sports »
One Night Only! Thursday, October 27th!
All I Did Was Get Born
starring Comedian Ziggy Klett
to benefi t Reading Works
Steve Achtman runs the
InterCongregational
Men’s Club Softball
League’s fall season.
Get your tickets at
themapletheater.com
Tickets are $40/$50 and
include a pre-glow appetizer reception
For more info please contact www.readingworksdetroit.org
Hail The
Homeruntaschens!
Steve Stein | Contributing Writer
B
en Watson had a perfect year in
the InterCongregational Men’s
Club Softball League.
He played on the champion Temple
Israel No. 2 team during the summer. He
was the player-manager of the fall cham-
pion Homeruntaschens team.
Players represent their temple, syna-
gogue or shul on summer teams. Fall
teams are made up of players from across
the community.
Watson was a first-year manager after
playing for the Homeruntaschens last sea-
son. The new skipper needed to add a few
players to his team to fill out what would
become a 13-man roster. Looking for a
full-time pitcher, Watson was told Greg
Schwartz was available, and he brought
him into the team. That was a great move.
“Greg pitched just about every inning
for us,” Watson said. “I don’t think he
walked more than one or two batters in
a game. He threw strikes and made guys
swing at close pitches because they didn’t
want to strike out.”
Another nifty move by Watson was
convincing his older brothers Jason
and Andrew to join the team. In most
games, the first three hitters in the
Homeruntaschens’ lineup were Jason, 28,
Andrew, 32, and Ben, 26.
“We ended up scoring the most runs
(146) and giving up the fewest runs (75)
of any team during the regular season,”
Watson said. “That’s a difficult combina-
tion to beat.”
There were six teams in the four-year-
old fall league, the same as the previous
three years.
Homeruntaschens (9-1) earned the
top seed in the playoffs during the regu-
lar season followed by the Jeters (7-3),
Bad News Jews (6-4), Marble Rye (4-6),
Kosher Ribs (2-8) and the Sandlot (2-8).
The Sandlot beat Bad News Jews 13-11
and Kosher Ribs beat Marble Rye 13-1 in
playoff games Oct. 2 at Drake Sports Park
in West Bloomfield, the league’s home, to
reduce the field to a final four for Oct. 9.
Homeruntaschens defeated the Sandlot
19-7 and Kosher Ribs upset Jeters 13-10
in semifinal games. There was no surprise
in the championship game, won 20-8 by
Homeruntaschens over Kosher Ribs. The
Sandlot beat Jeters 14-10 in the third-
place game.
Also on the Homeruntaschens roster
were Brad Goldman, Michael Bloch,
Grant Kravitz, Kevin Potocsky, Mark
Jacobs, Dan Lippitt, Garett Segal, David
Henkin and Adam Eisenberg.
The other player-managers were Victor
Uzansky and Kenny Walters (Jeters),
Steve Achtman (Bad News Jews), Richard
Jacobs (Marble Rye), Matt Bassin (Kosher
Ribs) and Elon Friedman (The Sandlot).
There were about 80 players in the
league. Achtman runs the league. He said
he keeps it to six teams so his work is
manageable.
Teams keep the same nucleus each sea-
son and add players as players drop out.
Fun and camaraderie are the main rea-
sons for the league, Atchman said, but it
is competitive.
“When you get 80 Jewish guys playing
softball, they all want to win,” he said.
Ben Watson agreed. “The league is
competitive,” he said, “but not over the
top.”
POWERFUL STUFF
Robert Morris University sophomore
Eric Israel from Huntington Woods was
named the Atlantic Hockey Conference
defenseman of the week for the weekend
of Oct. 7-8.
Israel scored a goal and assisted on
three others in Robert Morris’ wild 6-5
win Oct. 8 over host Rochester (N.Y.)
Institute of Technology during the open-
ing weekend of the conference’s season.
Down 5-1 in the second period, Robert
Morris scored four straight power-play
goals within 1:52 and Israel was involved
in all four of them.
“It was a fun couple of minutes,” he told
U.S. College Hockey Online.
Israel played for the renowned
Honeybaked youth teams in the Detroit
area before spending two seasons with
the Brockville (Ont.) Braves of the Central
Canada Hockey League.
He had 99 points (27 goals, 70
assists) in 130 games with the Braves
before heading to Robert Morris, which
is located in Moon, Pa., a suburb of
Pittsburgh.
*
Send sports news to stevestein502004@yahoo.com.
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Expires 11/30/16
October 20 • 2016
55