Tolkien Baseball handed out its July monthly awards on August 1. Here are the winners.
Shire Conference Player of the Month went to Eglantine Marblerage of the Mirkwood Sylvan. The 24-year-old right fielder is having a season the Sylvan desperately needed from her. Mirkwood sits at 44-67, last in the Elf Division. Marblerage is not the reason they are there. Her July numbers are not in the official release, but the week-of-July-28 line alone — 11 hits in 22 at-bats — makes the case without assistance. She fields her position. The Sylvan's problems are elsewhere.
Mordor Conference Player of the Month is Rumzug Steale of the Numenor Kings. The 21-year-old right fielder plays without decoration, which is the correct way to play. The Kings sit at 63-48, tied for first in the Goblin Division with Lothlorien. Steale's most recent week: .391 average, 3 home runs, 11 RBI, 5 runs scored. He is batting .240-something on the season per the wire, a number worth treating cautiously without a full line in front of me. The Kings lost Fomige Rubyeye for the year, as MESN noted last week. Steale is picking up the slack. He is not embarrassing himself.
Pitcher of the Month awards were not included in the official August 1 release as circulated. That is a statement about the release, not the pitchers.
The milestone board deserves acknowledgment alongside the hardware. Till Underhill of the Isengard Raiders crossed 3,000 strikeouts this season. Gildor *Inglorion of the Rivendell Royals passed 2,500. Por the Crusher, also Rivendell, crossed 2,000. Those three numbers represent the kind of sustained excellence that monthly awards do not fully capture. Underhill in particular is four wins from third all-time in the Tolkien ledger and continues to pitch. That is a separate article. This is the awards piece.
One fielding note before closing, because nobody else will make it: Marblerage's defensive positioning in right has been the best on the Sylvan roster through July, per observation and not per any statistic I am prepared to cite without verification. The Sylvan are losing games. She is not losing them in the outfield.
The August awards will be announced September 1. The pennant races will look different by then. In the Dwarf Division, Rivendell, Minas Ithil, and Erebor are separated by one game. Someone will make a move. Someone will falter. The hardware will reflect it.