The Maine Indians, with the help of a few talented Albany players, made the 5-hour trek to Capitaland to defend their 45 Division championship in the 19th Eastern Regional CDMSBL Invitational Tournament.
Thanks to the efforts of Team Rake Manager Steve Lounello, the trophy changed sites as Team Rake defeated Maine 8-5 in the title game Sunday at beautiful Kelts field in Waterford. But it was not an easy road to the finals. Lounello put together a team of not only class guys, but guys who approach the game with respect to the way its supposed to be played.
Team Rake went unbeaten in four games to clinch the title, but had to go through a tough and talented Dodgers team in Game 1 as well as Maine in Game 2 of Round Robin play on Saturday before topping the AzNy team on Sunday prior to the title game.
In perhaps the most exciting game of the tournament, Game 1 on Saturday, it appeared Team Rake would be in deep trouble at the outset when the Dodgers scored 4 times in the first inning off Jim Konstantakis. But with Jonny martin warming up in the pen, Jim buckled down and Team Rake would not be denied. JimK gave up just one hit over the next 5 innings before giving way to Jon Martin in the 7th. Mario Arduini aided that cause with a spectacular diving catch of a line drive off the bat of Matt Kelly. With a runner on first and one out in the 5th, Matt Kelly crushed a JimK. offering that appeared headed into right field. But Mario dove to his right to snare it and turned it into an inning-ending DP. Meanwhile, Jon Atwell shut down Team Rake and made that 4-0 lead stand till the 4th inning when Team Rake shortstop and tournament co-MVP Mike Labanowski led off with a double to right-center. After moving to third, Ron Massaroni lifted a fly to right field that plated Labs and Team Rake was on the board.
With Jimmy K still keeping the potent Dodger lineup at bay, Team Rake cut the deficit in half when Andy Hoyle lifted a high fly ball to left-center that dropped just to the left of the scoreboard behind the fence for a home run. Then came the 6th. Phil "Mash'' Gadomski, who hit .500 for the tournament, singled with one out. Catcher Mike Ferraro then singled and both runners moved up on a grounder to the right side. And that brought up Ron Massaroni. Mazz then clutched up and delivered perhaps the biggest hit of the entire series with a sharp single to left-center to tie it. Jon Martin came on in the 7th for Team Rake and promptly shut down the Dodgers' top of the order. Team Rake then took its only lead of the game in the 8th, and did it in explosive fashion.
Mash, who hit .500 in the tournament, lined a one-out single to left-center. Then stepped up Team Rakes version of Mr. Flex. Pete Geanellis, who pitches, plays 1B, 3B, catches, repairs baseball fields, is everyones dear friend, and who sacrifices his time and money, is married to a wonderful woman (Monique), supplied the Team Rake jerseys and hats, and whose heart is the only thing bigger than his whopping .750 batting average for the series, came to the plate. (Get all that!) It was like a version of Mighty Casey at the plate, but with a bit of a different outcome.
After getting ahead on the count 3-0, 3rd-base Coach JimK gave him the green light but only if his eyes lit up. Petey had the wherewithal to lay off a borderline strike (yes, it was a strike) on the inside corner and top of the zone. It appeared that Atwell would not give in. But Jons next pitch missed the mark and Petes eyes lit up. The sound from the crack off the bat told the story as the ball went high and far, travelling as if in slow motion like a C5-A easing through the clear blue sky, and the ball wound up three-quarters up the high trees in left-center field, crackling branches and dropping leaves for a jaw-dropping 2-run homer and Team Rake took its first lead of the game at 6-4.
Smelling victory, Martin then went out and retiring the Dodgers on one hit in the bottom of the 8th to earn the victory and Team Rake took the Game 1 thriller.
Team Rake then took that momentum into Game 2 against Maine. Behind the strong pitching of Mash and Team Rake bats (fitting, right?), Lounello's club went on to an easy 14-2 win. Mash scattered 7 hits. Maine, too, was victimized by 4 straight bloopers that barely eluded Indian infielders during a big 4th-inning rally. On Sunday at Kelts field, Team Rake faced the AzNy team in the 9 a.m. start.
Comprised of players heading to Arizona for the 55+ CDMSBL tournament in October as well as other CDMSBL players and one from Rhode Island, Team Rake took advantage of a few errors and cruised to a 3-0 record.
Team Rake then awaited the winner of the Dodgers-Maine survivor at New Scotland in the noon game. The Dodgers easily won the first meeting between them at 9 a.m., but it was the winner of Game 2 between those teams who would travel to Kelts to play Team Rake for the championship. Maine came back and won 7-3 and it was game-on for the title in a 4 p.m. start.
Maine was the visiting team because of Team Rake's 3-0 record and top seed. The Indians showed no ill-effects of having to play its third game of the day. They hit the ball hard and scored two runs in the top of the first off Team Rake ace Steve Lounello. But Team Rake, highly motivated to return the trophy to the Capital Region, countered with two in the bottom half. Lounello, who hit .643 in the 4 games, doubled to the gap in left-center with two outs. Carlos Llera followed with a sharp line drive to score StevieLou. After Carlos stole second, Petey G. continued to flex and lined a double over the center-fielders head to tie the game at 2.
