Glimpses of a Dinasty ?   MIKES  REPEAT   Record 118-win season help Champions upset Brokers Christians win their first division title Great second-half surge gives Candies third pennant in five years   Pachos, Bucks 102-win season just not good enough  

They even considered rebuilding for next season. They were projected fighting with the Bucks for the wild card berth, behind the heavily favored Brokers. They refused giving up hopes, though, declaring "We're only in here for winning". And that decision well paid off, as the reigning Champions Pontevecchio Mikes strolled through their best campaign ever with 118 wins, and took care of any opposition in the postseason. The numbers are increasingly scary, year after year: the Mikes won a grand total of 561 games in the five seasons of the league's existence, losing just 232, good for an astonishing .707 5-year winning record. They finished the regular season in the West division's first place each and every year (losing a one-game playoff for first place in 1997). They went to the playoffs every time, and reached the Finals the last four years, winning the last two. 

 It had seemed that the Guardian Angel Brokers had the best chances, but all they could show was their dominance over each and every other team but the Mikes, and they ended up with nothing to show for a 109-win season. Yet, it must be said that the two archrivals from the West division met in the Finals for the third straight year, and that's what you would call dominance.

  A special nomination, as usual, goes to the Arno Bucks, who would probably pay any price to swap divisions with anyone else. For the fourth straight year, they ended up third in the West, and winning 102 games was of little consolation.

WEST DIVISION

Mikes       118 - 44   (.728)
Brokers     109 - 53   (.673)
Bucks       102 - 60   (.630)
Sniffers     74 - 88   (.457)
 
 
 The St. Lazarus Christians, after years of frustration, were finally able to put things together, compensating for a sub-par rotation with a great lineup. They kept the Fools' Corner Burberries at a 10-game distance in the East Division race, and we think some late-season trades may have played a major role in this ending.

EAST DIVISION

Christians   103 - 59   (.636)
Burberries    93 - 69   (.574)
Bidons        77 - 85   (.475)
Topos         55 - 107  (.340)
Last East     23 - 139  (.142)
 

 But the most intriguing minor story of this season was the second-half surge of the Azzarita Candies in the Central Division. After 81 games, they were 39-42 (.481), far behind the Reno Pachos. But in the second half, they strode through incredible winning streaks (the longest lasted 25 consecutive games), lost just one of 34 games (!) between July 28 and September 1, ending up with just 58 losses for the season, for a 65-16 second-half record (.802). They edged the Pachos by just two games, and with their incredible turnaround made this by far the most exciting pennant race of the three.

CENTRAL DIVISION

Candies     104 - 58   (.642)
Pachos      102 - 60   (.630)
Flowers      80 - 82   (.494)
Faccos       76 - 86   (.469)
Last Central 18 - 144  (.111)
 

  For the first time, there were 6 teams with more than 100 wins, and someone had to pick up all those losses. The best contribution to this department was provided by the Hi-Fly Topos, who didn't even fly low, and with a 55 - 107 season touched their all-time bottom.

  Other losing campaigns were put up by the Telekom Bidons in the East, the Mirtilli Flowers in the Central and the Fortitudo Sniffers in the West. Mr. Massimo Facchini, resigning owner of the Faccos, was not attending for personal reasons.

PREVIOUS BULLETINS

12/20/96  The Ghiotto meeting: Candies spend!  (with trade rules)  12/23/96  Flowers: The Mob Visited My House!  (in Italian)  01/05/97  The Loan Auction  01/19/97  The Trades Deadline  02/01/97  Brokers Are 1996 Champions  02/23/97  Freeze Time Coming  03/10/97  Keepers Submitted  05/05/97  Draft Time!  12/20/97  Realignment, expansion and predictions  01/10/98  Mikes latest Championship Team  03/01/98  1998 Keepers and Draft  04/14/98  1998 Season starts  09/16/98  The new freezing rules  11/01/98  Predictions  12/27/98  Expansion

  In the postseason, the Wild Card Brokers trounced the Candies 4-1, just barely prevailing in the first game, 4-3 in 13 innings, and losing Game 2 3-0, but cruising through the rest of the series with 4-2, 8-3 and 7-3 victories. The Mikes, in the meantime, recovered brilliantly from a 3-7 and a 0-6 losses, trailed against the Christians with four consecutive victories, 5-3, 10-6, 4-3 in 12 and 3-1.
In the Finals, the Brokers took game 1 as Clemens beat Cone 5-3. The Mikes won game 2 (Moyer vs. Wells, 7-2) and game 3 (Sirotka vs. Finley, 12-4). The Brokers came back to even it out at two apiece (W. Williams vs. Quantrill, 6-4; Florie started for the Mikes). Game 5 was Pettitte's win against Clemens, 6-4, with M. Jackson recording for the Mikes the only save of the Finals. In the sixth and final game, the Mike's Cone started, but Jackson himself won 5-4 making Brokers' Wells a 2-game loser. The Mikes win the Finals for the second straight time, 4-2.

  More comments on each team cand be found in the Teams page.

  In the next edition of this bulletin, we will inform you about the new rules recently approved about the usage of players in the lineup, which rules are already effective for the forthcoming season.

Other pages for our friends online:

• A complete list of the keepers for each team (see also the reference page on the same matter).
• A complete list of the players drafted by team (a reference page is available on this matter as well).
• An updated team by team analysis in our usual Teams page, a fan favorite; it displays a roster analysis with the projected lineups for each team.
• The latest edition of this year's statistical recap for each and every player involved in our game. This page is updated weekly throughout the season, and is the best reference tool to evaluate the current strengths and weaknesses of each team.

You can see all the statistics of the 1998 DiamondMind Baseball Championship; they are provided, as usual, by courtesy of the Flowers Home Page.

Check the League's Coming Events . Stay in touch!

 For a complete recap of all the year's trades, see the Trades List Page, which appears (or does it?) on the Flowers' archive site.

 

 

Comments and suggestions are welcome.
Mail me at r.caramelli@bo.nettuno.it.
Thank you.

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