged the event each of the last three seasons to the benefit of those owners in far-flung locales which now, apparently, includes the Barristers.

SBL Notebook, Week 8

It was the damnedest thing. The American division won the interleague tussle for the second straight week, which was surprising enough in itself, just from looking at some of the semi-ugly numbers accumulated by several AL teams. And the margin of victory, a fairly decisive 24-12, that was a surprise too. But the way all this came about, how the wins and losses broke down, well that was just seriously weird. Two National division teams, the front-running Cherry Valley Bombers and runners-up DamianUnited, just rolled over all six AL foes; nobody really came close to beating them. But then the other four NL clubs combined to go 0-24. Which means, as you advanced mathematics aficionados have no doubt already figured out, that all six AL squads posted the exact same WL ledger for the week, 4-2, keeping the division standings the same as last week (except for win-loss totals and percentages). Not so in the NL, where what had been a more-or-less competitive three- or four-team race was blown wide open. DamU remained three games behind the defending champion CVBs, of course, but the Inmates, Whiteskins, Godfathers and Derelicts all lost six games to the leaders and suddenly trail by 12, 15, 18 and 20, respectively. . . . The hard-luck award for the week probably should go to the Batfaced Barristers, who continued their horsehide-abusing ways with 12 HRs, 50 RBIs and 41 runs, only to see those incredible numbers bettered by the CVBs (16 HRs, 54 BI, 42 R), the key difference in the Bombers’ 7-4 victory. DamU was simply ultra-solid across the board – league-bests in OBP (.383), saves (8) and K-rate (1.05), and good-to-very-good numbers in every other category – to best the triple-Bs by the same 7-4 count. But it seemed just a little unjust that the Batfaces’ prodigious numbers could produce no more than four wins, the same number of Ws posted by the far more pedestrian Zero’s, Moaners and Puny Pontiffs. Had this been a week of intra-division competition, the Barristers would have obliterated those three teams by 9-2, 8-3 and 7.5-3.5 scores, respectively. But life, and baseball, ain’t always fair, and it just so happened that the other four NL teams were unable to offer much resistance against anyone this week, even the AL’s lesser achievers. The Godfathers were undone by puny hitting in almost every stat, the Inmates, Whiteskins and Derelicts by horrific pitching (8.02, 7.11 and 5.16 ERAs, respectively).

SBL Notebook, Final

Corks are popping, the sparkling cider is flowing, and fireworks fill the air . . . Skyrockets in flight . . . afternoon delight . . . sorry, got sidetracked there for a moment. . . . As we were saying, the party is in full gallop at base camp below Mount San Gorgonio, where the Cherry Valley Bombers are celebrating their 2011 SBL championship. The fast-finishing Bombers rallied in the SBL Series to defeat the Zero's, 14-12 -- after first rallying in the wild-card playoff round to beat the Moaners by the same score -- to bring home their third league title, their first since 2003 . . . and, significantly, the first by a National division franchise since the Godfathers took the whole enchilada in 2004. The CVBs didn't set the world on fire in the early and middle innings of their postseason series, but then they closed like Mariano Rivera (or, to make this more appropriately Bomber-centric, John Axford), winning six of the last seven weeks in the wild-card round after trailing the M's 11-8, and then taking seven of the last eight weeks in the Series to wipe out an 11-7 deficit against the Z's. Thus did they complete one of the greatest single-season rags-to-riches sagas in SBL history. Six weeks into the campaign, the Bombers were dead in the water, and the National division race, sitting last in the standings with a 10-28 record, 16 games behind the division-leading Inmates. Then, beginning with the first week of interleague play, they got the wind in their sails, started winning and never really stopped, going 92-32 from weeks 7 through 26. And, typical of championship teams, they were at their very best when the games counted most, down the stretch -- going an incredible 40-4 over the last seven weeks to scramble from fifth place, eight games out, to first, six games ahead of runners-up Derek’s Derelicts at the finish line. Prodigious offense, a rare and precious commodity in baseball's nascent Era of the Pitcher, was what carried the CVBs during that crucial final stretch -- they averaged 12.6 HRs, 41.6 runs, 38.1 RBIs and 32.8 TBs per week in those frantic last seven weeks, with no OBP lower than .359 (and two that topped the magic .400 barrier). Their pitching was also stunningly good during that time, with five ERAs of 3.00 or lower and none higher than 3.44. No wonder they lost only four times in 44 games -- someday the owners of the Zero's, Moaners, Vic's Godfathers and the Batfaced Barristers will be able to tell their grandchildren about the year when they were the only SBL teams to register a victory against the Bombers during one of the most amazing closing runs ever seen. The rest of the NL hardly had a chance, though to their credit the Derelicts and Godfathers kept things close right to the end, delaying the CVBs' clinching until the final week in one of the more interesting races we've had in recent years. The Double-Ds and G-Daddies entered the final week tied for the NL wild-card lead, four games behind the Bombers, but the GDs blew a gasket in a 1-5 Week 26, while the 'Licts churned out a workmanlike 4-2 to capture the first playoff berth in franchise history.

