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The Frogs entered the final day of sims with a precarious 3-game lead over Long Beach-Compton. It had been a fantastic season-long battle. And then the Frogs proceeded to watch helplessly as LBC went 27-1 in September, including sweeping a short, 2-game series against yours truly.
So, with the tables turned and the Frogs in the chase role, it came down to a 3-game deficit and a 3-game home series to possibly force a tiebreaking G163...
G160 went just as the Frogs would've hoped. 99 Hal Newhouser hurled a 1-hitter (5 BB, 6 K) thru 7.1 IP and SE Red Ruffing finished the job for a 2-0 Frog win. LBC's division margin was down 2 games with 2 to play.
We pick up the action in G161 with a 2-2 tie game heading to the 8th inning. The Frogs had just pulled even as SE Bill Terry took 100 Walter Johnson out of the yard for a solo HR. Unfortunately, 99 Eddie Collins had just been thrown out trying to steal 3rd base in the previous AB. In the 8th inning, LBC's 100 Wade Boggs chased SE Ruffing with a leadoff single. Then, SE Lou Boudreau greeted SE John Smoltz very rudely with a first pitch double. FL Vladito and 100 Ty Cobb followed with RBI singles to make it 4-2 in favor of LBC. Only then did Smoltz find his rhythm striking out King Kelly, 100 Honus Wagner, and inducing a fly out by 100 Richie Ashburn. The drama was not over yet. Bottom of the 8th, one-out double by Super Ichiro gets things cooking for the Frogs. The good guys' 100 Ashburn singled Ichiro home. 4-3 ball game. SE Appling followed up with an RBI double to tie it....wait, no scratch that. No RBI. That's because Richie Ashburn was held at 3B?!?!?!?!? **waittilnextyear immediately goes into strategy settings and angrily jacks up Ashburn's baserunning slider to maximum** 99 Eddie Collins then struck out looking against 98 Waite Hoyt to end the threat. Top of the 9th inning was rather uneventful as the Frogs' SE Hoffman worked around a 2-out single by 100 Boggs. Still a 4-3 game entering the bottom of the 9th with the division on the line...Enter Sandman. 100 Bonds works a full count, and goes down swinging. SE Bill Terry hits the 1st pitch of his AB right on the nose, but right at the RF. SE George Sisler also took advantage of the first pitch (probably was a cutter) and drove it high and deep, but not quite far enough as LBC's Tim Salmon pressed up against the RF wall and caught it with one hand high over his head.
Division winner Long Beach-Compton. Wild Card La Crosse Fighting Frogs. This will be the 3rd time the Frogs have won 120+ games and earned a Wild Card spot for it (2054, 2056, 2061).
What's more is the Frogs came out and took G162 decisively in knocking around 100 Cy Young (3.1 IP 5 ER). The Frogs won 6-1, but the division was decided the day before...It was a good race. It was a kind race. The Frogs ended up 124-38 (+526) to LBC's 126-36 (+490). If that doesn't seem even enough, the season series was 10-9 in favor of LBC, but the Frogs had a +15 RD in those games.
The Frogs set a new franchise record with a .306 batting average. 99 Newhouser led the conference with 27 wins; 100 Ashburn hit .342 to win the batting title (went 4/4 in G162 to pass someone's SE Dykstra by 1 point). Ashburn also has a strong case for MVP as he put up 8.0 WAR and the next closest in the NC was teammate 100 Ozzie Smith with 5.9 WAR. Ashburn has now played 4 full seasons for the Frogs and his 162-game average is 8.0 WAR. Not too shabby. But he really should've scored on that Appling double.
The Frogs will get the 99-63 Madison Tycoons in the Wild Card game. The Tycoons are a max defense team with good pitching. How max defense you ask? Well, let's say that they had +89.9 ZR and that SE Dykstra and his 106 rating in CF is the 2nd worst on their team (100 Mike Schmidt is only a 96 at 1B for them). This is exactly the type of opponent I do not want in a 1-game winner-take-all. But, alas...to get revenge on LBC we'll have to go through Madison to get there. *Looks at map, shakes head in confusion*
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