Highlights From Diamond Mind July 2023

GOT XVII – ADVANCERS TO ROUND 3

Round 2 leagues in the Grand Open Tournament XVII have concluded their regular seasons, with the 108-owner field being cut down to 72 for Round 3.

It took 78 wins to make the cut, with one unlucky 78-win team missing out on runs for/runs against.

Neal (Neal_1420) K’s GOT Charleston Chews posted the best regular season record (98-64) out of the nine Round 2 leagues.

Good luck to everyone advancing to the penultimate round of the GOT!

REGISTER FOR LADDER LEAGUES STANDARD ASSN SEASON 53!

Registration is now open for Season 53 of the Ladder Leagues Standard Association.

For those unfamiliar with them, the Ladder Leagues operate similarly to European soccer. The Standard Association presently is comprised of six ranked leagues. At the end of each Ladder Leagues season, the top teams from each league are promoted to higher leagues and the bottom teams are relegated to lower leagues. The promotion and relegation system in the Ladder Leagues ensures competitive leagues with similarly-skilled owners.

Standard Association leagues are autodraft leagues, which use the Classic (career-rated) player pool and all Standard League rules, with the DH on or off in alternate years. In Season 53, the DH will be ON.

Why not give it a try and register for Season 53?

SOMEBODY SAVE ME!

It took 20 innings, but Thomas (VicSage) Ross’s JSA Cubs – 96-00 finally downed Jeff (Rheinlander) Gerhardstein’s Boston Red Sox 96-00 in the SSG Modern Franch11 96-00 league, 20-18.

It was sixth time lucky for Cubs reliever Kevin Tapani, who took over from Kerry Wood and locked down the save in the final inning, after Marc Pisciotta (in the 9th), Kent Bottenfield (in the 10th), Rodney Myers (in the 13th), Terry Mulholland (in the 15th) and Jaime Navarro (in the 18th) all were unable to hold a Cubs lead and secure the win!

TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE

Jim Rice holds the dubious distinction of the highest (36 in 1984) and second-highest (35 in 1985) grounded into double play (GIDP) season totals. (He’s tied with Eddie Murray for 8th in career GIDP with 315, although he had just 9,058 career PA compared to Murray’s 12,817).

By way of comparison, Yuli Gurriel’s best (worst) season total was a relatively modest 22 GIDP in 2018. But Gurriel set a new personal best – blowing Rice’s MLB record out of the water in the process – playing for Bill (L12002) Capps’s Old Cards in White Sox in the Last Random ??????????? league, grounding into a mind-boggling 53 double plays!

Gurriel played all 162 games for the Old Cards, and it was not all bad by any means: he posted a slash line of .342/.365/.475 and drove in 114 runs (when he wasn’t mowing down base runners).