For one weekend, I was "Perfect-Score Guy"

It was the late summer/early fall of 2003 and ESPN was conducting a contest to see who would be the next "SportsCenter" anchor. It was part of the promotion called "ESPN Dream Job."

I happened to look at the schedule and there it was: St. Pete Times Forum, Saturday, October 4, 2003.

Now what the heck did I know about being a broadcaster, reporting the news to millions of people who were watching it?

Abso-freakin'-lutely nothing! I had plenty of work on the radio over the years in Toms River, N.J. and in Key West. I did the occasional sports show on Clear Cable 8 in the 1990s with my good friend Art Criss hosting. It took a lot of paying attention to what the host or commentator said and me not answering, "What? What did you say?"

Other than flapping my gums to make it sound like I was talking coherently, I just danced the on-the-air stiletto dance. In other words, I had plenty of knowledge, just not enough to think I was anything great in broadcasting.

Good, I thought, but not great.

Still, it couldn't hurt to find out if I had what it takes to play the role of a broadcaster. The arena was 2 1/2 hours away and I was willing to start heading down to Tampa at 2:50 in the morning with no sleep at all and done with the Palatka Daily News after another round of Friday night football.

I didn't know how long I was going to last, but I planned to be done with this and meet an online friend named Michele afterward. She lived in St. Petersburg. At least I had that to look forward to.

I drove throughout those early Saturday morning hours and then arrived at the arena by 5:50 a.m. There were a few people in front of me, but I was in a very good position to be part of the first group to go in and interview/test. It was mostly a lot of talking about our "dream job" and how it was going to go and there were mostly young men, at least 10-15 years younger than me, and there were a few ladies in the line.

We started talking about how this was all going to go down ... figured it would be "write your own script with something that happened" or "see how well you speak in front of a camera." Honestly, I"m not sure what any of this was going to be like. So you know everyone had to be on guard here.

At 7:10 a.m., the first 30 of us were allowed in as the line behind me began to grow with lots of candidates to be the dude or lady working next to Dan Patrick or Stuart Scott or Linda Cohn. In other words, there were a lot of wannabe dreamers behind us.

The 30 of us or maybe more than 30 of us were brought into the arena and we had to walk down a hallway until we got to a place that looked like a large college classroom. We were about to find out what the first part of the test to be a "SportsCenter" anchor was going to be about.

They put a test in front of us and those running this little event wanted to find out how much we knew about sports.

Unless everyone there was an absolute sports nut, I knew I was going to the second round. Now, I can't remember every question that was asked on these four sheets of paper, but I do know a couple: Who was the American League Cy Young Award winner in 2002? (Barry Zito) and what were the two leagues that made up Triple-A baseball (International and Pacific Coast leagues).

I knew I did well. When the tests were taken from us, I felt confident I had made the second round. I was uncertain of a couple of these questions (and they were all from a variety of sports), but I felt like I was going to move on.

A half-hour passed by and we were still in our seats. Then one of the young ladies running the entire day bellowed out the first names of those who were moving on.

I heard my name. So we were moving on to another room after the names of 10 of us were revealed aloud. As I put my blue dress jacket back on, I head out the door and the young lady who had told us who was advancing approached me.

"I just want to let you know that you got all the questions right and you're the first person we've tested in all our stops who got all 30 correct."

I was absolutely, freakin' dumbfounded. I smiled, but it felt awkward. All these stops ESPN's tour made and I'm the first person to nail all 30 of these questions? Wow! 

But though I may have aced the test, the next part was going to throw me off. The 10 of us were put into another room not very far away from the testing area. This time, we were standing around a table, all 10 of us, and we had another representative, though to be honest, this guy was so far away from where I was that I had no clue whatsoever what we were about to do next ... and sure as shit, guess who got to be the starting guinea pig for this?

Yup ... me! And I had no freakin' clue what this hopped-up-on-Red Bull bunny was saying. He just points to me and I go, "What? What am I doing?" He told me to emulate by play by play my most favorite sports moment of all time.