The individual components that coalesced into championship fusion for the Bombers were, as these things often tend to be, quite impressive. Drafting out of the No. 10 spot, Dan nailed his first pick, Miguel Cabrera, who delivered a typical Miggy year (great OBP, boatloads of doubles and homers, triple-digits in runs and ribbies). Second-round pick Dan Uggla did what he was paid to do (hit home runs, 36 of them), and fourth-round selection Adrian Beltre exceeded expectations with, at age 32, the second-best year of his career -- 32 HRs, 105 BI, 33 doubles despite a six-week DL stint that limited him to 497 ABs. But, as also is often the case, it was the later picks, the sleepers, that put the CVBs over the top. Dan no doubt wishes he could’ve had do-overs on Jayson Werth (36th overall) and Alex Rios (63rd) – but did those minor drafting missteps even matter in the grand scheme? Jacoby Ellsbury (89th) did the work of two OFs, putting together a preposterously good six-category season (119 R, 105 BI, 32 HR, 46 2B, 39 SB, .376 OBP) that made him the Bombers' MVP and a serious contender for the real-world AL MVP. Alex Gordon had a breakthrough season (23 HR, 45 2Bs, 101 runs, 87 BI, 23 HR, 17 SBs) that far outstripped anything he’d done previously, and supplemental pickup Lance Berkman proved he had one more big year left in him at age 35 (31 HRs, 94 BI, 90 runs, .412 OBP in only 488 ABs) . . . and with an Ellsbury-Gordon-Berkman outfield, who the hell needed Jayson Werth, Alex Rios or Bobby Abreu (128th) anyway? Berkman wasn’t Dan’s only difference-making supplemental pick, either. Using the advantageous draft positions afforded by his team’s lackluster start, he added a 30-HR, 80-BI shortstop in J.J. Hardy, a solid fourth outfielder in Matt Joyce (19 HRs, 75 BI, 32 2Bs) and a serviceable DH in Carlos Pena, a Zero’s castoff who finished with 28 HRs and 80 BI. But perhaps the savviest pick Dan made -- the kind of pick that separates men from boys and champions from also-rans -- was his stealth selection of SP Javier Vazquez after Week 20. At the time of that draft the 35-year-old journeyman right-hander was 7-11 with a 4.67 ERA. But, as apparently no one but the Bombers GM noticed, Vazquez had strung together a month’s worth of solid outings; he’d just been pitching in hard luck. So Dan took a flier on him, and all Vazquez did in seven starts in CVB togs was go 6-0 with a 1.04 ERA, .71 BR and 1.02 K-rate – a significant statistical payoff that just happened to coincide with the Bombers’ season-ending hot streak. Vazquez’s excellent work rounded out a strong rotation anchored by NL Cy Young favorite Clayton Kershaw (21-5, 2.28 ERA, 1.06 K-rate, .98 WHIP) and AL rookie-of-the-year candidate Jeremy Hellickson (13-10, 2.95). The Bombers’ bullpen was more pedestrian, but the aforementioned Axford (46 saves, 1.95 ERA, 1.17 K-rate) kept them reasonably competitive in the RP-influenced stats. Put it all together and you have a complete, well-rounded team that was the SBL’s best . . . though, it should be said, not by all that much. The Zero’s nursed the league’s best record from Week 14 to season’s end (they finished with 105 wins, three more than the Bombers) -- they just couldn’t maintain that pace quite long enough, flattening out once they hit the “Heartbreak Hill” portion of the SBL marathon and going 28-22 the last seven weeks, giving the CVBs an opening they did not squander. And the Derelicts -- who also drafted very well and assembled a roster with many strengths and no glaring weaknesses -- were right there with both division champions, chasing the Bombers to the wire and then taking the Zero’s to overtime in the first round of the playoffs. Their series ended in a 13-13 tie, necessitating use of the old school mega-tiebreaker – one big ol’ game based on cumulative season totals in each of the 11 SBL stats . . . the method we used to determine the SBL champion before 1991. Paul won that 7-4 to advance to the Series.

