Brewers need a victory

NEW ULM -- The New Ulm Brewers have their backs to the wall tonight when they travel to Redwood Falls to take on the Redbirds in the Tomahawk East League playoffs.

The Brewers, who won the National Division crown this season by winning 17 games, face elimination unless they can pull out a win tonight at 7:30 p.m., and then win game three.

For the BrewCrew, who throughout the season was blessed with strong hitting, they need to be able to get the runners home. In the loss to Redwood Falls Friday night, they stranded 15 runners on base in the 7-3 loss to Bob VanHee's Redbirds.

"We had 10 hits, 10 walks and could only score three runs," said a frustrated Brewer manager Bob Weber Saturday morning. "We just left a ton of runners on base."

And in the playoffs, that can be a quick and immediate ending to a season that was promising.

But not only were the runners left on base frustrating, it doubly hurt because a lot of them were left in scoring position.

"We left eight runners on base who were in scoring position," commented Weber. "There were some cases where we hit the ball hard; Al Wurtzberger hit the ball hard with runners on base and in the sixth inning, there was a drive that their right fielder caught up to. That hurt."

Weber said that after the game his players were, "real down. They were disappointed."

Now the task at hand is getting a win at Redwood Falls tonight and set up a final game with the Redbirds.

"I am not sure who I will pitch tonight." Weber said. "It will probably depend on how Andy Bettin's arm is. He has had some elbow problems lately. I talked to him late this week, and he said that he has been able to sleep at night lately; I will see how his arm is."

If Bettin is unable to go, Weber will tag either Chris Peters or Tony Burt to try and keep the Brewers alive. "The last couple of games that Chris has thrown he has thrown well, so I have been thinking about him."

Weber said that he was "very surprised" that ace Jeremy Wieland (7-2) was touched for seven runs in the game. "That was really abnormal. He was really down after the game, and thought that he didn't throw well. He struck out 14 hitters and they had a lot of seeing-eye hits. Those are the kind of hits that you don't like to see."

Weber feels that his team "has to hit the ball when we have runners on base. Redwood Falls played a lot better defense than they normally do, and I think that our guys were pressing a little bit. Hopefully, we can rebound and get that third game."

PLAYER POLL RESULTS: Twenty-one Tomahawk East League players returned their surveys, as did six umpires.

Players were asked to respond to 10 questions while umpires were asked to respond to 13 questions.

For the players, of the 21 returning, 18 favored the elimination of the aluminum bat with only three in favor of keeping them. Another question asked was if they would be in favor of playing seven-inning games in the regular season. Of the players responding, 11 said yes to seven-inning contests while 10 said no. Of the "no" votes, two said that they would be in favor of seven-inning games during the first half of the season.

Another of the questions asked was who is the best umpire in the Tomahawk East League.

There were seven umpires named, led by Steve Dittrich (8), Darrin Stoll (5), Lowell Mathiowetz and Marlin Helget (2). Bruce Woitas, Jason Sletta and John Brueske each received one vote.

On the subject of umpires, I asked the question as to why there are a lack of umpires in the Tomahawk East League. Seven said that "abuse of umpires" was the leading reason with "Interest" second (5), "length of games" third (4), and "free time" (3).

As to the problem of long games, the players felt that "lack of pitching" was first with seven votes, small strike zones by umpires second with five, the aluminum bat was third, followed by lack of hustle between innings and poor defense.

The players felt that the Most Valuable Player in the league was Jeremy Wieland, who received 12 votes. Chris Peters and Noel Danielson each garnered a vote. Several said that is was "too soon to tell" about the MVP.

If a team had to draft a player from another team who would that be? Wieland was first with five votes, with Peters, Troy Kamm (Brewers), Terry Helget and Doug Radloff (Essig), along with Dean Brinkman (Sleepy Eye) each getting votes.

As far as the Ara Wilson-Tomahawk East resuming their All-Star game, 15 favored it with four against. Two of the four voting against that said that they would like to see a National versus American All-Star game within the Tomahawk East League.

When asked what kind of job the Minnesota State Amateur Baseball Board is doing, the responses varied from "good" to "Can you say Dictatorship? We have had a number of situations where out Tomahawk board has has went to the state board with unanimous or near-unanimous decisions, only to have the state overrule us. They should have elections were each league gets one vote on who will represent their region."

The umpires polled said that five were in favor of getting rid of the aluminum bat and all six said yes to seven-inning games. The umpires also felt that if a player or manager is ejected, they should be suspended for the next game. One felt that it depended on the abuse by the manager or player.

Umpires felt that abuse, pay, and length of games were the reasons that umpires are getting harder to find.

When asked what they would like to tell players and managers, it was that "they are human and trying hard" to " doing my best" to "if a player makes an error, it is part of the game. If an umpires does, it was like World War III. Try putting the shoe on the other foot."

Five said that "lack of pitching" is the reason for long games.

Thanks to all of the players and umpires who returned their polls.

Column by Jim Bastian, Journal sports writer