Memorable
Moments
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This is YOUR page. Whether you're a player,
coach, fan or parent, or were formerly one of those, we'd like to receive your stories
about Memorable Moments you've witnessed, or were part of, and publish them here. They
don't have to be high school related. You may go back to Little League if you care to. Or
when your father took you to your first Phillies game, etc.
Send your submissions to silaryt@phillynews.com. One favor, please: Don't
write in all capital letters. And include a phone number in case we need to cross-check
information and/or your identity. This has become a tremendous addition to www.tedsilary.com. Thank you, Ted.
RESPONSES . . .
Mr. Silary, Mr. Silary, You were there for this one, I'm sure, because
Episcopal hadn't won
an Interac since '49 if I am not mistaken, and this was their potential clincher. I
was
the manager for a CHA team that was, for the most part, better than their record. I
think we finished 3-7 in the league and 18-12 overall, if memory serves. But our guys
worked very hard and were very dedicated, with a blue collar work ethic. Led by the
tireless arm of Fantastic Frank Lachat, strong hitting of Pat Toomey, and all-around
heroics of the Great E--Chestnut Hill played with a reckless abandon--a grit to be
admired--all season long, whether up ten runs, or down fifteen. Meanwhile, across the
river, the white collar Episcopal Churchmen were winning games in a pretty
unextraordinary fashion--but whatever, God bless them, they were in first place. It
just
didn't seem like they were having fun. They had six or seven wins with two left to
play
on a Friday in May, and they came to our field in a position to clinch their first
title in 50
years. With them, of course, was a wine and cheese crowd...complete with a cake
celebrating their title, as well as T-Shirts. I'm sure there was a bottle of two of
Cristal
in the trunk of Prescott's Beemer. But I digress. It was clear that they didn't
anticipate
the last place Devils to put up much of a fight, interrupting their coronation. D.J.
Gregory
(who, Ted, you so brilliantly portrayed in the eventual championship article, as a
singer,
dancer and overall troubadour--Thanks for that by the way) had lit the fire in the
seasoned
veteran Lachat, after some choice words following the first game at Merion Station.
Refusing, as Lachat would put it, "to lose again to a Dawson's Creek
reject," the workhorse
responded with the greatest perfomance of his illustrious career, flirting with a
no-no for
a couple innings and blanking the Churchmen through six. EA broke through in the top
of the last, scoring an unearned run off an uncharacteristic Vacca error and--as
their crowd
(which greatly, and understandably, outnumbered ours) celebrated their assumed
victory--
taking the 1-0 advantage going into the bottom of the 7th. But the Devils were not
about to
let those coconuts celebrate on their field, and we fought back. Vacca redeemed
himself with
an RBI single to tie the game up, and Toomey eventually won the game with an bases
loaded
base hit on a 3-2 pitch. The Churchmen were stunned, as a dream stood deferred. For
the
record, the game tape shows Lachat giving the thunderous Vacca a chest bump as he
came
around third and, consequently, Vacca flooring the hurler cause he was coming in full
steam.
A little aftermath. Some team ended up lying down for Episcopal after they had the
weekend
to sulk, and they took home the hardware. Ted's article came out the next Friday,
including a
Gregory quote that said something to the effect of "We should have beaten
Chestnut Hill at their
place," which infuriated the CHA side for like two or three minutes before we
realized that the
kid who said it was that kid with the mullet. It pretty much ummarized the type of
athlete that
comes out of EA, in this baseball pundit's opinion; classless in victory and in
defeat. Great
ame though. I always wondered what was in that cake. Crow?
---- Bryan Graham, Chestnut Hill '00
armenarmen@aol.com
The CL title game in 1983:
To describe what happened on that afternoon would take many pages. To make
a
long story short. Top of the 7th trailing 5-3, 2outs, 0-2 on the batter. O'Hara
scores 7 runs. Egan scores one in the bottom of the inning after loading the
bases with none out. O'Hara 10 Egan 6. Amazing.
---- Bill
(Ted's note: I covered that game. Maybe I'll post the story later this
spring.)
Ted,
My memorable moment happens to be a game you covered. June 1,
1998, PL
semifinals.
That day, we (Frankford) played Central. The year before, Olney
had knocked
us out in the semifinals, 2-1, behind Irv "The Curve"
Carrillo. We were very
confident going into this game, even though Central's pitcher,
Dan Carr had
no-hit us a couple weeks earlier (incidentally, we won despite
getting no
hits, 3-2, in another memorable game) Central jumped to a 2-0
lead in the
1st. We got a run in the 1st, then in the 2nd, Eric Kite (our 9
hitter, who
before that year hadn't played organized baseball in 4 years)
slammed a 2-run
homer to make it 3-2. Ryan McGovern hit a 2-run homer a few
batters later to
make it 5-2, Dennis Boyles doubled off the wall, and I singled
to center to
make it 6-2. Central answered right back with 2 runs in the top
of the 3rd to
make it 6-4 and coach Peffle told me to get loose in the
bullpen. As I headed
out to 3rd base (my only start at 3rd base in my 2 years at
Frankford) for
the 4th, coach Peffle told me to head to the mound to relieve
Phil Wilson.
I pitched a scoreless 4th and 5th and we scored once more
to make it 7-4. In
the 6th, Pete Whittle singled, and Tony Nelson smoked a line
drive over Tim
Neal's head in deep center. Whittle scored easily and Nelson
appeared to have
a triple, except he missed 2nd base. Fortunately, he didn't go
back (I think
he had enough time to do so) and we got the out on appeal, and
the lead
stayed 7-5. In the 7th, Central had a runner on 1st with 2 outs
when Mike
Price hit a sinking line drive to right. Jon Ruth made a
tumbling snow cone
catch looking into the sun for the final out and we were headed
to the finals.