The closely-contested postseason (two 14-12 series and one 13-13) was a fitting climax to one of the most competitively balanced seasons we’ve had in recent years, a season that saw seven teams remain in legitimate playoff contention into mid-September. And the fact that the National division pennant-winner emerged as champion . . . well, that seems somehow appropriate too. This was the season of the NL’s renaissance, when the senior circuit ended years of AL domination with a decisive 169-119 victory in the eight weeks of interleague play. Four NL teams – the Bombers, Derelicts, Godfathers and Inmates -- finished with winning records, and a fifth, DamianUnited, kept its nose above .500 until the final two weeks. Contrast this to the AL, where four of the six teams staggered home with losing records (when was the last time that happened . . . ever?) -- the Zero’s and Moaners combining for 203 victories, the rest of the division for 246. The level of competition was simply higher in the NL this year, meaning the Bombers and Derelicts probably survived a more intense crucible for their 102 and 96 wins, respectively, than the Z’s and M’s did for their 105 and 98. . . . Until last year, and DamU advanced to the championship round, the NL had not won a postseason series since we added the wild-card round before the 2006 season. But that worm, clearly, has turned. So, give it up for the NL.

Before we put the -30- on this season (for the whippersnappers in the audience, dash-30-dash is an archaic print-journalism term, dating from the days of hot type, meaning “end of story”), we offer our sincere thanks, as always, to statkeepers Paul Oberjuerge, Gregg Patton and Dan Evans for their dedicated, professional service, and to draftmeister Derek Rich, who orchestrated the 12 biweekly free-agent lotteries with the ease and assurance of a veteran (even if it was only his second year). And, of course, thanks to all for playing, and helping to maintain the spirit and tradition of one of the nation's oldest continuing fantasy baseball enterprises -- and (it can’t be said often enough), in our educated view the best game ever invented! Have a great off-season, and we'll see you, in person or via Skype, in March for the 2012 SBL draft.

