Charm City 2054.6 - Champions

[DaveB]

We're the champions Baby were the words yelled from manager Pedro Medina after the Jimmies clinched their first BBA World Championship after a game 7 win versus Sacramento.

As the GM of the team I didn't think this was going to be the outcome earlier this year. We started the year with a start that was win a few lose a few. We had a losing record through the month of May. I thought we still had a good chance at making the playoffs as our division wasn't really have a strong showing as of then. Once June hit it seemed like we hit the afterburners going 80-27 the rest of the way which was a .748 winning percentage over that time period. Now the optimist in me thought "man this team is freaking awesome so far." The pessimist in me said "Man wait until Markus Math bites you in the ass in the playoffs." Towards the end of September I thought we were seeing Markus Math start to kick in by losing 4 of the last 5 games of the regular season.

We were paired against a tough Boise team in the 2nd round of the playoffs to start the run. The Spuds fought us tooth and nail and took us to 7 games before we were able to endure that difficult series. Up next was Rocky Mountain. The Oysters were team that I wasn't really looking forward to. They has the 2nd best run differential in the Johnson League during the regular season and were a team that I wasn't excited about playing in the playoffs. We jumped out to a surprising 3-1 series lead, but couldn't close out the series again needing 7 games for the win. By this time I'm thinking to myself we might as well call the team the Charm City Cardiacs because they're about giving me a heart attack with all of these game 7's. Cool thing is we're making a good team chunk of money from 6 playoff games. This series was special because the team we defeated criticized our team saying we were overrated. It was still a great series between two great teams.

Onto the Monty Brewster Memorial Cup. When I looked at the matchup between Sacramento and our team the first thing that I thought was "Great we're playing the Frick League's leader in Zone Rating and they were higher than us." They had the best overall pitching staff in every major category with the exception of being 2nd in strikeouts. The areas where I felt we had the edge were offensively and in the bullpen. I felt like our bullpen was slightly better overall as we have a lot of quality arms there and also I felt our offense would be able to manufacture some runs against their quality pitching staff. We ended up winning the series in 7 outscoring Sacramento despite being outscored by 1 run. Out offense was able to manufacture the runs when needed and our pitching staff which was #1 in the Johnson League in ERA did their job.

Just have to say thanks to everyone running the league for the great season and thanks for running an excellent league. Great seasons for Boise, Rocky Mountain and Sacramento this year. This was a special championship for me as it was just my 2nd ever World Championship since I started playing OOTP in 2005. I think it's my first championship since about 2009 or so. It's been a long time as I've had teams get into World Series in previous leagues only to fall short. Also won the 3 UMEBA championships. Anywho hope everyone enjoyed reading this and have a great week.

[Dington]

Since McNeill won a ring, all of Nashville gets a ring, right? Isn’t that how it works?

[woods]

Congrats Dave and well deserved.

And your championship also means Boise was basically the 2nd best team in the entire BBA this year, just didn't get a chance to advance.

[neugey]

Congrats Charm City! Another BBA franchise crosses the Landis off their bucket list!

My quick research shows 9 teams now are still seeking their first:
Boise
Charlotte
Phoenix
Portland
Rocky Mountain
Seattle
Twin Cities
Valencia
Yellow Springs

[bcslouck]

Congrats! Wish I could of gotten the boys a Landis but glad the franchise finally got one.

[trmmilwwi]

Awesome stuff!