Falcons Forum

The Falcons ran back the same roster as in 2024, and the cohesiveness paid dividends. The Falcons won 24 games this year, one more than in 2024, which was one more than in 2023, which was one more than in 2022. At this rate, the Falcons will go 38-0 in 2039, so don't change that channel!

The fourth place overall finish earned the team a Friday night bye for the WMSPL Playoff tournament, but also earned us a 9:00 am start on Saturday. The good news though: unlike in recent playoffs, the Falcons will have a big, long healthy bench. Fourteen Falcons are ready to go, looking a lot like a Hanet dugout come playoff time.

Unlike in 2024, we didn't win six in a row, opening Bill's cooler for free post-game refreshment. The longest winning streak was five, and we only did it once. A 15-3 record versus the VP division showed machine-like efficiency to take care of weekday night business, but going 9-11 doesn't bode well for the playoffs. Every team will have to beat the best if they want to win this tournament. We did beat every team in the league at least once this year, though, so we'll just need a little bit of history to repeat itself. The Falcons also had the #3 defence in the league this year, allowing less than a run per game more than the league leading Triple Play. Ask anyone, defence wins championships.

Thanks to honourary Falcon Glorious Dan, the 16 times we had 6+ signouts for a game didn't hurt as much as in previous seasons. But 16 games where we had to put out the call was twice as often as in 2024. Beyond attendance woes, there wasn't a ton of lows for this team this year. Really mid. Kinda meh. We didn't allow 30 runs in a game at all this year, but we also didn't score 30 runs in a game ever either. It's the first time we didn't see a thirty-burger on the scoreboard for a full season since 2017.

We didn't even set any team records this season! Nothing we even remotely keep track of came anywhere close. No one had more RBIs than hits. No one was close to 99 RBI. No free beer. No two homers in an inning. No two triples in an inning. Did anyone even hit two doubles in an inning? Did we ever bat around in an inning? Was this season exciting in any way at all? If this is truly and absolutely Barry's last year in the league, we sure as shit didn't send him off with a bang... yet.

AWARDS SECTION

Here are your Falcons Regular Season statistical leaders:

ATTENDANCE AWARD: No perfect attendance this year. Bill came closest, only missing two games. But still, here in the year 2025, Bill missing two games still causes chaos about the team's most important detail: who will bring the beer? Thankfully, Shohei was ready, and having only missed 5 games this year, takes over for Guy Most Likely To Become New Beer Guy.

Only three Falcons missed more than half our scheduled games.

RUNS SCORED: Cowboy, perennial winner of this award, regressed a bit and only scored 79 runs from the leadoff position.

1B: Probably the most pleasant surprise of the season was Dr J's progress offensively. Jerome led the team with 71 singles this year, a full TEN more than second best.

2B: Cowboy re-takes his doubles crown for the first time since 2019, hitting 25.

3B: From his start on the Falcons in 2005 to 2021, Dunner had never hit more than 4 triples in a season. Nine in 2022, eight in 2023 and now a team leading 12 in 2025 has brought his career total into a second place tie with SLF, only 16 behind all-time leader Cowboy.

HR: Beatty led the team again with 12, the fewest to lead the team in a non-COVID year since Colin hit 12 in 2018.

BB: A tie! And Barry isn't even one of them! Cowboy and Shohei had the keenest eyes this year with 8 free passes each.

TOTAL BASES: This one was close, but it's Cowboy at 150 over Dunner at 142.

BATTING AVERAGE: MLB demands 3.1 PA per team game played to qualify for the batting title. Since we only play 7 innings instead of 9, the number is 2.41 PA (3.1 x 7/9) per game. That makes the threshold 92 PA (2.41 x 38) over the course of the season the minimum. I'm writing this here for my own memory as much as anyone else's curiosity because that number seems to have bounced around A LOT over the years.

That being said: Only four Falcons failed to qualify, and Grahambo squeaked over the line JUST BARELY with 93 PA, to make his .708 BA count to lead the team.

ON BASE PERCENTAGE: Dunner didn't need any mathematical shenanigans to get over the qualifying hump here. His .701 OBP led the team.

SLUGGING PERCENTAGE: Dunner only hit 3 homers this season, but his 12 triples pushed him to the top at 1.154, only 13 points higher than Beatty.

ON BASE + SLUGGING (OPS): Dunner again, leading at 1.855

RUNS BATTED IN: Dunn-Dunn-Dunnnnnn..... Dunner also cashed 62 ducks while getting all over the bases this year.

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THE PLAYOFFS

No one is going to argue that the WMSPL is a parity league. The league saw four teams with winning percentages under .400, and four teams over .600.

But.

The league hasn't seen a playoff repeat since the 2016-17 Storm teams, and before that it was 2005-08 Greenthumb. Every year, every team can begin the year with a reasonable shot at a photo at home plate with the trophy in September. Does defence actually win championships? Not in this league. The league leader in runs against has only won the playoffs 3 times since 2010. Is it regular season might? Not really, and it's Storm when that happens, three times since 2016 (by the way, congrats to The Crew for being the first non-Storm, non-A's winner of the President's Division since 2014).

So it's probably luck, or fate, or player attendance (since a mid-September wedding can throw your whole tournament away). We didn't run a mid-season tournament this year so we have nothing to go by there. It might even be youth? Nah, the youngest team almost never wins what could be a war of attrition.

So it might just be vibes. The team with the best vibes going in will be the team with the best vibes going out.

The Falcons haven't been at home on Sunday since 2010.

FALCONS' MOST VALUABLE PLAYER

Dunner continued proving that age is just a number, leading in a bunch of categories listed above.

FALCONS' MOST SPORTSMANLIKE PLAYER

With one Falcon exercising his right not to vote, Billy wins in the slimmest of margins here. It's the least the team can do for the guy who easily works the hardest for the team!

Congratulations to both our award winners, and good luck at the banquet!