36 | NOVEMBER 21 • 2019
sports HIGHlights
brought to you in partnership with
quick hits
BY STEVE STEIN
A Tale Of Kosher Ribs and,
Thankfully, No Broken Ribs
STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER
T
he line drive was hit
so hard that Dave
Raminick never had a
chance to move.
Standing at third base, ready
to score in the early innings of
the Inter-Congregational Men’
s
Club Fall Softball League’
s
playoff championship game,
Raminick was hit on the right
side of his chest by a foul ball
hit by teammate Brad Golder.
The impact knocked
Raminick to the ground and
left him stunned.
“I couldn’
t get out of the way
of the ball. Brad hit a missile.
He’
s the hardest hitter on our
team,” Raminick said.
Raminick was in the game
as a pinch-runner for Howard
Fershtman, who had doubled.
While that move put
Raminick in the wrong place
at the wrong time, luckily, he
wasn’
t seriously injured by
Golder’
s line drive. The ball
barely missed his ribs.
After he got back on his feet
and iced the injury, Raminick
played the rest of the game in
left field and batted a couple
times.
He said he was sore for
almost a week as the bruise
turned his side into shades of
green and purple.
His team, the Kosher
Ribs, beat SHAEF 17-12 at
Drake Sports Park in West
Bloomfield for the fall league’
s
playoff championship.
What happened after the
Oct. 13 game is what Kosher
Ribs co-manager Mitch Kline
and Raminick want to talk
about even more than the
championship.
“(SHAEF manager) Barry
Fishman called me an hour or
two after the championship
game to congratulate our team,
but he also wanted (Dave
Raminick’
s) phone number so
he could give him a call the
next day and check on him,”
Kline said. “What a mensch.”
Raminick appreciated the
call from Fishman.
“That was very nice of Barry
to call me. I didn’
t know him.
He didn’
t need to do that,”
Raminick said.
“But that’
s what (the Inter-
Congregational league) is all
about. We all play hard and
want to win, but we have
respect for one other. I told
Barry I’
d say hello to him
when we see each other on the
softball field next summer.”
Unlike the Inter-
Congregational summer
league, fall league teams are
made up of players from
different temples, synagogues
and shuls.
Kosher Ribs had seven play-
ers from Temple Shir Shalom
(Raminick, Golder, Kline, Evan
Kline, Alex Vinter, Dan Krauss
and Michael Weinberger),
three from Congregation Shir
Tikvah (Fershtman, co-man-
ager Matt Bassin and Scott
Litt), two from Temple Beth
El (Jeff Hollander and Michael
Kindred) and Corey Slutsky
from Temple Israel.
Kosher Ribs and SHAEF
each went 7-2-1 during the
regular season and tied for
first place in the six-team
league.
Run differential determined
the top seed in the playoffs
and Kosher Ribs won that sta-
tistical battle 43-32.
“It was a great fall league.
Very balanced. Any team
could have won it,” Kline said.
The Inter-Congregational
summer league was plagued by
rainouts this year. But the fall
league didn’
t have any rain-
outs.
STEVE ACHTMAN
NMLS#2289
Elle Hartje got off to a great start
with the Yale University women’
s
hockey team.
The Detroit Country Day School
graduate and 2019 Jewish News
High School Athlete of the Year
scored a hat trick against Long
Island on Oct. 25 in her first game
for Yale.
She finished Yale’
s season-
opening weekend at home with six
points (four goals, two assists) and a
plus-8 rating as the Bulldogs swept
both games from Long Island.
Hartje’
s impressive numbers
caught the attention of the women’
s
collegiate hockey world. She was
named the NCAA’
s third star of the
week and ECAC Rookie of the Week.
“I waited four years to come
here. To finally be here and play is
just so surreal,” Hartje told the Yale
Daily News after putting up her hat
trick against Long Island.
continued from page XX
Smiles are slathered on the faces of the Kosher Ribs players after they won the
Inter-Congregational Men’
s Club Fall Softball League playoff championship.