Leading off

Basking in the afterglow

June

As we’re eating dinner in Binghamton on Saturday night, Josh and Alex and I start filling each other in on our respective games. Each of us has a story to tell—stories about clutch hits and pitchers coming back on short rest and ultimately, victory celebrations. It occured to me how unusual that was, to have three reporters talking about three different victory marches. Just sending three reporters upstate was rare enough. But to have all of us come away with state championship stories—well, that’s so rare it’s never happened before.

I thought it was cool when I could say I saw the first Class B champion ever from Section 1. Then I find out the section has never owned three title winners before. Top to bottom I don’t know if this is the best year Section 1 baseball has ever had. But at the top it obviously is. And it all started with Somers, a defending sectional champ making it back to states, losing in the first round. I took that as a bad sign for the section (except for Mamaroneck, which seemed invulnerable).

These state title runs weren’t flukes either. Mamaroneck was elite all year. That lineup was probably the best New York State has seen in a few years. Kennedy was also a top 10 team all year. Coming from Class B that’s saying something. It got one late sac fly from Luiz Gonzalez in regionals and one comeback from 3-0 down in the championship, but otherwise handled the competition. Keio, the least expected of all because of a losing record entering the playoffs, used one miracle seventh-inning rally against Millbrook in regionals but otherwise consistently outpitched and outgloved opponents.

Some of you may remember early in the season I mentioned how Josh and I have a rivalry with local sports editor Joe Lombardi over which sport is better in Section 1, baseball or lacrosse. Now that the season’s over, let’s take a quick tally of the results:

Baseball—3 championship appearances. Lacrosse—0 championship appearances. Baseball—3 state titles. Lacrosse—0 state titles.

Now I’m no mathemagician, but the numbers suggest baseball has a slight advantage. Methinks this debate is over.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 16th, 2008 at 2:39 pm by Jake Thomases.
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2 Responses to “Basking in the afterglow”

curve ball June 16th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Congratulations to Mamaroneck, Kennedy and Keio….

Here is the list of section 1 baseball champions:

1981 – Croton (Class B)
1986 – Ardsley (Class C)
1987 – Arlington (Class A)
1987 – Ardsley (Class C)
1988 – Ardsley (Class C)
1989 – Ardsley (Class C)
1992 – North Rockland (Class A)
1993 – North Rockland (Class A)
1994 – North Rockland (Class A)
1998 – Briarcliff (Class D)
2002 – Clarkstown North (Class A)
2002 – Tuckahoe (Class D)
2005 – Ketcham (Class AA)
2006 – Our Lady of Lourdes (Class A)
2008 – Mamaroneck (Class AA)
2008 – Kennedy (Class B)
2008 – Keio (Class C)

Let's get some more next season
Josh Thomson June 16th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
I'm with Jake 100 percent, although I'm not even sure it was a race. This one was like a state senatorial race in the backwater of Louisiana, where the incumbent runs unopposed.

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