At that moment, I couldn't come up with anything other than a luke-warm "And it's going back ... way back ... it's gone." I still believe to this day that if I didn't go first, I would have done much better. But I had no idea of what I was going to emulate. This is what happens when you have several great moments in your head, but your mouth doesn't record what your brain might be thinking.

After I went, the others were nailing their favorite calls of all-time in the way they interpreted it. Then I, along with the rest of the group, was asked who the nost overrated athlete was at that time.

Thankfully I wasn't going first here. I had time to think about it. When it came to me, I knew what I was going to say.

"Chipper Jones. Because for all the greatness he delivers every year, how many World Series titles does he have? One. That's all ... one."

I redeemed myself a little better here, but that play-by-play bit hurt. And I knew it did. I just wasn't good at that time at improvisation, making shit up as I went along.

I never said I was a great dancer. By the time this was done, it was 8:45. And because I was among the first people tested, I had to wait hours upon hours upon hours to see if I made it into the next part of the testing.

By that time, it was almost 2 p.m. I had been at this arena for eight-plus hours. I was asked by one of the young ladies there to write a short "SportsCenter" spot that I would read in front of a camera, whenever that time was going to be.

Thankfully, the bar inside the St. Pete Times Forum was open. And that meant the TVs were on. And I had my eyes affixed to what was on that day: Major League Baseball playoff games. One TV had Game 4 of the series between the San Francisco Giants and Florida Marlins in Miami, another had Game 3 of the series between the New York Yankees and Minnesota Twins at the Metrodome.

I knew this was going to take awhile, so like a good "SportsCenter" anchor did, I took notes of the games that were going on. Remember: In the world of sports anchoring, you only have so much time to do a highlight, usually about a minute. So that's what I did: Try to melt all the individual moments into the biggest highlights of the day.

If you remember Game 4 of the Marlins-Giants series, you remember how it ended. A base hit to left field by Jeffrey Hammonds. J.T. Snow is heading to home plate to tie the game up, but Mr. Marlin, Jeff Conine, gets the ball on a hop and fires a strike to catcher Pudge Rodriguez, who is bowled over by Snow, but keeps possession of the ball for the third out and the Marlins winning the game 7-6 and advancing to the National League Championship Series.

The Yankees-Twins game wasn't going to have too many highlights. The biggest of those highlights was the two-run home run by Hideki Matsui off starter Kyle Lohse that gave the Bronx Bombers a 2-0 lead. There was also the RBI single by Bernie Williams that scored Juan Rivera in the third inning to make it 3-0. And other than an A.J. Pierzynski home run in the third, Yankees starter Roger Clemens was on top of his game, allowing five hits over seven innings with one walk and six strikeouts. Mariano Rivera came in for the final two innings and held the Twins hitless, striking out three.

It was a long wait by now -- it was almost 6 p.m. and finally, I was brought into the room to do a "SportsCenter" type reading. By now, I don't think the two women who were in the room with me wanted to hear me talk, but I told them, "You said have something ready. Well I do! Let's go!"

So I basically read the copy since they ddin't exactly put a teleprompter in front of me. I read my script fluently -- proved I knew the English language well -- and gave a dramatic reading of the Giants-Marlins game: "Now there J.T. Snow on second as the winning run. Jeffrey Hammonds singles off Uggie Urbina to left field. Snow is sent home, but Jeff Conine delivers a perfect one-hop throw to Pudge Rodriguez, who gets mauled at the plate by Snow, but holds on to the ball ... then shows it off to everyone with eyes on him! That's the ball game! That's the season for the Giants as the Marlins hold on for the 7-6 victory and advance to the National League Championship Series!"

It was obvious the two women were so busy with what they were doing they had no idea what was happening in the outside world. I can still hear one of them saying, "Wow." Then I read them the much-shorter version of my Yankees-Twins report. 

One of the women told me it was fine, but they would let me know if I moved on to the next round, which I think was in Atlanta or somewhere close to there. They thanked me for my time and I was finally out the door by 6:30 that evening. Over 12 hours later, I was back in the car and headed to St. Petersburg to meet Michele at her place. I picked her up and we went to a fairly nice restaurant. We ended up spending the night together in a hotel in Pinellas Park and we left the next morning.