SBL Notebook, Week 24

Strange, sometimes, the way things go in the SBL. One week the National division race is as hot and heavy as Brangelina and the American division race is looking as dry and lifeless as a lunar landscape, and the next week everything is turned upside down. Now it's the NL pennant chase that's starting to look a little more like a foregone conclusion, and the AL race that has suddenly taken on a more up-for-grabs appearance. Could it really have been only two weeks ago that the NL standings featured a three-way deadlock at the top, with a fourth team only three games back? That's a true story . . . but as the Cherry Valley Bombers continue their late-summer rampage, and their pursuers struggle to keep up, the distance between hunted and hunters keeps growing. A second consecutive 6-0 week by the CVBs, combined with a 3-3 by the Derelicts and a 2-4 by the Godfathers, left the Bombers with a four-game bulge on the Double-Ds and six up on the G-Daddies, with only 13 games to play. Meanwhile, an AL race that stagnated for months as the Zero's maintained a death grip on the best record in ball has grown unexpectedly uncomfortable for the Z's, who went 2-4 while the runners-up Moaners cobbled together a second successive 6-0 week and crept to within three games of the top. The good news for the Zero's: They clinched a playoff berth (as did the Moaners), because the third-place Bammers went 0-6 for the second straight week and were eliminated from the postseason picture -- 17 games behind the Z's and 14 out of the wild-card spot occupied by the M's. The bad news for the Zero's: Their sustained period of mediocrity -- 17-20 over the last six weeks -- allowed the Moaners to hang around, staying close enough for their 12-0 mini-surge the last two weeks to make things interesting. The Zed's have been the BTIB since Week 14, enjoyed a season-best 13-game lead at the Week 18 milepost, were cruising with a nine-game advantage as recently as Week 22 and never led by fewer than seven in the nine weeks preceding this one. Now they may need to shake out of their doldrums fast or risk being overtaken at the wire. That, or hope that the Moaners experience a week in which their win-loss totals are more commensurate with their stat line. The M's, who took the scorched-earth route to their Week 23 perfecto, this week went 6-0 with what looked more like 2-4ish numbers. Not the first time that's happened this year, either. The M's were lights-out in two stats -- SBs and saves (8 of each) -- and pedestrian pretty much everywhere else. Nevertheless, 32 runs, 28 RBIs, 29 TB, a .308 OBP, 8 HRs, a 3.48 ERA, 1.23 BR ratio and 2-1 WL added up to two 6-5 wins, three 7-4 victories and another unblemished ledger, taking them past the 90-win threshold. All the earth-scorching in Week 24 was done by the Bombers, who've been doing a lot of that lately -- going 29-2 over the last five weeks to surge from eight games behind to four ahead. This week they once again made like the tripods in "War of the Worlds," vaporizing everything in their path with 53 TB, 43 runs, 43 BI, 12 HRs, a .397 OBP . . . and, as if that wasn't enough, a 1.49 ERA, .83 BR rate, 6-0 WL and five saves. That's league highs in seven stats and second-best totals in two others. No wonder they won four games by 10-1 scores and the other two by 9-2. If the CVBs had played the Moaners this week -- a game that might actually become reality in the playoffs -- it would have been Bombers 9, M's 2. As it was, both teams got to celebrate the same outcome, a 6-0 run. . . . In the bad news department, the Batfaced Barristers suffered their 100th defeat, joining the Puny Pontiffs in the Triple Digit Loss Club (the "good" news there -- no other team will be earning that dubious distinction this year). . . . Hard-luck award for the week goes to the Godfathers, whose numbers suggested something better than 2-4, but who were undone by two close (one of them excruciatingly so) tiebreaker losses. Still, the 'Daddies are only two games out of the NL wild card -- the closest race we've got going at the moment.

SBL Notebook: Week 22

Close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, nuclear bombs . . . and, it turns out, the SBL, where the closer the races get, the better they look. With four weeks and 25 games to play, in fact, the National division race is so hotly contested, you have to avert your eyes to avoid having your retinas singed. The smoke from Week 22 cleared to reveal a three-way tie for first place among the Cherry Valley Bombers, the Derelicts and the Godfathers, all at 79-58, with the Inmates relegated to fourth place, three games back. And, while the American division pennant chase remained fairly one-sided, with the Zero's still nine games up despite a 2-5 week, the wild-card battle is now a dead heat between the Bammers and the Moaners -- also at 79-58. So, to recap: Four races, seven teams, five of them with the exact same record. Competitive balance, thy name is Sun Baseball League. . . . The Bombers' slow and steady ascension to the top spot (their 6-1 week earned them a first-among-equals listing in the NL standings), 20 weeks after their much-discussed-to-the-verge of excess 1-12 start, represents some kind of competitive-balance apotheosis: It means that each of the six NL teams has spent at least one week in first place this season. While the CVBs have been particularly warm of late (17-2 the last three weeks), consistency has been their true metier -- they haven't experienced a losing week since June (3-4 in Week 12), and have had only three of them since reaching their low point in relation to .500, 10-28 after Week 6. With the Derelicts (3-4), Godfathers (2-5) and Inmates (0-7) stumbling this week, the Bombers are the NL entry with the momentum, both short- and long-term -- they've been gaining ground steadily, damn near every week in fact, since Week 7 when they were at their low point in relation for first place, 17 games out. . . . In the AL, the Bammers returned to their season-long strength – unassailably hellacious pitching -- to go 5-2 and pull into a second-place tie with the Moaners, who revisited their season-long weakness – unambiguously horrendous pitching -- to go 1-6. . . . Elsewhere, the fifth-place team in each division made some noise. The Batfaced Barristers, 50 games under .500 when the week began, enjoyed a cleansing moment in the sun, combining solid offense (10 HRs, 37 RBIs, 35 runs, .428 OBP) with sensational pitching (1.84 ERA, .89 BR, 1.00 K-rate) to go 7-0, the week's only unblemished ledger. And ever-mercurial DamianUnited had another of those weeks, when just about everyone in the lineup started hitting and didn't stop. Eleven weeks after posting SBL season highs of 19 HRs and 62 RBIs -- and just one week after plunging to epic lows of 3 HRs, 15 BI and 17 runs, DamU monster-mashed to the tune of 18 HRs, 51 runs, 48 BI, 45 TB and a .393 OBP. Unfortunately for them, a dearth of speed (0 SBs) and quality pitching (4.98 ERA, .67 K-rate, 1 save) resulted in three losses despite all that offense.