Of course, I had the article on me the next day, and when that
happens, you
always take some heat. In practice the day of the article, I
misjudged a
fairly routine fly ball in right field, and Neal yelled to
Peffle, "He's
famous, he doesn't need to catch those anymore!" The
picture that ran was
great, with me jumping into Boyles's arms. Jim Miller, my best
friend on and
off the field jumped in right after the picture was taken, and
to this day he
is still a little miffed we didn't wait for him to get in. Just
a great
experience.
In the championship, Josh Brinkley turned on a fastball of mine
for a grand
slam in the 5th as Northeast took a 10-3 lead. We showed a lot
of heart in
that game to get it to 10-9, but the dream ended there. Miller
made the last
out in that game and we took the loss very hard, but after a
while we were
able to joke about it. People still talk about it now, and will
for years, at
least those people I know.
---- Jack Redfern, Frankford, Class of '98
(Ted's note: Great job with this, Jack! Thank you!)
Mr. Silary,
The most memorable moment of my life was our
(Frankford) 2000 season. In
the beginning of the year we returned three starters from the
99 team that
was all around solid. We were supposed to be
"rebuilding" and at the
beginning of the year, Jim Connolly and myself were named
captains. Even we
thought at first that we were going nowhere fast. But as the
season went on
we were playing solid baseball and first year starters like
Mike Tritz, Brain
Coulter, Russ Pizzo, Tom Dibello (all four are very talented
soccer players),
Joe Manini (transferred from Northeast), and a freshman in Matt
Colon were
chipping in and learning more then myself and even our coach,
Bob Peffle,
could imagine. We were suddenly getting noticed and teams
started to pay
attention to us. We swept Northeast for the first time in ages.
I remember
the day I knew we would be in the thick of the title hunt. We
were playing
Lincoln at home, and Ron "my sinker is rediculous"
Clarkson was pitching. We
got into an 8-0 hole before we could blink. But we fought back
hard and kept
on pushing, yet lost 8-7. That day i knew we had heart, and
that was the
missing element. We pulled together very well as a team. We
knew we werent
the most talented team in the league. Everyone knows Washington
has the most
talent every year. But we had something our 99 team kind of
lacked,
leadership and heart. The class of 2000 lead the team. We had
set captains
but all the players knew that the seniors were going to lead.
With Coulter we
got maximum effort every day no matter what, Connolly was the
brains, Tritz
was the character who kept us on our toes, Steve Jones who led
by example
(heck he hit over .600 yet no one noticed), and myself, Ed
Durfor as the
pitching work horse. We were all leaders in our own way. When
playoffs came
around we were the 2 seed with Washington, who had given us two
really bad
beatings earlier in the year, ahead of us. We knew we wouldnt
see them until
at least the final, and knew they would be there. But we were
all wrong, we
pounded Mastbaum in the first round and that night, myself and
Jim Connolly
were accepting awards for the Northeast News Gleaner, when we
heard that
Washington got stopped by Saul (aka the biggest upset in PL
history).
Washington franchise and a friend of mine, Harry Ley, told me
of the news and
we as a team pulled even harder. With one less road block to go
through we
knew we had it locked if we stayed in our own game. But it all
almost went
down the drain a few times. The quarters put us up against
Roxborough and in
the first inning Mike Gibbs lit me up like a christmas tree on
a ball that
hasnt landed yet and we were down 2-0. Even I was thinking
snakebit again. We
pulled together and won by ten in five innings. By the way that
Gibbs kid is
huge. We drew Central next. (I always hated playing them
because their fans
used to get in my head, especially the guy with the blowhorn)
We were up 9-4
in the seventh in blazing heat when the wheels started to fall
off. I was
throwing meatballs by then and they were whacking me around.
But fortunately,
like it did all year, our defense came up bigtime. The game was
over and we
had won and i still thought there were two outs. Ian Cohen flew
to center and
i was screaming "yes" because of the second out. I
turned my head and the
game was over. Coulter had picked off Brian Shuster to end it
all. It was
over, I passed out into Steve Jones arms and we went home. We
found GAMP to
be our next opponent. Some people were saying "who is
GAMP?," but I knew all
too well that this was going to be a street fight and it was
gonna get
bloody. I remember getting sick in school that day because of
the nervousness
i was feeling. The baseball players were like zombies that day.
No one
talked, we all knew what was on eachtothers minds. They played
us tough all
year. We fought to a 5-3 win and the class of 2000 had given
their school
something that wasnt there since 1982, a baseball championship.
I still
remember the feeling of not wanting to let that trophy go and
us still going
crazy and hour after the game. We all taped the game on CN8 and
I still watch
it sometimes to remember the "glory days." Our season
got even better when
the school held an awards banquet for us and the girls soccer
team for
winning the title. And as for me, i couldnt have asked for a
better end to my
year and my high school days. You and the Inquirer both made me
their player
of the year, even though i knew i wasnt the most talented. My
teammates got
me that award. Coach Peffle said that i carried the team. I
might have
carried them through the season, but they carried me through
the playoffs. I
walked into Frankfords gym a few months ago with Jimmy
Connolly, Steve Jones
and Brian Coulter a few months back. It was like a dream. We
looked up in awe
as we saw something we would never forget, a championship
banner. We still
always talk about that day, the entire season, the fun we had
and the feeling
of 15 some odd guys doing something none of us will ever, nor
want to forget.
---- Ed Durfor, Frankford High School class of 2000
(Ted's note: They give a pretty good education at Frankford, don't they?
Jack Redfern's moment right above this one was great, and this one is, too.
Thanks for taking so much time to put your thoughts "down on paper," Ed. It
really is true, as you WELL know -- guys on championship teams walk together
forever.)