But after I dropped her off, I got a copy of the St. Pete Times. The headline on Page 5C blurted out "ESPN offers shot at a 'Dream Job.' I read the story and how all these wannabes wanted to be the next anchor. Some had no idea about sports, others thought they had the personality to move on.

Imagine my surprise, however, when seven paragraphs into the story, I'm reading, "And ESPN, which gives a 30-question written trivia test as Step 1 in the process, was treated to the first perfect score."

Then came the eighth paragraph: "But it took more than sports knowledge. Only a perfect score kept perfect-score guy in the game, though producers admitted he probably wouldn't make it much farther, as he lacked those other qualities they desired."

You know ... like a personality!! Mine, apparently, was too, ummm ... shitty ... for them. Either way, I got to read my own obituary of this contest in a newspaper and I hadn't died. ESPN producers were sinply just confirming my thoughts ... even though I felt I was better than how they rated me.

Needless to say I got a post card from these fine people who told me I did not make it to the next round, but told me my knowledge of sports was so overwhelming, I could have succeeded as a contestant on their game show "2-Minute Drill." Found that fascinating.

The reality show moved on without me (waah-waah) and in the end, a guy named Mike Hall wound up winning it all. Good for him. I'm almost certain he was much, much better than me.

But that's not the end of the story. It was over a year later -- December 26, 2004 -- and I'm sitting in the meal room below the press box at Alltell Stadium in Jacksonville as I'm getting ready to cover the Jaguars game with the Houston Texans. I looked up where I was sitting alone at ... and there was the stunning story of the death of NFL legendary defensive star Reggie White, dead at the age of 43.

I was shocked, practically saddened. Moments later, a female voice came over me from behind.

"Hey! Perfect -score guy!"

She was clearly close enough for me to know I was who she was talking to. I turned around and it was her -- the young lady who told me that I scored 30 for 30 on the sports knowledge test. She just wanted to say hi because she was working with an ESPN crew that was on location for this particular game.

I smiled. I don't know why I did, but I did. 

Actually, I knew why I did. I may not have been perfect for what ESPN was looking for nearly 15 months earlier. But for one weekend -- thanks to the St. Pete Times -- I was "Perfect-Score Guy."

That was perfect enough for me.

A Trilogy: If only I were allowed a punch to someone's face

There have been plenty of frustrating moments over the nearly 40 years I've been a writer/editor/layout guy in my business.

But none of those were quite like Monday, September 24, 2018. Never in all my years in this business did I want to start a fist fight with someone I worked with more than I did that particular day. I'll get to that point later ... and trust me when I say this: I am not going to pull any punches here.

All this started on Friday, September 14, 2018. We were transitioning into a new editor who was two weeks into running the Palatka Daily News. Honestly, I didn't know what to think of this guy. He had a lot of bravado to him, but I've seen my share of new leadership and bravado.

It never works out in the end. Ego being too big, wears down on co-workers and someone wants to have a fist fight with this person, but never does because that person is eliminated or moves on rather quickly.

Anyway, let's get to this three-part story.

Part I

On this Friday night, I was to go to Wildwood High School, some 86 miles away from Palatka, to cover a football game between Crescent City and Wildwood. The two teams had met for years but this was the first meeting between the two teams since the fateful and unpopular decision by Wildwood High to not make up a football game at Crescent City the year before when Hurricane Irma rambled through Florida and one athletic director told the other "it wasn't going to make a big difference in the end."

Bullcrap! It very much did. When the seeds were announced for the 2017 FHSAA state tournament, Crescent City was on the outside looking in. The Raiders' coach, the legendary Clarence "Pooh Bear" Williams, was deeply upset, but he kept a strong, positive demeanor throughout. And as a "consolation" gift, the team was awarded co-championship with Wildwood in the short-lived North Central Florida Football Conference.

So this game at Wildwood was very much circled on Crescent City's calendar and there was no way in hell Wildwood was going to wriggle out of this one in case of hurricanes, tornadoes or other natural disasters. Not this time!

