Jenna Schneider of East Dubuque – Swingin’ for the Fences

To the victor goes the spoils

I’m sure you’ve heard of Ted Williams, but have you heard of Jenna Schneider?  No one has hit for a .400 batting average in the Major Leagues since Ted Williams last did it in 1941.  In the 69 years since that time, George Brett probably came the closest to hitting .400 over the course of a whole season when he averaged .390 back in 1980.  Heck, it seems like the only thing more out of reach in baseball than hitting .400 would be the Cubs getting to or winning the World Series.  (That is unless Ryne Sandberg comes back as a player/manager and then I’d have to say that the World Series would be a sure thing for the Cubbies).

If  achieving a .400 batting average seems extremely improbable, then would would .500 be.  And what does all this have to do with Runde’s?  Well, one of our summer workers, Jenna Schneider, of East Dubuque came back to work for Runde Auto Group for the summer.  She attends Southern Illinois University and she worked for Runde’s in the summer of 2009.  She was a superb worker, so naturally we asked her to come back and work here again during her summer break.  One day, during her first week back, she came in and “boasted” that she had gone 4 for 5 in her first softball game of the summer out in Menominee.  She seemed a bit over-confident and we were certain that she couldn’t produce numbers like that for a whole season, so we bet her that she couldn’t his over .500 for the entire season.   This peaked her interest and she wanted to know what she would get if she won the bet.  It was agreed upon that a DQ ice-cream cake would be the prize and it would be awarded to her on her last day of work if, and only if, she hit over .500 — if she finished the season with 24 hits in 48 at bats, she would be completely out of luck.  Anything less than a .501 average would naturally result in a toll-free call from Jenna to the 1-800-NODQ4ME  crisis hotline.

Anyway, yatta yatta yatta, long story short  …  She hit .560 for the season.  Today was her last day at Runde’s and she graciously shared her cake with her co-workers.  A remarkable achievement.  Job well done.  And we wish her all the best during the upcoming school year.

We’d like to thank Jenna and all of the other workers who came back from college to help us out this summer.  We had a good crew of returning help and all of their hard-work made the days a little easier as business heated up over the summer.   A big Runde Thang-Q goes out to Sweet Swingin’ Jenna Schneider and the rest of the college returnees.  We hope to see everyone back here at Runde Chevrolet again in 2011.