Zero's Acquire 1B Loney From BatFaces

From the Office of the Commissioner:

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"The Zero’s and Batfaced Barristers announced the following trade: 1B Loney and SP T.Wood to the Z’s, 1B Morneau and SP Bedard to the BB’s."

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The Zero's taking on 1B Loney is surprising. At least they got him for dead weight.

PaulO's Notes: Week 21

A fairly wretched week for these three. The Z's had a tragic week from their bullpen, which surrendered more ER (12) in 6.2 IP than did their SPs (10) in 34 IP. An 0-5 record in the pen, with 22 BR. Delightfully awful, as Leonard Pinth-Garnell would have put it. The Z's managed a bit of offense, led by the resurgent Ryan Braun, who was 10-for-30 with 10 runs, 7 BI, 3 doubles, 1 triple, 2 homers, 6 steals and 4 walks. ... Team Bat-Face scrounged up a bit of offense despite the continued absence of top pick Hanley "Fourth-Rounder in 2012" Ramirez and 2B Brian Roberts, who missed all but the first month. Sketchy pitching, however, including four hit batsmen. Maybe the Barrister hurlers are going all Carlos Zambrano, out of frustration. ... The Holy See was practicing non-violence toward the baseball, putting up one of the feeblest offenses of the season. Didn't help that the club got to the dish 61 fewer times than the Zs because the club has no active 1B; sees its starting 3B losing ABs to Sean Burroughs and is missing No. 1 SS SDrrew and top OF CBeltran. One homer this week, on a Tuesday sub-in by Duda, 2 steals, 13 RBI. ... The Vatican's revolutionary no-save bullpen did what it does, and all this resulted in the waste of some typically solid starting pitching.

PaulO's Note: Week 17

Some notes (somebody must be on vacation) ... Some quirks from the puny pod. All three clubs round off to a 1.17 BR pitching stat. Odds of that must be long. To be exact: For the Jurists, 1.1679; for the Vatican, 1.1707; for the Z's, 1.1748. ... For the second week (not) running, the Holy See stole zero bags. Taking seriously that Seventh Commandment in papal lands. ... Z's offense fell of steeply from recent weeks, but rallied to get to mediocrity in the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday "weekend" of the new and loathed sked. ... The revivied Bristow offense, led by Dustin Ackley (who knew?) is not awful, aside from the two dingers. Valencia has helped at 3B, too. ... Not that the D-Popes have had some bad luck, but they drafted this Presley guy (from Tupelo, Miss?) on Thursday and by the next day he was on the DL. Also, SDrew broke something or other (those Drew boys must not have gotten enough iron in their diets), reducing the club to Alcides Escobar at SS (who hits in the 9 hole for the Royals for a reason), but he is losing time to the backup DPope 3B, MAviles, who is just back from Triple A and sucks pretty hard, too. Also, Kirk Gibson down in AZ apparently thinks a 3B with pop like Ryan Roberts isn't something he really needs, and Roberts played only five games. Mauer went dead again, till Wednesday, when he hit his first homer of the season! And it took the SBL draft's No. 15 pick only till July 27 to get it! ...The Z's were helped by Eric Hosmer (6 runs, 8 BI, 13-for-29 with 1 walk, 4 doubles, 1 big fly and 1 steal) and by Li'l Dustin Pedroia (8 runs, 3 BI, 14-for-27, 2 walks, 2 doubles, 1 triple, 1 dinger, 2 bags). ... Oh, and the papacy got their first "save" since Week 12 (hmm, Jonathan PAPEL-bon?), which seems like a pretty low save total for a worldwide religious organization. Thanks, Mitchell Boggs, for showing up, three months later.

