More of the Best Ever

Tom Beth joins pitcher Rocky Tirabassi as the first baseman on the “Best I Ever Saw” team. Because of a tie, Beth had to knock off two Kenosha Softball legends – Gene Willems and Bill Johnson. Here are the final totals:

Before moving on to the Second Basemen Tourney, I would like to go over the qualifications for the players in these tournaments. First and foremost, it has to be someone that I personally saw play. Unfortunately, this leaves out some of the old-time greats and several of the young phenoms. The only other requirement is that they lived primarily in Kenosha during their playing career.

Please note that I am making a slight adjustment to the tournament format. From this point on, I will not be seeding the players and creating matchups. The top four vote getters in the opening round will move on to the semifinal round. The top two from the semis will then move on to the finals.

This “Best I Ever Saw” Tournament is for fun and is not scientific by any means. Still, I do apologize if I omit someone that you may feel belongs in the tournament.

With all of that in mind, here are my eight finalists in the opening round of the Second Baseman Tourney:

Dick Laba

Tom Blaziewske

Brad Breiling

Tom Wood

Mark Gascoigne

Mike Higgins

Jeff DiCello

Mark Pias

These are the players that made my honorable mention list: Vince DeMarino, Larry Campagna, Wayne Andreucci, Tom Baltrus, and Jim Cicchini.

This opening round for Second Basemen Tourney poll will be open until Friday at noon. That is when the semifinal voting will commence. As usual, the poll is located just to the right of the blog. Those using a smartphone, make sure you scroll to the bottom and click on view web version to find the poll.

Until next time…from the booth.