Black has a 1/2 game lead over White and will finish 1st or 2nd. White could finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Crimson will finish 2nd or 3rd. Navy Blue and Red will finish 4th or 5th. Navy Blue owns a tie breaker against Red. Light Blue will finish 6th or 7th, owning a tie break against Grey. Purple will finish 6th, 7th, or 8th with Grey finishing 7th or 8th. Royal Blue is the only team to have clinched a finishing spot, and not the one they wanted. Due to an unequal number of games played, final standings will be by percentage.

On Saturday January 21, 2023, John Spadea was presented with a plaque commemorating his many years of supporting San Diego Senior Softball (aka the Dana League) as a player, manager, umpire, and officer. Later in the day, John was feeling so happy that he came out to umpire one of the games, as usual making a correct call on a confusing play at second base.

Effective for 2023, Fred Kaiser has stepped up to take the reins as league President. After serving seven years as President, Dave Hunt moves over to take the position of Director of Operations. Cameron (Cam) Williams has assumed the role of league Commissioner, and heads the Rules Committee which also includes Steve Cusato and Mike Cannon. The three officers are committed to keeping Dana as the premier senior softball league in San Diego. Please feel free to approach any of them with suggestions, comments, and questions.

Most every year our league makes a donation to Ocean Beach Recreation Center, the facility that issues our field permits and helps Norm take care of our field. This year we donated some machines that make bubble snow for children’s holiday parties organized by OBREC. The OBREC manager, Cynthia Comacho, said, “Our event went real well last Friday. We had well over 200 kids enjoying the snow we had blown in and the bubble snow from the machines you donated. We even lent the machines to Cabrillo Rec Center so they had the bubble snow for their event. Thanks for this great donation, it’s something we will get a lot of use out of.”

The Summer 2022 season was competitive from start to finish. After five weeks, Black was in first, defeating Navy Blue to pull out in front. A few weeks later the tables had turned as Navy Blue pulled ahead and Black began to fade. After slow starts, White and Purple surged to the top, trading off on who would hold first place. Going into the final week of the season, these two teams would square off for the championship, with White ahead by 1/2 game. As luck would have it, White’s two top players were missing while Purple had four absent players and were able to replace them. The game saw strong pitching from both sides, and a low scoring game ensued. White never managed to catch up and Purple prevailed in a nine inning game by a score of 16-11. In the subsequent game between the 3rd and 4th place teams, Light Blue held on to topple Navy Blue, claiming a 3rd place finish. The remaining two games settled the 5th through 8th spots. Coincidentally, the same teams (Crimson vs Black & Grey vs Red) would face each other again in the first round of playoffs.

In week 1 of the playoffs Light Blue defeated Crimson and will play White at 8:30am this Saturday. Grey won both of their games and faces off against Purple at 10am.

In week 2, Light Blue got ahead early but White tied the game in the 8th. In the open inning Light Blue scored four runs and While could only manage two. Final score 19-17. In the second semi-final game, Grey held onto an early lead while Purple struggled to score runs. After seven innings, Grey led by six. After Grey failed to score in the top of the 8th, Purple finally caught fire and closed the gap to two runs. Grey again went scoreless in the 9th, their final out coming with the bases loaded and the top of their batting order due up next. The middle and bottom of Haze’s batting order pulled it out, scoring three with only one out. Final score 13-12.

In the Championship playoff game, Purple’s bats continued to produce and it was too much for Light Blue. Down 19-10 in the final inning, Lighting scored only three runs as Purple Haze pulled off the uncommon dual championship for both the regular season and playoffs.