Steve then got over the first-inning blues and kept Maine in check until Team Rake could take the lead for good in the 5th. "Mash'' and Ferraro led off the 5th with sharply hit singles. Labanoswki then was hit by a pitch to load em up. Tom Maney then did what good leadoff hitters do and hit a grounder sharply to the right side to plate Mash's courtesy runner. Tim Brown followed with an RBI ground ball, but reached on a bang-bang play at 1B. Lounello then whacked a 2-run double and Team Rake took a 5-2 lead.
Team Rake then took an 8-2 lead on yet another Geanellis double to deep center, a single by Joe Burns, another clutch RBI single by Massaroni, followed by RBI singles by Mash and Mike Ferraro. But Maine showed why it was the defending champs. The Indians bunched together a few infield singles and took advantage of three throwing errors to plate three runs and get them within 8-5. But it was again the stellar defense, led by Labanowski at shortstop, that surfaced and ended the game.
With two outs and two on, Labs charged hard on a slow grounder to short and threw off balance a perfect strike to Geanellis at first to end the game. A fitting end to pretty much a perfect tournament for the Giants shortstop.
Labanowski put on a clinic for 4 straight games. I dont have the opponents stats for any of the games, but Labs was lights out at the position for the entire four games. He handled sharply hit balls hit to his left, right and right at him - and had a whole lot of them. He easily had to lead the tournament in chances and assists and handled all of them flawlessly. He left many on the team asking me if he has been like that all year. I said no, hes been like that for many years. (Now Mike, theres something to live up to for the playoffs!!!!)
For Team Rake in the tournament: Burns (Reds) 2B/CF .539; Massaroni (Reds) P/3B/.500; Martin (Reds) P, 1-0; Geanellis (Reds) P/1B/C .750; Lounello (Giants) CF/P/.643, 1-0; Arduini (Giants) 1B/.400; Paul Scutieri (Giants) RF/.333; Llera (Giants) C/LF) .727; Labanowski (Giants) SS/.500; Konstantakis (Giants) P; Ferraro (Marlins) C/.750; Hoyle (Cubs) 3B/.667/1HR; Gadomski (Marlins) .500; Maney (Marlins) LF/.231.
Congrats Team Rake!
Thanks to Bill Kelts and the Town of Waterford for use of their field and hospitality and to Mark Fitch for working closely with us to supply great umpiring crews. And a big thanx to Jim Bonaparte, Don Wixon, John Reel and Tournament Director Tom Smith. They all did youmans work to organize this event and get teams on the fuield.
Great re-cap Jimmy! You have summoned the writing spirit of Mike Girard and Mike Hart combined. Rake was the class of the field no doubt.
Kudos , by the way to our board for a great job on a thankless task.You guys (Tommy Smith, Wixie et all)do everything it takes to allow us to come to the field and just play. You get the headaches, we get to play. Again by the way, thanks to John Cortese, our Dodger leader, in putting together a formidable team, in a very short amount of time. "Oh hell I'll do it" were the words I think that started it, when faced with not having someone to manage this team. Thanks John.
Congrats Team Rake. There were other good games. AZNY actually was competitive in its other two losses. We had the lead on Maine till late in the game and felt pretty good about ourselves and surmised, in what turned out to be correct , that our second game against Cortese's Dodgers would determine whether we went home early or not. I believe they thought the same? It was close all game till the 6th when like the previous AZNY/ Maine game the opponent got a comfortable lead in their last at bats. and finished us off quickly in our 1/2 . Maine's Cowboy Murphy really has that inside outside at the knees approach down; not many mistakes to take advantage of. And then in the Dodger/AZNY game we faced yet another lefty, MD's Glen Murphy, and he kept us at bay till tiring and Darrell's Duncan's shut down in the 6th and 7th. We had some good plays and witnessed others. Mike Eplite pitched 5 strong innings. seems he's re-found an old youthful knack for the mound. good to see Mike come back so well from his health issues and now to find himself pitching and pitching well. Jerry Solomon pitched our second game. His efforts and some timely AZNY defense kept us in striking range. We didn't light up any pitching but did have some clutch hits along the way. By the time we got to Kelts it was over for us . Jim K's brief description of the 4 1/2 inning game ( a 20?-0 shutout) was perhaps the best way to remember it. maybe the high light and indicative of the event was the Jim Ansel's strikeout that ended up as a dead ball and a run scored. and maybe just as illustrative was a series of long ball doubles hit by nearly every RAKE. they could have been triples. or worse...or better, depending of course. And we managed to hit "flex" instead of him hitting us.
The highlights for me was seeing old Maine friends , witnessing this Rake Team up close, and playing in this tounry for the first time in all three games. those and trying out my new evasive running skills. thats got some work yet. its been awhile.