Still, Pooh Bear, the assistants and players, made it clear that "last year was last year and this was a new year" as they were playing yet another game in the NCFFC.

The Wildcats, though, weren't pushovers and they let the Raiders know that when quarterback Nate Mikell dashed 32 yards for a touchdown to make it 7-0. The Raiders, though, responded when quarterback Naykee Scott hit Dustin Carmichael for a 6-yard score to tie it at 7-all going into the second quarter.

The only score in the second quarter was a 3-yard strike by Mikell to Marcus Niblack, who also booted the extra point to give the Wildcats a 14-7 lead.

I will say this before we talk about the second half: Wildwood's press box people were some of the nicest individuals I ever came across. There was no hatred, no bias, nothing toward Crescent City at all. They knew this was a bitter rivalry, but they stayed above the fray throughout.

But I also noticed that things were beginning to slow down in this one. And it became apparent something happened to Mikell and by the third quarter, Wildwood had a new quarterback in Alfred Corbin, who was in because Mikell reportedly suffered a groin injury.

It was Corbin's game the rest of the way. But he struggled to move the Wildcats, and the Raiders pounced in the third quarter. Scott capped a four-play, 56-yard drive the first time Crescent City touched the ball with a 1-yard plunge to tie it at 14-all after Christian Lopez's extra-point kick. Then on the kickoff, Rodney Mitchell struggled to get a grip on the ball and fumbled it right into the waiting arms of Jeremiah Roofe, who scooped it up and went 11 yards for the score to make it 21-14 in the Raiders' favor.

The Wildcats responded after the score by going 75 yards on the next drive, capping it with a 4-yard Mitchell run on the first play of the fourth quarter to make it 21-20, but the Raiders blocked the extra-point kick, so they had the one-point lead. Wildwood's defense stopped the Raiders, forcing them into a punt.

I can still see the ball go off Lopez's leg in a wrong-way manner and going out of bounds. It was 12 yards and the Wildcats had first and 10 on the Raiders' 39. Then at the 32, Corbin threw a jump-ball pass that Nyzer Lucas came up with for the touchdown to make it 26-21. Corbin and Wildwood went for the 2-point conversion, but his pass was not on the mark and the Raiders could win the game with a touchdown.

There was 6:50 left. Plenty of time for the Raiders to do something.

Actually, the Raiders didn't need much time. They needed 100 seconds.

Crescent City went six plays to go 81 yards in that time frame. Scott hit receiver Tyler Unruh for 19 and 37 yards, while running back Kevin Williams had runs of 23 and 5 yards. It was Williams, who had 88 yards rushing on the night, who finished the drive with a bulldozing 6-yard run up the middle, giving the Raiders the lead as Lopez added the extra-point kick.

The Raiders weren't thinking about the previous year, but they wanted the win badly and needed to stop the Wildcats at least a couple of more times. The first drive ended somewhat quickly as Williams picked off Corbin. The Raiders had to punt the ball away and with 1:51 to go, the Wildcats had one more opportunity.

They got into Raiders territory, but Corbin was picked off by Bernard Wright at the Raider 25 with 50 seconds left that sealed the 28-26 victory, one of the better games I've ever covered.

Both teams had wonderful handshakes at midfield afterward and I had the chance to talk to an exuberent Pooh Bear, who told me, "I was interested to see how we responded to falling behind. My coaches had a vision of what we were to expect (from Wildwood) and our guys got back up and played well."

He smiled that Pooh Bear smile I recognized to his sad passing on February 17, 2022, and wished him well in the next game the following week against Interlachen.

From here, my job was to get something small to eat, jump on I-75 and head north to Ocala to a reliable hotel I had been to many a time to type in a story before deadline, the Courtyard by Marriott. My deadline was 1 a.m. All I needed to do was just type in the boxscore of the game as well as the story and we were done, even though I had the obstacle of a football game that lasted 3 hours and 10 minutes and saw the two teams commit 31 penalties for 259 yards.

I don't wish that sloppiness on anyone, Both teams played a great game, but both were fairly sloppy in the process.

