[CaptainObvious]

2066-07-01:
Random team of the month: Montevideo Sunflowers (Uruguay)
Current: 43-37, t-7th (6th of 18 in power rankings). Missed international play by 3 games.
America Cup: Lost to Vancouver, 1st round.
Rank: America: 49 of 64, World: 143 of 146.
Last season: 30-50, 17th place SAm. Lost 2nd round to Botafogo.

SAm Championships: None
Champions Cup Qualification: None
Global Cup Qualification: 2058-2061

Legends:
SP Miguel Velazquez (2050-) 130-109, 3.58, 1500 Ks. He's been here his whole career. 36 now. SAm PotY 2053, 2061.
LF Adalberto Fagundo (2053-2062) .295, 144, 461. Hitter of the Year 2059-2061. All-time SAm HR leader with 203.
SS Andres Rosario (2050-2059, 2061) .320, 953 H, 107 HR, 453 RBI. Hitter of the Year 2053.


Manager: None (Retired this week.) Pitching Coach Naif Na'il Abdul-Hasib has been with the team since it was founded in 2049. Maybe he'll finally get the job?
Payroll: 27.6m, 16th in SAm.
Stadium: Ballpark of Montevideo. Righties have a short wall and short field and a wind that normally blows out. Shape near symmetrical, but right field is 18 feet high.

Key Players:
1B Esteban Rojas (.285, 12, 50). Big free agent signing before this season from Rio. A good hitter just entering his prime. Too bad he's a lefty, as the right field wall is the tall one.
CL: Luis Fernandez (career 2.40 ERA). Acquired last month from Columbus for a couple of prospects. Led SAm with 20 saves in 2064 for Fortaleza.
SP: Conrado Pyrrait (14-5, 2.49). 2063 1st round pick had a career year (at age 25). A major reason the team should move up from 2nd-last in world rankings (not counting than Feds).
SP "Undertaker" Velazquez (6-9, 5.25). It's been all downhill since winning his 2nd PotY in 2061. Got suspended for 10 games last year for fighting with a Lima player.

Montevideo entered the South America league with Botafogo in 2049. They had one of the worst seasons ever, going 8-72 with a 10.16 ERA. (Fun fact: the bench coach during this season just managed Antwerp to 1st in the NoE last season.) They finally won more than 30 games in a season in 2053 thanks to actually having an offense and even finished 2nd. They then averaged around 45 wins a season since then, aside from 2064-2065's disasters.
Montevideo is a small market team and is usually low on payroll and attendance rankings. They went through a major front office overhaul last season after dropping off the bottom of the standings.
After a couple of bad seasons, the Sunflowers were at least competitive in 2066 thanks to the signing of Rojas and the emergence of Pyrrait and CF Roberto Cal. Aside from a major lack of power, they were above average offensively. Their pitching was pretty weak, though.
This offseason they will be looking for a new manager and probably a couple of infielders to replace likely free agents. Also a DH, as their DHs this year were pretty bad.



Global Cup, Round 2 (2066-07-01)
#116 Lara 0, #53 Melbourne 1 (12) Rookie "Fingers" Benscheidt goes 8.1 scoreless.
#92 Sepahan 6, #16 Addis Ababa 2
#140 Cameroon 2, #6 Kampala 3. Labid Nu'man with the walk-off solo HR to lead off the 9th against starter Aghecher Mwapacha.
#141 Zimbabwe 0, #65 Cairo 10
#86 Charlotte 6, #61 Havana 7 (15) Relievers combine for 17.2 IP, 1 ER.
#110 Nice 4, #4 Cibao 3
#79 Toronto 5, #13 America 0
#104 Juventus 2, #11 West Texas 7

Quarterfinals (2066-07-02)
These matchups are almost basically regional finals.
Sepahan 2, Melbourne 5. #9 hitter Adamczak with as many RBIs today as in the last 2 seasons combined (3).
Cairo 3, Kampala 2.
Nice 10, Havana 7. Nice's bullpen shut down Havana after the 5th. Schimmel with another big homer.
Toronto 5, West Texas 6 (10). Bases loaded walk wins it for the defending champs.


Champions Cup, RR 1st half
Guatemala, Kenya 2-1
Grand Canyon, Lille 1-2

Antwerp 3-0
San Fernando 2-1
Dhaka 1-2
Taipei 0-3

Brooklyn, Moscow, Tokyo 2-1
St Petersburg 0-3

We might have to break out the tiebreakers this year.

Global Cup Semifinals
2-0:
West Texas over Nice, rolls into another Global Cup final.
Game 3 (2066-07-05):
Cairo 8, Melbourne 7. Melbourne with 6 in the 7th. Cairo with 4 in the 9th.

Well, that was pointless:
Taipei 3, Dhaka 1 (16). The final game between two teams already eliminated from the semfinals. Bottom of the 16th, 2 out, 0-2. Umps call a 61 minute rain delay. Batter works count to full, strikes out.


