2008 PVOTB Season in Review

2008, what a season it was. A season of big changes happened this year. Gone was the “ting” of aluminum bats, and in its place was the solid crack of wood bats echoing through the Pioneer valley. Gone were the MLB uniforms to be replaced by the unique styles of each team. Each team had their own way of renaming themselves and coming up with their uniform design.
The former Twins had a long list of possible names, and they whittled it down and settled on Michael Jordan’s old team “The Barons.”
The old Astros were originally going to be called “The Running Rebels” until they realized they didn’t steal many bases, so they shortened it to “Rebels.”
The White Sox were mulling calling themselves, of all things, “Led Zeppelin.” Thankfully Bullet talked some sense into them and they settled on the much better name of “Valley Cats.”

Last year’s champion Cubs name change was a no brainer as they slapped a lightening bolt on their sleeves and quickly dubbed themselves “The New York Knights” after the fictional team Roy Hobbs played for in the great movie “The Natural.”
I’m not quite sure how the Mets became “The Mustangs”, because tires screeching, Nails peeled away in his Mustang before I got answer…
And lastly with Ken Hartwright and Kyle Phelps taking over the Mariners and calling themselves “The Dirt Dogs” they made baseball fun again for the team in blue & green as they parlayed that into the best regular season record.

Part of the fun as the season began was playing each team for the first time and being able to see what their
new uniforms looked like. From the names on the backs of the Mustangs to the bull dog on the cap of the
Dirt Dogs, all of the uniforms looked great with the Rebels and Valley Cats taking top honors.

The season sailed along smoothly with nary a bump in the road. Well unless you want to mention the weather…
The All Star game was once again a success as a new Man VS. Beast format was adopted, when the Men
beating the Beasts in a well played contest. There was a huge turnout of family and players there to cheer and
have a few beers. One new experiment of trying to incorporate the Vermont league into a few inter-league games
fell by the wayside due to untimely rain, and four dollar a gallon gas.