Turns out the beginning of my nightmare was under way.

Part II

It was 10:35 p.m. after leaving this great game and total debacle all in one and I headed north on I-75 until I got to Exit 350, which was State Road-200 in Ocala. I knew my way to this hotel, which over the years was absolutely fantastic to me in writing up stories, the first of which came in the spring of 2009 when Palatka lost to Dunnellon in the state softball tournament.

I had written at least five game stories on deadline there whenever I was in Marion County or in the surrounding areas. I got there just after 11 p.m, knowing I have two hours to get things done. Piece of cake. I reach the front desk and a very friendly face is there and I ask if I could use the Wifi because I'm on deadline to get a story done and they have always been great about telling me I could.

That was the same situation here. I went into the restaurant area, which was now closed other than the seats to hang out in, to start typing my story. First thing I needed to do was get a pair of briefs done, one being Crescent City volleyball in an annual tournament they go to in Bell, the other being a girls golf match involving Palatka that took maybe two graphs and that was it.

Done! Out of the way. The next part is the toughest: Compiling the statistics of a game that got complicated because of all the penalties became a chore. It was after 11:30, but I vowed I'd be done in 15 minutes with it, leaving me only the game story from this Friday night.

I got that out of the way when I said I would. Now I have the story and it's 11:45 p.m. It's about this time I'm going to be meeting ... the overnight manager. I'm starting my story and, of course, it's not the typical 35-0 or 42-0 blowout that I can bang out in 15-20 minutes. This was a heck of a game in spite of all those stupid penalties.

We make small talk and then she hits me with a question that I to this day believe had no relevance to this situation whatsoever.

"How do you like your room?"

If I knew now what I didn't at that time or of what was going to happen next, I could have just lied my way through the conversation and said, "It's quite nice, ma'am. Thank you!"

But I told her the real reason I was there and that didn't sit well with her at all.

"I can't have you staying here after midnight if you aren't a guest."

Really?! After all these times I've come here to get rescued by writing and sending a story, now I get the Overnight Manager from Hell telling me I've got 15 f**king minutes to get my story done and get the hell out?!

I told her I would be done in about that much time and I'll be out of her way. Obviously, this horrible human had decided I was some unwelcome guest at her little workplace and I absolutely had to go, f**k deadlines.

Now, I'm rushing to get this story done because if I'm not done in 15 minutes, we will have an unpleasant episode if this horrible woman was of her word. I get halfway through this thing and then she comes over to me to tell me time is up.

Needless to say, it's just after midnight and I'm not done. And here comes you know who in my direction.

"You have to leave now." 

Let's say it got heated, but I left before she called security. That's how bad it got. Before I left, I promised I'd send a letter dressing her down to her company and that she wouldn't have another job in the hospitality business ever again.

For the record, I didn't, but I figured she probably wasn't a good manager anyway and someone would find the truth out in the end.

But it's now 12:05 a.m. and I have to find another hotel to finish this story out. Thankfully, there were enough hotels up and down SR-200 for me to stop in. I ended up stopping at the La Quinta down the road. 

When I got to the front desk, I met Bill and Stephanie, the overnight front desk people. Bill was an older man and Stephanie was a younger lady who was an absolute sweetheart. After I explained my situation and how I got thrown out because "I wasn't staying at the hotel" and that I was trying to beat deadline, they could not have been nicer to me. You know: How hotel employees treat guests, whether they're staying there or not.

They showed me where to set up, gave me the password to the Wifi and off I went to finish the story.

But now I had a new problem: Where the Wifi was perfect at the last place, La Quinta's was giving me trouble and suddenly, my laptop was acting stupidly slow. Remember: All I had left was to send the story! That was it.

I got done with my story and proofreading it by 12:35 a.m. Sending the story was a nightmare because nothing seemed to connect. I think I ended up calling Andy about half a dozen times before we got the story through.

By then, it was 12:58 a.m. Needless to say, we were late.

I thanked the pair one last time for being upstanding people and letting me get my job done correctly.

Oh, but the fun was just beginning after I left their hotel.

