American Associaiton Insider: Miles Wolff Cup Game Three

 Kevin Luckow

In what will go down as the most anticlimatic Miles Wolff Cup in history, the Kansas City Monarchs are the 2026 Champions. In a season in which teams often put up ten runs a night, the Cup featured a combined ten runs in three games. It really goes against any 2026 baseball logic. 



Series MVP Tyler Gentry opened the scoring with a solo home run to left field in the third inning. Monarchs starter Michael Mariot was cruising along but was victimized by the only Monarch to have a multiple hit game in the series, Yordys Valdes. Valdes went 4-4 and singled in the the only Milkmen run of the series. J.D. Davis put the Monarchs back in front in the sixth with an RBI. With the Monarch bullpen in shutdown mode, Grant Richardson hit an insurance home run in the eighth inning. The Milkmen were set down in the ninth and the celebration was on. And it apparently included the scorekeeper because as of 10:41 the box score on iScore is not completed, so I also have no attendance figure.

A soon to be Hall of Fame manager sat down with me this Summer. He reads my blog. He provided me with a critique when I made a knee jerk conclusion in the first week of the season that Kansas City may be offensively challenged this season. At the time I was trying to make an impact with my takeaways. He told me that instead of jumping to the conclusion that I did, maybe consider the pitching they went up against. 

Tonight I was considering putting a Chat GPT photo of a milk carton with the Milwaukee Milkmen offense on it. It seemed like a natural tie in, Milkmen on a milk carton. Then the conversation flashed back to me and I changed course. Maybe it wasn't the Milkmen offense that faltered, very possibly it was the Monarchs pitching that rose to the occasion when the stakes were at their highest. Sawyer Allen, Jimmy Endersby and Michael Mariot rose the occasion. Give the Milkmen pitching credit too, holding the Monarch offense to nine runs in three games, Luken Baker was not the kind of factor he was all season and in the first two rounds. 

And I want to wrap this up with a conversation that I had today that left me thinking about the grind players on both teams have to deal with to make a championship happen. It's a long enough of a season where most players have to leave their families to play 100 games in 110 days, during the time of the year that most families are together takiing vacations and spending time together. Tack on three more weeks for the players competing in the Miles Wolff Cup Final and that's additional time living in an apartment away from home. Granted each team have the local players here and there that get to live with their family during the season, but it's far from the norm. It was great timing tonight that Monarchs manager Joe Calfapietra thanked the Lord and then thanked the families of the Monarchs for their championship. 

Enjoy the off season everyone. Do whatever it is you do to get you through the off season. Rest up because soon enough the season will be here again, possibly with twists from the inevitable MLB Lockout. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

American Association SUNDAY Insider: Speaking in terms of "what if?"

Image
 Kevin Luckow (non member of IBWAA) What was once a rumor passed between league colleagues, has now been reported by media. The story being the potential move of the Kane County Cougars and Cleburne Railroaders to the Frontier League, soon to be renamed National Association of Professional Baseball. The move would be made for the 2027 season. A real blow to an American Association that has ambitions of expansion.  To get a real feel for what this would mean to AAPB, let's go all the way back to 2006. In the Fall of 2005, the St. Paul Saints, Sioux Falls Canaries, Sioux City Explorers and Lincoln Saltdogs all departed the Northern League. Philosophical differences between ownerships being cited as a major reason for the defection. But a four team league was not going to cut it. Enter the St. Joe Blacksnakes as a stopgap, a team that likely would not have long term stability but filled an immediate need.  Enter Texas. The Texas-Louisiana League was winding down. So the five...
Read more

American Association SUNDAY Insider: The underpaid, overworked liaisons of the American Association

Kevin Luckow (non member of IBWAA)  The idea of this Insider came to my head on Thursday night as I was watching a game in Cleburne. It was the 750th American Association broadcast for voice of the Railroaders, Brad Allred. The Railroaders produced a video for Allred with numerous colleagues from the past, former players and current players paying tribute to Allred.  It got me to thinking just how important the play by play men are to the teams which they are employed. Teams in the AAPB do not have local newspapers following the teams on the road. Often times it is the play by play guys that may put a game story on their team website that the local newspaper picks up to condense into a tiny part of the newspaper. Not to discount the media relations director who also do gamers with no byline given if the newspaper picks it up.  For myself this goes all the way back to the Northern League. Although St. Paul had great coverage from Mike Augustin (mentioned a few weeks ago in...
Read more

American Association SUNDAY Insider: American Associaiton returning to Minnesota

Image
 Kevin Luckow (non member of IBWAA) It's been funny. I've seen stories, thoughts and opinions all around about the announcement of an American Association team in Blaine. They are nice recaps, crosses the t's and dots the i's. But all from an outsider perspective. There's a phrase I like to use when people refer to me as knowledgeable about the going ons in Independent Baseball. It's not that I'm smart, it just means I've been around a long time. For this story I think we have to go back to September of 2020. The St. Paul Saints were playing their final game of the Covid season against the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks. It was in front of a relatively sparse crowd. A weeknight in mid to late September and there was nothing at stake outside of who was going to win the American Association batting title. Drew Ward would end up edging Correlle Prime after Prime was robbed of a base hit late in the game. After the game I talked to Jeff Bittiger who was traveling w...
Read more