Hit v Pitch--70s -the wrap up-10/10/20

I think one of the hardest lessons is to be patient. Stats are way scewed, and "pitching teams" should still expect a lot of bad pitching. That being said, the Astrodome was most unkind to my pitchers. I'm staying out of there in the future.

All regular season games completed.

There have been 456 games played between the pitching and hitting centric teams. The pitching teams won the season series--

Pitching teams: 232 wins (50.9%)
Hitting teams: 224 wins (49.1%)

Playoffs: Semi-Finals:

Franky35's Low Smoke (Pitching--number 1 seed) defeated Burley Norseman's Beantown Brawl Coolbeans (Hitting-Wild Card) 3-2. Game 5 went into extra innings with Low Smoke winning 4-3--players drafted during the 2 round player draft contributed to the win---Eric Soderholm doubled and was driven in by Bert Campaneris after two were out in the 10th

Newcar13's Be Kind 2 Others (Hitting-won east) defeated The BC Managers Perseid Meteor Showers (Pitching-won west) 3-1.

Finals: 2 games played

Be Kind 2 Others won game one 4-3 as Mike Norris defeated Gary Nolan.
Game 2: Low Smoke won 5-4 behind Jerry Koosman with Matt Keough taking the loss. Be Kind used 8 pitchers in the loss.

Interesting stats/data points from the regular season:

Hitting Division:

Be Kind 2 Others : Vincente Romo finished with 41 saves in 139 innings pitched; 10 players with double digit home run
Beantown Brawl Coolbeans: Ted Simmons had a tough year behind the plate: 17 errors—7 throwing errors and 14 passed balls.
Diamond Duds: Bigdinkent: Finished 3 games out of the playoffs---team had 45 saves but 38 blown saves. Harmon Killebrew and Reggie Jackson combined for 101 home runs
All Hit No Pitch Juice JC’s: The three .75 players Bill Stein, Del Maxvill and Tom Grieve combined for 23 at bats all season long.

Central: Mixed

Low Smoke –despite being a pitching centric team---9 players hit double digit home runs led by Rusty Torres who hit 36 home runs.

Morningside Martinis (Hitting): Jose Rijo—Team lead the league in triples with 74---Bobby Bonds hit 15

Oakdale Roadrunners (Pitching): Sambruins: Pitching team---Three starters hurled over 250 innings—Jon Matlack 254, Jim Palmer 255 and Mel Stottlemyre 259

A Handful of Pain (Hitting-JJB92): Longest winning streak for the season—4 games (2 times)—one 21 game stretch 3-18. Ouch.

Pitching Division:

Meteor Showers: Wins the patience/never give up award----after 54 games, had worst record in league at 20-34. (.370) Went 71-37 (.657) after that.

RI Aces (SPhillips8): All hitters on ending rosters had over 100 at bats; team lead league in hit by pitches—Ron Hunt hit 21 times

Minimum Wagers (Drabb9529): Pitching team—made only one move to pitching staff all season long—dropped Danny Frisella ---picked up Pete Richert. Big 4 starters combined for 956 innings (Tom Seaver, Ron Guidry, Andy Messersmith, Mike Cuellar)

Beaver Pelts (Fench33): Playing in the Astrodome, embraced the running game—led the league with 236 stolen bases—174 runner advancements on 320 opportunities.

At our last update, Franky35's pitching centric's Low Smoke was battling Newcar13s Be Kind 2 Others hitting centric team were tied at 1 game.

Game 3: Low Smoke won 3-2 after Rusty Torres launched a 3 run homer in the first inning---Fergie Jenkins made the 3 runs hold up leading Low Smoke to victory and 2-1 series lead.

Game 4: Be Kind 2 Others won 9-7 behind Jim Rice---Jim went 3-4 driving in 4 runs--Ed Brinkman contributed to the offensive onslaught driving in 2 additional runs.

Game 5: Be Kind 2 Others moved to within 1 game of the championship--Tony Oliva launched two home runs while Andre Dawson hit his 5th homer of the post season. Be Kind won 11-5 as Gary Nolan fell to 0-3 in the postseason.

Game 6: Facing elimination, Low Smoke won behind Wilbur Wood. Mike Norris, ace of the 2 Others staff didn't get out of the first inning as Low Smoke put up 5 in the first and 3 more in the 2nd. Low Smoke wom 9-4

This set up game 7--Fergie Jenkins for Low Smoke versus Matt Keough for Be Kind 2 Others.

Fergie was on his game again holding the mighty Be Kind offense to just 1 run on 5 hits. Homers from Joe Morgan, Eric Soderholm and Rusty Torres (completing a dream season) propelled Low Smoke to the league championship 5-1.

And so, the pitching centric teams won the season series and the championship in the 70s version of the game. In the 90s version, a pitching centric team also won the championship although the hitting teams won the series season.

Thanks for following the outcome of this league---the 80s version will be next but that league won't start until December/January timeline. Keep watching for a posting announcing the league creation.

A few other items of interest with the the player card reveals...

Best players not chosen at any point

Hitters:
Jack Clark-1978

Pitchers:

Mike Flanagan-1979
Rick Wise-1972

Here are the MVP choices for all teams---for the hitting teams, the MVP was limited to hitters and the MVP choice focused on pitchers for the pitching teams

MVP---

Be Kind 2 Others--Newcar13: Jim Rice .324/.383/.604 1979
Beantown Brawl Coolbeans-Burley Norseman: Rod Carew .390/.460/.605 1977
Diamond Duds--Bigdinkent: Reggie Jackson .298/.420/.686 1969
All Hit No Pitch-Juiced JC : Ron Blomberg .373/.419/.541 1971

Low Smoke-Franky35: Wilbur Wood 27-6 2.65, 1.09 1972
Mornginside Martinis Jose Rijo: George Brett .364/.430/.676 1980
Oakdale Roadrunners Sambruins: Mel Stottlemyre 13-15 3.20 1.21 1969
A Handful of Pain-JJB92: Willie Stargell .297/.370/.578 1972

Preseid Meteor Showers-The BC Manager: JR Richard 19-6 2.39 1.12 1979 and Pat Jarvis 14-3 2.82 1.03----1969
RI Aces--SPhillips8-: Bob Gibson 17-8 2.47 1.03 1972
Minimum Wagers Drabb9529: Bruce Sutter 48 saves, 4 blown; 1.52 ERA .94 WHIP 1977
Beaver Pelts-Fench33: Grant Jackson 6-5 2.91 ERA 1.06 92.2 innings 1974