Part III

The scars of what I had to go through one week earlier: And the horseshit that was taking place in our newsroom with a new editor who thought he was the greatest thing to ever come out of journalism school (ha!) and whose sports background commaned him to go run our sports department.

What a f**king asshole! That's another chapter in my career that I will share someday. Let's just say I have never covered another regular-season golf match or a piss-poor excuse for a volleyball match involving two lousy teams since then.

Again, what a f**king asshole.

It was now Friday and I had survived the week with only a Crescent City-Interlachen football game to cover that night. I still had a column to write.

So I wrote about my trials and tribulations the prior Friday ... and I held nothing back on both kudos and criticisms, especially the woman who gave me the hardest time. The only thing I spared my reading audience from was her name. I never found out and I didn't care. She was going to be turned into my personal whipping post and I asked for her being reprimanded.

Even fired. I didn't care. It's my goddamn opinion as far as I'm concerned.

Now it's Monday, September 24, 10 days after the horrible ordeal I had dealt with. I am summoned into the office of the editor.

He takes out a piece of paper -- this shit's not even on official Palatka Daily News letterhead, just the name typed at the top.

I'm told by him how bad a person I am for even doing a column like I did and that I'm supposed to sign this piece of paper that for all I cared, I could have thrown on the parking lot grounds, whipped my dick out and pissed all over it.

He wrote this, but I know this wasn't his dirty work by any means. This was my publisher's work, and let's just say my four years at the Daily News with this guy in charge was a little bit frosty. I hated him. I'm sure he hated me. This man threatened me with my job at least five times.

Yes ... five times! And a big reason why: I was doing a morning radio show at WPLK down the road from the paper from 6-7 a.m. This guy didn't like my format because half of it had to do with telling people scores and highlights of games, but I was also promoting our paper to people who wanted to read it or subscribe to it.

Oh, he also didn't like the fact I had a sports guest on every Thursday on the radio show and that I'd interview them there, even though I had interviewed them for our paper as well.

Simply put, he hated the people at the radio station. I know they were not crazy about him, either.

But in 2018, my publisher made things personal against me. I know he did.

Let's put it this way: NOBODY said a word about my column during that week or the week after or the week after that.

My publisher decided to make it about "Mark's a baaaaad person and needs to be punished."

So here is the memo as chiseled out by my editor, but actually written originally by my publisher. I know this: The editor didn't give a shit.

Re: Sept. 22, 2018 sports column

Let this serve as a written warning as it pertains to your job performance following the publishing of your sports column on Saturday, September 22, 2018.

The column should not have been written for a number of reasons, first and foremost is the fact that you publicly criticize a corporation for not allowing the utilization of their services at no cost. This happens to be the same exact same policy that not only Community Newspapers, Inc. implements on a daily basis, but most businesses throughout every industry follow the same policy. It is common sense. CNI will be very lucky if Marriott doesn't ask it to publish a public letter of apology. Secondly, you cite a specific Mariott International employee and state that she should be suspended or terminated. Your basis for this assessment is that she implemented company policy and you didn't like it.

It is one thing for a sports reporter to write a column calling for the termination of a prominent coach or team executive. That comes with the territory of sports reporting. It is quite another to do so for an employee of a corporation, who doesn't work in such a public environment, especially when all she did was enforce a corporate policy.

Thirdly, this topic may have been a significant matter to you, but it is of little interest to our readership,. In fact, it paints the Palatka Daily News in a terrible light.

The message to our readers is that we will use our platform to disparage a business simply if we don't like its polices or we are inconvenienced.

