Sometimes its fun to go back into the history books to check out the past scores and records after such a long time in the league, and sometimes its, well, not as fun. 2009 was not as fun of a sophomore season for the defending champ Mashers, but did crown a new champ in the Scarlet Knights (Now Springfield Isotopes).

2009 Also introduce our first expansion franchise in league history: Zee Captain. Now, I have no worldy idea who this joker was, but MANNNNNNN did he love his Washington Nationals. Also, I heard that he was Lenny’s friend or something, so that’s how it went. Our new friend Zee Captain came through with some of the more … interesting trades you could think of in his quest to acquire every National player of relevance he could think of. A special shoutout  goes to Mr. Greg Heroy and his Youth Movement (previously named Rebuilding Stage) for basically being the most Bipolar team in our leagues history, going worst to tied for first in 1 season.

While there were some interesting trades happening in the offseason before this season started which can’t be verified (due to lack of record keeping at the time), 2009 brought forward the next step of the trading era. Remember how R-Mac has every ace you could think of? Well, the first (and strongest) of the stable was acquired in 2009 by the name of Clayton something Kershaw. How about this: Eventual champ Mikey T dealt eventual MVP Dustin Pedroia to the Mashers for a couple of closers, which would probably go down as on of the weirder trades in this league’s history. I mean, it worked out for him decently well, as Brian Wilson (acquired in said trade) posted incredibly good numbers after the trade. This included saving 3 in the championship week to beat the Jonny Bevs (what?).

The playoffs that year did not yield any real discernible favorite like 2008, but it did provide some really interesting semi-final results that I didn’t notice until now. Defending champion Lobman and The Mashers limped into the playoffs as the #6 seed, yet took down strong #3 seed in the WVU Bombers to get into the Semi’s against the Knights (bye). The other mild surprise was Jonny Bev’s “Numba 2 Pick” upsetting Pete Mitch (RIP), which set up a battle with the upstart Youth Movement. Both semi-final match-ups ended up incredibly close 6-5-3 battles, and produced a very unsavory Scarlet Knights vs Numba 2 Pick Championship Game. Ugh.

The Championship Game was not close again for the 2nd straight year, as the Knights just crushed Bev like every math test he ever took, which gave Mikey T his first (only) Backyard League Championship.

REGULAR SEASON FINAL STANDINGS

2009
AMERICAN							NATIONAL
TEAM	W	L	T	PCT	GB		TEAM	W	L	T	PCT	GB
Scarlet Knights	15	7	0	0.682	—		Youth Movement	16	6	0	0.727	—
WVU Bombers	14	8	0	0.636	1		Numba 2 Pick	12	10	0	0.545	4
Somerville Sluggers	13	9	0	0.591	2		River City Mashers	11	11	0	0.5	5
Toms River Takeover	9	13	0	0.409	6		Whitestone Bulldogs	6	16	0	0.273	10
Orlando Stunnaz	9	13	0	0.409	6		Zee Captain	5	17	0	0.227	11

PLAYOFF BRACKET

#1 Youth Movement	–
*BYE*	–
#5 Numba 2 Pick	7-5-2	#5 Numba 2 Pick	6-5-3
#4 Somerville Sluggers	5-7-2	#1 Youth Movement	5-6-3
				#5 Numba 2 Pick	3-10-1
#6 River City Mashers	7-6-1	#6 River City Mashers	5-6-3	#2 Scarlet Knights	10-3-1
#3 WVU Bombers	6-7-1	#2 Scarlet Knights	6-5-3
#2 Scarlet Knights	–
*BYE*	–

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME RESULT:

TEAM	BATTERS								PITCHERS								TOTAL
NAME	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB	OBP		K	QS	CG	W	SV	HD	ERA		SCORE
#5 Numba 2 Pick (12-10)	47	15	0	13	48	3	0.3927		66	6	0	8	3	2	4.24		3-10-1
#2 Scarlet Knights (15-7)	49	14	2	13	52	5	0.3299		78	7	1	5	8	4	3.842		10-3-1

Coming Soon: Season #3 (2010)