Champions Cup RR
Guatemala 5-1

Antwerp 5-1
San Fernando 4-2

Brooklyn 5-1
Tokyo 4-2

San Fernando with the wild card spot 2 years in a row (beat Tokyo on tiebreaker #2: Runs Allowed (15 vs 17)


Federations Championship (best of 5)
Surprise, Norfolk beat out Pittsburgh in the 3-way tiebreaker.
Norfolk 3, Salt Lake 4. Walkoff single by pinch hitter Khaled.
Norfolk 2, Salt Lake 3. 3 in the 8th off the setup guy/
Salt Lake 10, Norfolk 12. Salt Lake finally runs out of pitching. Norfolk's entire lineup gets in on the action.
Salt Lake 1, Norfolk 6. [Insert "Tide has turned" pun here.]


Champions Cup Semifinals, Global Cup Final
#102 Guatemala 6, #1 Brooklyn 10. Guatemala really shouldn't have made it this far, but their pitching been good and a couple of power hitters are having unexpectedly huge years.
#14 Antwerp 14, #3 San Fernando 10. These teams were in the same group 2 years in a row, so it's becoming somewhat of a rivalry. SF had to beat Antwerp yesterday just to get here. 8 in the top of the first. Unfortunately for Antwerp, their start 3B and 1B got hurt.
#65 Cairo 6, #11 West Texas 15. The Miners were up 13-1 after 3.

2066-07-07
Guatemala 4, Brooklyn 5. Things looked up for the Creams when they went ahead 4-1 in the 6th on Palmiero's 3-run homer, but young Belarussian reliever Tretyak gave it right back.
Antwerp 3, San Fernando 5.
Cairo 1, West Texas 5.
Norfolk 6, Salt Lake 4. Once West Texas got far enough ahead, attention moved to the upstart leagues' Finals Game 5, where they saw Norfolk finish coming from behind in both the game and the series. The Federations are no longer only the "Bee" league. *gag*

2066-07-08
West Texas 2, Cairo 4.
San Fernando 0, Antwerp 2. Antwerp used basically their entire bullpen to shut out SF on 3 hits.
Brooklyn 8, Guatemala 4. Sweep no surprise.

2066-07-09
West Texas 4, Cairo 14. Rookie Liben Mwinyimadi finally gets his first cup win on the 4th try.
San Fernando 0, Antwerp 2. Once again, Antwerp makes full use of its bullpen. Zuo-Lin Hua with an RBI double and a home run in his first 2 at bats.

2066-07-10, Game 5
Cairo 1, West Texas 3. "Shadow" Tinker with a 3-run HR in the 6th is all that was needed and West Texas wins the Global Cup again.


10th Champions Cup Finals
The winners of NABL and NoE meet in the finals. Brooklyn shot to #1 last year with their Champions Cup win and they're even better this year with the addition of "Bandsaw" Kolenca (12-1, 0.83). Antwerp has been getting farther in the postseason cups the last few years, usually by just scoring a ton of runs.

Antwerp 2, Brooklyn 3. Gerald Hobbs with a 3-run home run in the bottom of the 7th gives Dos Santos his second straight loss.
Antwerp 6, Brooklyn 2. (Kolenka announced Cy Young Award winner.)
Brooklyn 8, Antwerp 1. Go ahead run scores on a 1st-inning balk. Brooklyn scores in 5 different innings.
Brooklyn 3, Antwerp 5. Brooklyn jumped ahead early again, but this time Antwerp answered. The injuries are piling up for Brooklyn, as LF Waters and 3B Lindsey join CF Newman on the bench. (Antwerp's star CF Billard is also out.)
Antwerp 9, Brooklyn 6. Antwerp led 8-1 after 5. Tying run at the plate grounds into a double play to end the game.
Brooklyn 7, Antwerp 1. Grand slam by Clement Lawlor in the 9th finally put this one out of reach. Kolenka beat Dos Santos again.

Game 7 (2066-07-16)
Antwerp at Brooklyn
Greer vs Manning, rematch of game 2.
Brooklyn can't get Newman home from 3rd with no out in the 3rd. Ian Ainsley involved in Antwerps first 2 runs. Brooklyn with 3 runs from the bottom 3 hitters in the 7th to go up 3-2. "Wasp" Roux with his second save in the series.
Brooklyn 3, Antwerp 2.



2066 World Rankings
No change in the rank order of leagues. SAm is getting dangerously close to the bottom, though.
NABL 19.639
NoE 13.686
LA 13.500
SEE 12.350
E Asia 11.433
S Asia 10.333
S Af 10.000
S Am 6.000
N Af 5.500
Oc 4.333

Top 20 teams (3 seasons)
1(1) Brooklyn 46.817
2(3) San Fernando 31.222
3(14) Antwerp 29.395
4(9) Tokyo 25.923
5(11) West Texas 24.837
6(8) Grand Canyon 23.868
7(2) Vienna 23.118
8(6) Kampala 21.121
9(10) Motor City 20.987
10(4) Cibao 20.157
11(5) Texas 18.363
12(13) America 16.943
13(7) Benfica 15.835
14(16) Addis Ababa 14.65
15(25) Taipei 13.908
16(12) Real Madrid 13.768
17(15) Toulouse 12.271
18(17) Guangzhou 12.051
19(18) London 11.97
20(57) Kenya 11.685
Dropped out: 23(19) Windy City , 25(20) Donetsk
(NABL 6, NoE 4, SAf 3, EAs 3, SEE 2, LA 2)
Brooklyn is almost guaranteed at least a Global Cup wildcard spot the next 3 years.