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This from a man recently recouping in the United States after time abroad. The SBL Blog thanks him for making time while he lounges somewhere in the LBC, drinking caffiene-free soda (during the day).

SBL Notebook, Week 11

It was another week, the third in a (hopefully) continuing series, when the SBL was converted into a MASH unit -- and no team induced pitching-staff triage quite like DamianUnited. The club that draws its name from the lowest-scoring sport on the planet produced some most un-soccer-like offense, highlighted by a preposterous 19 HRs and 62 RBIs, both all-time franchise highs and within hailing distance of the SBL records in those categories (believed to be 21 and 68 respectively; if anyone can confirm or disprove these figures, please notify the commissioner’s office). That, plus 42 runs, 33 TB and not-too-shabby pitching (3.19 ERA, 1.13 BR, 4-1 WL) carried DamU to its first 6-0 week this season, and lifted the National division’s fourth-place entry to within seven games of co-leaders the Inmates and the Derelicts. Just about everyone in DamU’s lineup contributed to the onslaught, but leading the way in this voyage of the Dam were 1B David Ortiz (four HRs, 13 BIs) and SS Troy Tulowitzki (2 HRs, 2 2Bs, 13 BIs). Their efforts were augmented by a dab of when-you’re-hot-you’re-hot sub-in luck: backup catcher Miguel Olivo produced a combined 3 HRs, 6 RBIs and 4 runs on two days when starter Miguel Montero happened to sit out. Something magical about catchers named Miguel, apparently. Every team that had the misfortune to encounter DamianUnited on the schedule ended up shaking his fist and shouting “Damn you, DamU!” Leading that chorus were the Moaners, who managed to take Da United to a tiebreaker in the teams’ interleague matchup but were blown away by what might have been the highest tiebreak number in SBL history -- a 212.1 figure fueled by those 19 HRs, which translated to 76 points in the top-secret tiebreaker formula. That loss was the only blemish in a 5-1 week that left the M’s two games out of second place in the American division, still shared by the Badgers and the Zero’s. Both of those teams went 3-3, failing to take full advantage of a rare 1-5 stumble by the pacesetting Bammers, who still enjoy a comfy nine-game lead. The NL race remains where the action is, with the Inmates going 5-1 to pull back into a tie with the Double-Ds (4-2) atop the heap, the Godfathers hanging tough at four games out and DamU now very much in the picture, too. The NL, still feeling frisky after its interleague triumph in weeks 7-10, won five of six cross-divisional tilts this week. And small wonder, when you look at some of the prodigious offense around the division, notably for the Derelicts (47 BI, 44 runs, 12 HRs) and the Inmates (39 runs, 13 HR, 42 TB). The Cherry Valley Bombers (44 runs, 33 TB, .362 OBP) and the Whiteskins (10 HR, 35 BI, 32 TB) also did their share of damage, but were undone by horrendous pitching (7.09 and 6.30 ERAs, respectively). . . . Congrats to the Batfaced Barristers, who posted their first winning record of the season (4-2), one of only two the AL could manage this week.

