32 | OCTOBER 10 • 2024 J
N

I

t couldn’t have been a better 
end of the Inter-Congregational 
Men’s Club Summer Softball 
League season for Matt Bassin and 
the Congregation Shir Tikvah team.
Bassin, the team’s co-manager, 
received the league’s Steve LeVine 
Step Up to the Plate Award, selected 
by fellow league directors Michael 
Betman and Mitch Kline. Then 
Shir Tikvah went undefeated in the 
Koufax Division playoffs and won 
the division championship.
So how did Betman and Kline 
keep Bassin in the dark about an 

award recipient that Bassin, as a 
league director, was supposed to 
help select?
“They were sneaky,” Bassin said. 
“This was my first year working 
with them, and it just didn’t 
occur to me that we hadn’t talked 
about selecting the LeVine Award 
recipient.”
Bassin has had the complicated 
task of putting together the weekly 
league schedule the last several 
seasons. League teams play each 
Sunday at Drake and Keith sports 
parks in West Bloomfield.

“It’s nice to be appreciated for 
that,” Bassin said.
“I told everyone at the award 
ceremony that I didn’t want to hear 
any more complaints about the 
league schedule because there’s a 
reason for everything I do,” he said, 
laughing.
For perhaps the first time in 
league history this season, Bassin 
said, three fields were used at 
each park, allowing teams to 
play a doubleheader each Sunday 
morning without the 11:40 a.m. late 
start.

“Without the late start, guys got 
home sooner from their games, 
and they had more time for what 
they wanted and needed to do each 
Sunday,” Bassin said. 
Now, onto the Koufax Division 
playoff championship that Shir 
Tikvah won with a 14-13 victory 
in eight innings over Congregation 
Beth Ahm in the title game. 
Shir Tikvah went 9-11 during the 
regular season (1-5 in crossover 
games against teams in the league’s 
tougher Greenberg Division) and 
finished in third place in the seven-
team Koufax Division.
But Shir Tikvah went 4-0 in the 
Koufax Division playoffs, including 
wins over Beth Ahm (14-6) and 
Temple Shir Shalom No. 3 (11-9), 
the teams that finished in front of 
it in the division’s regular-season 
standings.
Temple Israel No. 3 (7-13), Adat 
Shalom No. 1 (5-15), Congregation 
Shaarey Zedek (4-16) and Temple 
Beth El No. 2 (1-19) rounded 
out the division’s regular-season 
standings.
Shir Tikvah won three games 
on the first day of the double-
elimination Koufax Division 
playoffs Aug. 4 to move into the 
championship round, beating 
Shaarey Zedek 8-5, Shir Shalom No. 
3 7-4 and Adat Shalom No. 1 6-2.
The second week of the Koufax 
Division playoffs Aug. 11 was a 
waiting game for Shir Tikvah as 
it waited for two rounds of games 
to be completed to learn which 
team it would face for the playoff 
championship.
Beth Ahm needed 14 innings to 
beat Adat Shalom No. 1 and earn 
the spot in the title game opposite 
Shir Tikvah, prolonging Shir 
Tikvah’s wait until about an hour 
after the scheduled start time for 
the playoff championship game.
“That was impressive. They were 

Two for Two

PHOTOS: INTER-CONGREGATIONAL MEN’S CLUB SUMMER SOFTBALL LEAGUE

Matt Bassin receives an Inter-Congregational Men’s Club 
Summer Softball League award, then scores the winning 
run in the Koufax Division playoff championship game.

STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

SPORTS

LEFT: Matt Bassin and 
Michael Betman. 

