Clabberbones take MVRL baseball title

With MLB's regular season coming to an end Sunday, the MVRL officially crowned the Clabberbones as league champs. Owner Troy Pietsch finished with 113 points, 8 points ahead of runner-up Wes Williams and his Benchpressers. Brent Wittenbrink, in his last year as an owner, finished with 99 points, good for 3rd place.
"We're happy for Troy," said Knights GM Derek Harlan. "He really had to work for this one, making many trades throughout the season to hold off Wes. Wes definitely kept the heat on him, but that's what an MVRL Pennant race is all about."

POY
The '06 MVRL Player of the Year has yet to be announced by Troy, but the most likely candidate is OF Carlos Lee. Lee spent his season in Milwaukee and then Texas, as he was dealt near the MLB trading deadline. For the year Lee hit .300, with 37 HR, 116 RBI, 102 runs, and 19 SBs. Lee will parlay those numbers into a monster contract this off-season.
(Hopefully not with the Houston Astros.)

Good Knight
The Harlan Knights, who failed in their attempt to repeat as champs, finished the season in 5th place, behind Marc Daniels' Double Down. Despite finishing out of the money, not all was lost as the team established two new league records. The 2006 Knights finished with 173 stolen bases, which is one more than the team stole a year ago when it set the old mark. Ironically, the A'Balls tied the old mark, finishing just one back at 172. The team also set a saves record, finishing with 104. The old mark, held by the 2004 Pietsch Pits, was 96.
"All in all, it wasn't that bad a year," stated Harlan. "We just got too far behind in a few pitching categories that we couldn't make that extra push to the top. We like our potential keepers and are looking forward to the '07 campaign."
The keepers likely are P Dontrelle Willis, OF Carlos Beltran, SS Jose Reyes, and 3Bs David Wright and Ryan Zimmerman. The club also plans on keeping three rookies from the following: OFs Andrew McCutchen & Colby Rasmus, 3B Ryan Braun, and C Miguel Montero.