SBL Notebook, Week 10

Up was down and down was up in the final week of interleague play, though the end result was essentially the same as the previous week -- the National division pushing the American division right through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole. Following up on last week’s 24-12 shellacking of the junior circuit, the NL administered a 25-11 beat-down in Week 10. Boy, is the AL glad that’s over. And the cherry on top of the National sundae was a decisive 83-61 victory for this four-week interleague period -- the first such triumph for the senior circuit in, well, who knows how long . . . most of us old farts can’t remember back that far. The odd aspect of this week’s outcome was that the primary damage was done by the bottom half of the division. While the three leaders -- the Derelicts, the Inmates and the Godfathers -- each went 3-3, the fourth-place DamianUnited, the fifth-place Bombers and the cellar-dwelling Whiteskins combined to go 16-2, led by the 'Skins 6-0 rampage. The ’Skins blasted 11 HRs, drove in 48 runs (league best this season), scored 39, pilfered eight sacks and posted a 2.83 ERA and 6-2 WL, and how was anybody gonna beat that? If the ’Skins could just generate a little consistency, they might yet be a factor in the race. So far, though, they’ve been all over the map -- 6-0 this week, 4-2 last week, 6-0 in Week 1 . . . and 8-36 in the seven weeks in between. . . . While the NL race remained tight -- the Double-Ds remained one game ahead of the Mental Defectives and three up on the G-Daddies -- the AL race blew wide open again, with the Bammers going 5-1 and inflating their lead from six games to 11. Three AL teams went 0-6, and one of those was the mercurial Zero’s, alone in second after going 6-0 last week, but now tied there with the Badgers and staring at a double-digit deficit. (Also going 0-6 were the Batfaced Barristers and the Puny Pontiffs, two luckless franchises that, incredibly, have combined for only 21 wins -- fewer than any other single team.). . . . The offensive revival hinted at last week seemed to pick up steam this week -- the league averaged a respectable 8.75 HRs per team (five reached double figures, the most in a week all season), an impressive 34.9 RBIs (three teams in the 40s, also for the first time this year) and 32.4 runs. It was almost like a time warp had taken us back to 1999. And think what those averages would’ve been if the Moaners hadn’t dragged them down by contributing only five HRs, 16 RBIs and 30 runs to the aggregate!

SBL Notebook, Week 7

The first week of interleague play was . . . oh, let's say inconclusive. The commissioner's office was kinda sorta halfway semi-expecting the NL to gain the early upper hand in the lid-lifter to four weeks of cross-divisional squabbling, based on six weeks' worth of anecdotal evidence that suggested the senior circuit, after years of second-fiddle status, really did appear to be the stronger division this season, with more good teams than the AL, including two or three that look like legit contenders to win it all. But when the dust cleared in Week 7, it looked like something closer to business as usual, with the AL winning the week, 20-16. Although only two American teams posted winning records, those two, the Zero's and the Bammers, combined to go 11-1, more than offsetting the 9-15 mediocrity of the other four. Another factor that swung things the AL's way: its Bottom Two, the Batfaced Barristers and the Puny Pontiffs, who had combined for only 15 wins in the first six weeks, managed four victories between them this week, while one of the NL's more consistent clubs, DamianUnited, saw six weeks of mostly solid results unravel in an uncharacteristic 0-6 crash that pushed them below .500 for the first time. . . . The mercurial Zero's -- 13-0 in Weeks 4-5, followed by an 0-6 Week 6 -- reverted to take-no-prisoners mode this week, and the turnaround could essentially be summed up in three words: Jose F***ing Bautista. The late-blooming Toronto slugger, who led the majors by a mile with 54 homers last year in helping the Moaners cop the SBL crown, was conspicuously absent during the Z's winless Week 6 due to some sort of neck issue that sidelined him for all but one game. But he was back with a vengeance this week -- six homers, nine RBIs, eight runs and a .516 OBP (11 hits, five walks in 31 PAs) -- and not coincidentally so were the Z's. Think one measly player can't make a major difference for an SBL team? Try to imagine where the Zero's might be without Bautista, who, by himself, beat or tied five entire SBL teams in the HR category this week. Actually, you don't have to imagine it -- just take a look at those Week 6 results. . . . The Bammers were a bit off their game, particularly on the pitching side (4.12 ERA, 1.55 BR) -- but, typical of good, well-rounded SBL teams, they proved tough to beat, finding enough ways to win to go 5-1, improve the Best Record In Ball to 35-9 and stretch their AL lead to seven games over the Badgers, who continue to tread water (10-9 the last three weeks) while dropping further behind. . . . Another balanced, weakness-free aggregation, the Inmates, also introduced some distance between themselves and their many pursuers, with the Derelicts, the Godfathers and DamU combining to go 5-13 while the Mental Defectives were going 5-1, including the NL's only win over the Bammers. That opened things up a bit in a division where the top three teams had been separated by only two games; the 'Mates now lead the Double-Ds by three, the G-Daddies by five and DamU by 11.

