Well the John Knox Softball Team B is primed and ready to go for yet another exciting year of competition at the Christian Reformed Recreation Center. This year promises to offer edge-of-your-seat excitement. Especially when the over-the-hill players try to track down a fly ball and their wives gasp when they pull up lame.

Update (6-22-00): No wives have been gasping lately. That's because there are no wives at the game (except of course for Mrs. Koetsier). We're putting together a dream season and no one cares!

Keep this page bookmarked for weekly updates!

9-5-00
Well John Knox, thanks for a great year.

Yes, our season came to a dramatic finish last night. In a game that John Knox refused to concede until the very end, John Knox B ended a fantastic season with a record of 9-3.

The opponent (whom I forgot) simply had too many great hitters. When they hit three homes in one inning, it became extremely difficult to overcome that deficit. Although Kyle and the rest of the cast gave their absolute all, we concluded our season with a bang-bang play at first that I'm still grumbling about.

Regardless, thanks for making this a fun season for John Knox, and we hope to see everyone back next year. And if you see Dave Lubbers' left arm in a sling, tell him thanks for taking one for the team!

8-29-00
Well I apologize to anyone out there reading this for the lack of effort I've put into this site lately. No excuses, I know.

However, John Knox B did advance to the second round of the tournament with a convincing 23-6 victory this past Tuesday. A valiant effort was made by the starting shortstop to make it there on time, however the team apparantly would have fared just as well without my services.

We face a tough road ahead as the level of competition promises to increase dramatically with each victory. However, I think we're up for any challenge with our finely tuned offensive juggernaut. We're ready to take on anyone.

8-9-00

If I can brag, Jeff Lubbers set the tone for the team with a lead-off home run. Not of the tape-measure variety, but it got the job done. Following that "shot" we never lost the lead. A few key hits, key defensive plays, and a lot of balls hit directly into the sun overcame some shaky baserunning which seemed to be our only downfall all year long. But nevertheless we can be proud of the trophy that was presented to us when no one was there.

7-19-00
Well sports fans, you can cancel the shipment of the "Undefeated Season" t-shirts.

The mighty Presbyterians came under the ax of Second Byron Center, losing our first game of the season by a score of 10-3.

We ran into a pretty good team consisting of good hitting and good defense, the key ingredients to slow-pitch softball. An almost flawless defense and key hits led to the demise of John Knox.

Most innings we couldn't buy a hit, often flying out and even more often lining out to one of their stellar outfielders. The key play came in the bottom of the sixth inning, Steve Keller up, two outs, runners on second and third. Steve hits a line shot to their left fielder who mistakenly breaks in on the play. Suddenly realizing his mistake, the fielder holds his ground, leaps as high as he can and snags the line drive out of the air. That play cost us a minimum of two runs, and would have left us with another runner in scoring position. Safe to say that could have changed the entire complexion of the game, as we would have trimmed the lead to at least one. But the breaks don't always go your way, as we humbly found out tonight.

But the good news is that the league title is still ours to lose. We are still at least one game ahead of everyone in the loss column, meaning if we win out (and maybe even if we don't) the league title can be ours outright. We're still taking the title!

7-12-00
John Knox B added another victory to their record season by posting a 17-1 victory over East Paris.

It was a strong performance all around, even by the defensive "replacements" in the late innings. Defense, pitching, and hitting were all strong points for us. Henry Koetsier kept a perfect game going for 1 2/3 innings. We were all rooting for probably the first perfect game in slow pitch softball history, but he fell short by about four innings.

We did have one glaring weakness during this victory, and that was our baserunning. Obviously when old men play softball, physical mistakes are going to happen, such as not hitting the cutoff man or not fielding a ground ball cleanly. But baserunning is not a skill that should decrease with age. Baserunning is all mental, and if the proverb "the older, the wiser" holds any truth, the last person on the team to make a baserunning error should be the older players, especially the COACH. I remember our COACH while in charge of a slightly younger group of players, always preaching to "freeze on a line drive." Getting picked off of first base was something that brought a decent amount of shame to any Little Leaguer. If it ever occurred we accepted our treat tickets with our heads down. For a t-ball coach to years later get picked off of first base in slow pitch softball, WHEN YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE A LEAD TO BEGIN WITH, it means that a proper example is not being set forth. It's when plays like this happen that I wonder how we are undefeated on the season. Tsk tsk.

