Michigan 2016

What a fantastic tournament!   Thank you again Pastor Rich Zawadzki for holding such a well organized and enjoyable tournament. 

Here are some action shots:

And the winner?  Shawn Baier!  Congratulations taking those 1993 Atlanta Braves all the way.  Well done. 

As far as my 2006 Minnesota Twins, we held our own for the most part.

2-0 vs. 1985 Mets
2-0 vs. 1995 Indians
1-1 vs. 1988 Mets

Here is where the slide into the consolation bracket happened

0-2 vs. 2011 Rangers
0-2 vs. 1954 Indians

My Twins ended up 5-5 with a -1 run differential

All of the games were very enjoyable, including most of the losses, with the exception of one. More on that in the "tournament etiquette" section. 

The 2011 Rangers pounded me for 15 runs against my 8.  Had I given up my average 4.2 runs per game, I would have had a very respectable 26 runs allowed against 42 runs earned.  But had Kent Hrbek been fast he would have stolen 80 bases in 1988, but he was slow. So much for "if, then" clauses in baseball. 

The manager (Berg) blew game 2 against the '54 Tribe.  I didn't put my reliever with a z in and walked a run in, I though Reyes had more gas in the tank. 

My opponent managing one series was playing to lose the second game and let me know at every roll that he was trying to lose.   I couldn't get the dice to fall against his intentional D pitching and was a bit off my game as I have never played an opponent that wanted to lose and announced it to the entire room every 1/2 inning. 

I still think the 2006 Twins will win a tournament one of these years so look for me to roll them several more times.

This leads me to a very short side-bar: Tournament etiquette.

For the record, I am extremely impressed at the sportsmanship and friendship displayed at these tournaments,  I have played in 8 thus far and have only noticed two incidents that I would like others to help correct. 

#1-from above. Play to win.  Do not announce to the whole room you are trying to lose and your opponent can't even beat you when you put in a D starter and don't hit and run or play the defense in or out when you should.  Nobody has fun in that game.  And the dice make the final decision.  If  my 1,2,3 hitters all fly out to center field against your D, I am not an idiot.  And if you roll boxcars against my A/C xyz, you sir, are not a statistical genius.

#2- either score the game or run the boards or do both.  I have played one particular manager at a well-known tournament that will do neither.  He has the boards memorized and just occasionally calls out: "hit" or "out".  But I do not have them memorized, thus I do not know every time if that "hit" was a single or if that "out" was an F-7.  I trust that he knows the boards, but I look everything up so I can score it and he just impatiently sits and waits for me to look it up and score it.  The game is annoying as I have to look at the dice, look at his card (twisting my neck), look it up, and score it. Be fair, do one or the other, run the boards and tell the manager scoring it is an F-8 for example, or score the game for the other guy. 

Next stop: Minneapolis and my 2015 Kansas City Royals with a 45 defense!