Hey! Bayonne’s in Williamsport!
By Bob Gaydos
My glove from 1952.
Having been a sports editor in my career (two years with The Delphian at Adelphi College and a couple of years with The Sun-Bulletin in Binghamton), it was common practice for me to start the day with the back pages of the newspaper — the sports pages — especially when I was feeling pressured by the other news of the day.
Like today.
Today, many of those newspaper pages have disappeared, replaced by a hodgepodge of news sources on social media. You have to be careful whom you believe, what’s true and what’s not.
Well, yesterday on Facebook I came across a sports story that made my day. For the first time ever, which is to say the 75 years it has existed, the Bayonne Little League all-star team is going to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa.
Damn!
That’s big!
If you haven’t guessed, I’m a Bayonne native. I played as an 11-year-old in what I believe was the second year of the league’s existence. Center field. We actually won the city championship thanks in large part to a talented 12-year-old, Luke Tansey.
As an adult, I got to coach two sons’ Little League teams in Wallkill, N.Y. in the next century. Even got to make sure my youngest, Zack, got the number of his favorite player: 2. Right, Derek Jeter.
The point I’m taking my time getting to is that, among American institutions, Little League has lasted and managed to stay pretty much the same for a long time. I think that’s because, whatever’s going on in the world, it brings a community together. In Bayonne or Wallkill or wherever.
The response I’ve seen on social media about the Bayonne team is proof of that. The whole city seems to be buoyed and lifted by the accomplishments of their young athletes. Busloads made the trip to Williamsport, just as I’m sure busloads did the same for other teams.
But this is Bayonne, where I once broke up a no-hitter with a triple down the right field line in the new First Street stadium in the shadow of the Bayonne Bridge and made a lucky, home run-robbing catch against the fence in the 11th Street ballpark that actually snared a headline in the next day’s Bayonne Times.
Little League is a collection of moments for everyone who plays or coaches or has a child playing. It is community at its best, at its basic level, whatever else may be going on.
In many ways, Bayonne has already won. The players, coaches, parents, everyone involved in the league, the whole city has been given a healthy dose of hope and pride in accomplishment. You can never have too much of that.
Bayonne is in the Little League World Series! That’s legitimate front page news in the peninsula city. But what the heck, as long as you’re in Williamsport, why not win the whole darn thing? What a 75th birthday present!
Go, Bayonne!
Tags: 1952, Adelphi, Bayonne, Bayonne Bridge, Bayonne Times, Binghamton, Bob Gaydos, community, Little League, Newspapers, social media, sports pages, Sun-Bulletin, Wallkill, Williamsport