6-28-00
A rather unexciting game between John Knox B and Westend kept JKB undefeated on the season, winning by a score of 12-1.

With next to no one in the crowd, or even at the entire complex for that matter, John Knox pulled out the victory despite a rather unimpressive performance on the offensive end.

We found out that no one really cares for the late games, especially when they're delayed another 45 minutes. The Rec Center really needs to look into giving each game a little more time, or changing the rules so that the games do not run late. No one likes leaving there at 11:00 at night.

6-21-00
Even a week's worth of rust and a wicked wind couldn't hold down John Knox this week, as we defeated Beverly 25-12 in 6 innings.

The story of the game...was the wind. A stiff and constant breeze was blowing from right to left all game long, causing havoc for the left fielders on both teams. Steve, we were feeling for you. It is my estimate that the wind caused 6-8 errors for both teams combined.

But our bats still couldn't be stopped. We didn't crush the ball as much as usual but we had more than our fair share of "seeing-eye grounders" which snuck their way just past the shortstop. Lots of clean base hits resulted in another high-scoring output.

A somewhat sobering realization came about after the game, however. While checking the board for the standings and next week's opponent, we realized we were in the "E" League. Does this mean we are in the lowest level league? All this trash talking I'm doing and we're actually beating the worst teams in the greater Grand Rapids area?! C'mon Bill, we deserve a little better than this!

6-7-00
The trash talking in last week's column almost caught up with us this week, as we managed to win our fourth game of the year by the smallest margin yet, 12-7.

On a night that threatened rain the entire game, John Knox B scored just enough runs on a few well-timed hits to pull out the victory. It was a closer game than it should've been, as the 7th inning defensive replacements didn't exactly come through. With a 9 run lead going into the bottom of the seventh, Ken eventually struck out the final batter of the game with the bases loaded.

Dad, we all know you were right on that infield fly rule. But let's let it go now!

5-31-00
Well after three games John Knox B team has outscored its opponents 61-15. We continued our hot streak this past Wednesday with an 18-5 victory over West Leonard.

One of the biggest question marks going into the game would be how the new second baseman would handle his position. Bob Keller was absent, forcing Coach Lubbers to shuffle his deck and put Pastor Gilbert at second in his first appearance of the season. It was almost as if the other team knew of his inexperience in this young season as he got more ground ball chances than anyone else on the team, and handled them all flawlessly.

Kudos to all of our hitters for mashing out 18 runs in four innings, including one inning in which we only hit into two outs. But when you're up by 12 runs you don't make a stink at a church softball game.

After a discussion with Commissioner Bill Nottelmann after the game we came to the conclusion that we were the toast of the league, a league in which we don't deserve to play in. C'mon, can't we get any competition out here?! We scoff at those who think they can handle us! Bring it on West Leonard!

5-24-00
The mark of a good team is when you play like crap and still pull out a victory, as was the case last night. John Knox remained undefeated two games into the season with a 13-7 win over Roosevelt Park Church.

Shaky defense and equally shaky baserunning almost resulted in the first loss of the season for the Presbyterians yet some clutch hitting more than made up for the defensive miscues. A few infielders (including the shortstop, ehem...) and some outfielders had a bit of trouble fielding grounders. This resulted in a few too many unearned runs that should be expected from a slow-pitch softball game. But key hits with runners on base gave us enough wins to remain in first place for at least another week.

5-17-00
Well we couldn't have asked for the season to start off on a better note. We played Cutlerville Independent Reformed Church or something along those lines in the opener. The final score, and this is not a misprint, was 30-3 in favor of your favorite Presbyterians! That's right, a John Knox team put together 30 runs in 4 innings. And one of those innings we went out in order. We have no one to thank except for that kind pitcher on the other team who didn't seem to realize that the lower he threw the ball the harder we're going to hit it.

We were led by, well, pretty much everyone. Some 4 or 5 homers were hit in the 2nd inning alone. We put forth a great defensive effort as well, as the author of this page made the only miscue with a greedy and unnecessary throw. But other than that it was simply a gem. In related news, David Lubbers takes the early lead for manager of the year. We're a team to be reckoned with!

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