Award Winners

The list of Frontier League 2008 Post-Season Award Winners are out...

Congratulations to Steve Young who was selected as the winner of the Fran Riordan Award for citizenship...It is also with great pride that I tell you the Beach Bums have been selected as the 2008 Frontier League Organization of the Year, the second time the team has received the honor in three years...

A special congrats goes out to a good friend, Randy Gore...Gore, of the Washington Wild Things, was chosen as the 2008 Frontier League Broadcaster of the Year...

That Sick Feeling in the Pit of Your Stomach...

Oh you have it too? Tonight will be the final game of 2008 as an amazing season comes to a screeching halt...Gateway rallied from a 2-0 deficit and beat Southern Illinois 4-2 last night to clinch the fourth and final playoff slot...Alex Kerins doubled with the bases loaded in the sixth inning to put the Grizzlies in front...

I was sitting with the coaching staff at around 11 last night when the word came...Jon Cahill's phone rang, it was the commish...moments later I got a text message from Gateway's broadcaster, it read simply 4-2 Grizz Final...Sorry man...The look on our faces said it all...The nervous waiting and the excitement from earlier in the night was gone...95 games and 50 wins brought us to within a game of the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, but its that 96th game that won't have any bearing on what happens for us, instead it will be a chance to celebrate the 2008 season...

Some things to chew on...The number 19, ah, ah, ah...What am I the count from Sesame Street? Yes I used to watch that as a youth...

The Beach Bums have a chance to spoil the season for Kalamazoo...The Kings have never been swept this year and if the Beach Bums do that, the Kings could become the second overall seed rather than the top seed...Make sure to listen in tonight for my famous year-end highlight reel...Airtime is 4:45pm with the Labatt Blue On Deck Show...Thanks to everyone for what has been a great second season here in Northern Michigan...I hope you have enjoyed my posts, I will update some details through the offseason as stuff develops in my world...

Rumors...

Unfortunately the end of the season brings with it rumors from all over the place...In my usual search of ballparkdigest I came across this tidbit...Having just left Chillicothe I'll say that if this is true they will be missed...I loved visiting Chillicothe...

Paints likely to leave Frontier League; owners looking at launching wood-bat league
Posted Sept. 1, 2008 (feedback) (submit story) (discuss)
The owners of the Chillicothe Paints (independent; Frontier League) are planning to leave the world of independent baseball and launch their own summer-collegiate league. The future of the Paints in the Frontier League has tenuous this season: the team draws only 1,302 a game -- dead last in the indy circuit -- but the owners seem to do a better job of managing the facility, hosting many events unrelated to Paints baseball. There are some economic advantages to summer-collegiate ball -- you can take away player payroll and workers-comp (depending on the state; some states, like Wisconsin, do require workers-comp insurance to be paid on summer-collegiate-league players) off the ledger books. But you can also take some revenue off, as summer-collegiate-league seasons are much shorter than indy leagues. And forming a league is a formidable challenge, to say the least. But there are probably a few other cities that should look at shifting from indy ball to summer-collegiate ball, and we expect more movement in this direction in the next few years.

Cahill's Corner: September 1

I don't think we could have realized what was to come when this interview was conducted...Still, its the pregame interview before the opener with Kalamazoo...

Ralph?

Apparently this has become a huge joke so I thought I'd share in some of the humor by induldging you with some grasshopper photos...Yes I was again visited by one while at Chillicothe, and last night one of the suite ushers even brought one up to my booth that he picked up outside...Yick!!!!

First photo is of my new friend, stuffed Ralph! Thanks to Sharon Higaki for that one, I about jumped out of my bradcast booth when I discovered it next to my mike...

That Just Happened...

What a night! I'm still trying to digest what happened...Brad Miller hit for the cycle, the first player in Beach Bums history to do so and the first in the Frontier League since very early in 2004...It wasn't just that he hit for the cycle...It was that he finished it with a walkoff homer, the first walkoff homer of the season for the Beach Bums, and in the process kept the Beach Bums playoff hopes alove for another night...

THE CALL (I went buhzerk but listening back still got everything in that I wanted to, capturing the emotion of the moment)




THE POSTGAME INTERVIEW



What is bad however is that now the playoff hopes are out of the Beach Bums hands...Gateway's magic number dwindled to one with a come from behind 7-4 win last night over Southern Illinois, knocking the Miners out of first in the West...Gateway is one game ahead of the Beach Bums with two to play and owns the tiebreaker with the Beach Bums, having won five of the six meetings this season...So, the Beach Bums need to win the last two with Kalamazoo and hope Southern Illinois does the same at Gateway...Southern Illinois is a game behind Windy City and holds the tiebreak with the 2007 League Champs...

Rockford and Washington were eliminated from playoff consideration yesterday, ending long postseason runs...Washington has been in the playoffs in every season of their franchise, including two years with current Beach Bums Manager Jon Cahill...The Wild Things lost in last year's championship series and will miss the post season for the first time, having been in every year since 2002...Rockford hasn't missed the playoffs since the 2003 season, winning a title in 2004...

On a side note, if the Beach Bums win out Kalamazoo could not end up as the top overall seed...The Kings presently hold a one game edge over Windy City for home field throughout with two to play...Kalamazoo and Windy City split their six meetings this season if they were to finish tied meaning it would go to a secondary tiebreaker...The top seed will play either Gateway or the Beach Bums while the second seed will meet whoever doesn't win the West, Southern Illinois or Windy City...

On a further side note a pair of Major Leaguers hit for the cycle last night as well, the first time since 1920 that a pair of players hit for the cycle on the same day...

Media
Record-Eagle

Kalamazoo-Gazette

The Southern Story about Gateway's Win over Southern Illinois

Marion Daily Republican Story

Belleville News-Democrat Article on the Grizzlies Win

Apparently the Beach Bums Aren't the Only Ones Changing Walk-Out Songs -- More from the Belleville News-Democrat

Washington Eliminated -- Observer-Reporter

Rockford Eliminated