SBL Notebook, Week 6

In honor of the Mother’s Day we just celebrated, all we can say is “WOW.” Which is MOM, upside-down, and also succinctly conveys our astonishment at the continued shriveling of offense in baseball and, by extension, the SBL. Acknowledging right from the top that we’re starting to sound like a broken record on this topic . . . we’re seriously starting to wonder if this season is going to end up breaking records for offensive futility. You can’t spell “puny” without “P.U.,” and hitting numbers don’t get much tinier, or stinkier, than what we saw this week. There was a time not long ago – even as recently as last year – when, if you went into battle with 26 runs, 26 RBI, 6 HR and 24 TB, you held little hope of success. This week, those were the league averages—26.2, 26.2, 5.75 and 23.9, to be exact. The average on-base percentage in MLB is down to .319, and many of our SBL “all-star” teams are struggling to reach even that benchmark -- five teams failed to get there this week, and three couldn’t even make it to .300, the OBP version of the Mendoza Line. Only one team reached double figures in homers -- the Derelicts, with a mighty 10. The trio whose stats are compiled by Paul Oberjuerge was monumentally feeble -- the Zero's, the Puny Pontiffs and the Batfaced Barristers combining to average 19 runs, 20 BI and 3.6 HRs. Elsewhere in the American division, the Moaners raked to the tune of 29 runs, 23 RBIs and 6 HRs -- and went 5-1. Good times! . . . We’ve speculated ad nauseam about the causes of the Incredible Disappearing Offense. But it can’t just be post-steroids shrinkage (both anatomical and statistical), can it? If, let’s say, 30% of MLB players were juicing and are now off the stuff, why is it that the malaise seems industry-wide, affecting even the 70% presumed to have been clean in the first place? Plus, weren’t some pitchers on the needle too, and wouldn’t those pitchers be more hittable now? Yet it seems like nobody’s hitting much of anything, or anyone. The ever astute Mr. Oberjuerge suggests that the massively underperforming Red Sox lineup, in which numerous SBL teams are invested, is a meaningful factor in this; the Bosox were expected to be a run-producing machine after adding Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford to an already potent lineup, yet here they are in the bottom 10 in MLB scoring six weeks in. Another owner, Gregg Patton, theorizes that the primary culprit is simply better pitching—bigger, stronger athletes with harder, nastier stuff—and more specialized pitching roles, with one strong, fresh arm after another marching in from the bullpen from the sixth inning on . . . and all of these guys throwing to less-disciplined free-swinging hackers. If that’s true, then perhaps we’re in the early stages of a new, pitching-dominant era. Are we heading back to where the game was in 1968, the year of Drysdale’s 58 straight scoreless innings, McLain’s 31 wins and Gibson’s 1.12 ERA? Baseball lowered the mound after that season, to reduce pitchers’ advantage. Will this season be remembered as the one that compelled MLB to do away with the mound entirely and have them pitch off flat ground, like in softball? . . . OK, enough of our complaining about crappy offense, for, like, the rest of the season. On to the races: The Inmates put together a HUGE week by new-era standards (34 runs, 34 BI, 38 TB, .372 . . . fuggetaboutit), combined that with the week’s finest pitching (1.96 ERA) and cruised to a 6-0 week that left them alone atop the National division—though by only one game over the Double-Ds and two over the Godfathers, with whom the ’Mates were locked in a three-way tie a week ago. In the AL, the Bammers rebounded from last week’s 2-5 blip to also go 6-0 and inflate their lead from two games to five over the second-place Badgers. . . . The Bombers and the Whiteskins announced a trade Monday: C Santana to the Bombers in exchange for C Ruiz and the No. 3 pick in that day’s supplemental draft. . . . Four weeks of interleague play commence this coming week. Is the NL really, finally the stronger of the two divisions this year, as early-season indicators hint? We’ll find out what’s what.