Congratulations to Pat Morris of Irvine, CA for winning the 50th running of the Annual Baseball Predictions, by twenty-four points over Jerry Slagle of Fallbrook, CA and 29 points points over Josh Sinnett of Bellingham, WA and Jack Ryan of Durham, NC. This is Pats 13th year in the game. He was 104th in last years game and his best finish to date was 19th place 1982.

Jerry Slagle finish second for the second straight year and has turned the best two year total ever. Josh Sinnett, our CumStat leader, was third and lengthened his CumStat lead. Jack Ryan was fourth by the tie breaker and is one four players, all Ohio State alumnus, from the original game that returned to the game for the first time since 1970.

Early leaders included Charles Kovac, Steven Richard and Jim Wood. Charles was the leader when the spreadsheet was first loaded and computed in late April. Charles and Richard traded the lead until Pat Morris first made it to the top in late June. Jim A. Slagle made it to the top in early August. Jim was the fifth and last new leader and he and Pat traded the lead until Labor Day when Pat took the lead back for good after which Pat slowly built his lead until he had opened up a 24 point lead by seasons end, the fifth biggest margin of victiory in the 50 year history of the game. We ran the player standings 53 times this year. There were sixteen lead changes and Pat was the leader 28 times.

Division Leaders: There were 81 perfect division level predictions this year, including 58 of them in the AL East and, for the first tine since we have gone to six divisions, at least one perfect prediction in each division. Six players, Jim A. Slagle, Steven Richard, Richard Mear, Brian Torry, Easy Freeman and Matthew Cataldo each had two divisions correct. In 2008 there were only fifteen perfect sets of division level picks and only one player had a pair of them correct. Here is the listing of the top ten predictors in each division for this year, including the most common score in each division:

Tie-Breaker: The tie-breaker represents the points accumulated by each players project division winners. Jim A. Slagle led a group of thirteen players with a low tie-breaker of 7.5 points, missing on only the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central.

CumStats: Josh Sinnett, of Bellingham, WA, continues to be our CumStat leader with a six year average of 10.27% and now holds a 8.6 point lead over John Salizzoni of Manchester, NH. Gerry Hamilton, of Trinidad, CA remains the top veteran player with a 32 year average of 28.52%. Below is a list of the top ten players in each category:

The Trophy: This year for the first time, a winner's trophy has been provided by game founder, Nelson Slagle and this year's winner, Pat Morris was the first to hold the trophy. Pat's dad, Warren, the winner back in 1985 also got to hold the trophy, but not for long though. As it turns out it is a rotating trophy, and a fifty year old softball trophy at that. For anyone planning on winning our game and for past winners as well, to hold the trophy and get your picture taken as well, all ya gatta do is get yourself to Westminster. Nelson will take care of the rest.

Our 50th Season: As we all know by now this was our 50th season of baseball predictions. Last Spring a lot people started putting the word out and made an extra effort to bring back some of the players that have been away from the game for a while. As a result our ranks included 43 new players and 32 players that had played before but missed last year's game. Those returning after a long absence include two past winners, Pete Schnaufer who won back in 1957, the third year of the game and Denny Noh who won in 1977. There are four players, including Pete, who joined the game in Ohio back in the 50's and had not participated since 1970. About twenty players contributed to the player growth, most notably, Mike Fulton, Rick Kelly, Joe Longiaru, Warren Morris, Nelson Slagle and Gene Yarrobino and our ranks swelled to highest numbers since Nelson was running the game back in the 60s.

Correspondence: Now we come to my favorite part of the game- messages from out there- from you actually. This year I heard from over 50 players- about the same as last year. I wish that it were more but it is great to hear from those that do write. There were only a couple of complaints so I guess that everything is working OK.

Hope to see ya all back here next year,
Gerry Hamilton
Trinidad, CA
October 15, 2009