Steve Romer Blog Picture

Steve Romer
Steve Romer is both a sponsor and captain of the Westrock-Refuahs.org softball team and the recipient of the 2008 and 2010 Captain of the Year award. He was also instrumental in driving his team onward to win the 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013 RJSL championship titles. A team captain since 2003, Romer has consistently led his team to the playoffs and continues to be a force to be reckoned with. At 58 years of age, he is certainly one of the "senior" league members and his love for both the game and the RJSL makes his blog one worth reading.

Romer is a real estate entrepreneur as both an investor and for 30 years, the president of  Westrock Appraisal Services, Corp., a commercial real estate appraisal provider. He has earned both an MBA and the prestigious MAI designation. Married for 34 years, Steve has three children, all who are married and grand-children running into the double digits.

Home Runs & Season Perspectives
Thursday, April 30, 2009

Boy, has the RJSL come a long way. It wasn’t that long ago that Sam Wainhaus, I and many of the original core RJSL players would meet every Sunday morning at the Colton Elementary School on Grandview Avenue for a softball game. In those days, anyone hitting a home run over the left field tree line had to personally retrieve the ball sitting in the next door neighbor’s yard. Those were heady days when hitting a Clincher over the fence separated the men from the boys.

Today, the fence at the Eugene Levy Park ball field appears so far away. Every time that I come up to bat I wonder if I can ever put it over the fence. My next door neighbor, Moshe Lehmann, will of course tell me “No way!” Plus, Elchanan Tenembaum has done it. Menachem Landwirt has been gunning for it for years. Aaron Cohen has come close and so has Yonah Rothman, among others. It will certainly be a very proud day if one of us good ole boys actually hits one over. That will permit bragging rights for years to come. Well, here’s to the pursuit of the dream of hitting one over. May the best man win.

So, what’s going on with Merockdim? Have they stolen the wind from the sails of the Samet Team? Just a few weeks ago, everyone was concerned that Samet was unbeatable. Well, as of today, Samet is tied with Sterling for last place and my dear friend Effy is walking tall with three wins. So Effy, can you keep it up? We will certainly see. I get to take a poke at you on Sunday, May 10th. I’m going to try to have my A-team present but that may be tuff seeing that we are playing a 9:15 a.m. game.

Framing, Jada and Westrock are all battling for second place; no surprise there. Framing seems to have some guts, and luck!, having stolen the game from Westrock-Chai at the bottom of the 9th inning, trailing 8-4. I don’t think that I was able to speak to anyone for at least 15 minutes after that loss. To make matters worse, I receive a text message from Avi Katz (who hears of the game while visiting family in Canada) which states: “U couldn’t hold 4 run lead in the bottom of 9th, and 2 Shimon, of all people. U should be ashamed!” Some days, it’s just not worth getting out of bed.

I have high hopes for the Marv’les team. It’s true that we recently defeated them 17-6. However, the ten runs that we scored during the first inning were probably more of a frustrated reaction to our 9th inning loss to the Framers. Take away the anomaly of our scoring 10 runs on an exhausted pitcher (Rabbi Rudman) who just two days earlier pitched a significant 16-1 win against Bubbas and we have the makings of a very competitive game.

I still can’t tell if the Bubbas team is coming or going. At the end of last season they were a force to be reckoned with. However, they’ve lost the first two out of three games so their schizophrenia continues.

But, the season is still young and anything can still happen. If my instincts are correct, this may be the most competitive year in the history of the RJSL. I look forward to doing battle with all of you on the diamond. It happens to be one of the highlights of my week. It’s a great game which I get to play with and against wonderful people. What a life!

Steve Romer