I have spoken with the publisher regarding this matter and we have agreed that a written warning is needed at this point, as well as a 30-day probationary period. If any further behavior similar to this occurs within that time frame, further disciplinary action will be taken up to and including termination. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

OK, let's answer each one of these points:

1. Marriott didn't give a shit and we never heard from them over it.
2. Not all businesses work under the same congeniel attitude. When I went into that hotel that night, I was given the go-ahead to do so without the threat of being thrown out. If the person there had told me I was not allowed to do my work from the start, I would have been disappointed, but would have left without incident.
3. This person I called for termination wasn't the first time I asked for such an action to a non-sports person. Nobody gave a shit about that then. So this wasn't my first rodeo where all bad things happened because someone got a case of crotch itch and decided I was the person to take it out on. Publishers shouldn't judge award-winning column writers on subject matter, really.
4. As stated above, NO ONE cared about what I wrote about. So really, it never put us in a bad light.
5. The "acceptance" that I get thrown out of a hotel at deadline is the first sign that you don't really give a shit about whether a story of local note gets into the paper or not. That's an easy sign for me to know you aren't a very supportive person.

Believe me when I say this: I soooooo wanted to tempt that last fate badly. Things that particular week before (when I got sent to meaningless regular-season boys golf and volleyball) got so bad, I called up my buddy Skeet Alford, who ran WPLK, and asked if I could get a fulltime job there. He painted a less-than-rosy picture, but still wanted me to think about the situation.

And to be honest, if they had fired me during that time period, they would have done me a favor. 

This newspaper stopped being a wonderful place to come to every day. It started to feel like a prison and that everyone had to be on their best behavior. Really, the only reason why I didn't try to get myself canned was because of my boss, Andy. He kept trying to tell me that he wasn't ready to start anew with someone else instead of me after 15 years together, and certainly not under the current situation at that time.

I bit my lip and tongue until it bled, but I did all I could to be a good co-worker. Every day, I told myself the same thing, over and over again, when I went into that building: Please don't do anything to make me punch these people in the face.

Man, was that challenging! That period of my life is long over now, but the memories of it still sadly linger Sarcasm gets me through those times.

Nothing ever gets you prepared for the worst time of your life.

And September 2018 was the worst that it got.

The tone-setter at Lamade Stadium

There was little time to bask in the glory of going to the Little League World Series.

The Toms River East American Little League All-Star team -- the second version of the Windsor Avenue Gang -- had defeated the boys from Georgetown, Del., 2-0, behind Scott Fisher's no-hitter on August 20, 1998, a Thursday night, to win the East Regional Tournament championship.

By the next morning, I was back at the A. Bartlett Giamatti Complex in Bristol, Connecticut, to interview various team members. Normally, I would have had that Friday off from work because the Ocean County Observer did not publish on Saturdays.

But not anymore! At least for the time being. We were now property of Gannett and that meant being buddy-buddy with our rivals for generations, the Asbury Park Press.

Can you say "Awkward?" Well, it was, and for this Friday, I was here, my girlfriend Beth in tow with me because she wanted to be with me here in Connecticut but was limited by a severe back issue so she couldn't witness in person that TREA victory the night before and settled with watching it on our hotel room TV.

I told her as much as I didn't want to be here, I had to be here. Joe Adelizzi, the longtime sports editor at the Press, was here, too, and we had to write different stories on this team. He wrote a story on the arrangements the grownups had to make to turn everything around from Bristol to Williamsport, Pa. for the World Series, which was to open on that Sunday evening. I simply had the task of writing about the afterglow of a championship with these boys I've known for over a month by now.

One of the boys who starred on the team was catcher Brad Frank, the son of Toms River High School East baseball coach Bill Frank. That young man could talk, so it was easy to go to him to chat about what the time in Bristol was like.

I told Joe that I would not likely have a story until later in the afternoon because Beth and I were headed back to Toms River. She had packed her stuff for the four days we were together, two in Bristol, two in New Jersey. At least we hit the roads during the middle of a Friday workday.

We stopped to eat somewhere and got back to my parents' place late that afternoon. I started banging away on the story at the kitchen table on the Tandy TR-180 laptop that did me well throughout the trip. I sent it in to the Press by after 6 p.m. and waited to see what the story looked like the next day after the Press editors edited it.

Spoiler alert: I didn't give a shit what the Press editors did with my stories because it's hard to fight City Hall when THEY think they're doing a great job even as they misinterpret a point I'm making in the story. Whatever!

Beth and I spent the morning going out and doing some things in town. Originally, we had talked about going out to Williamsport together, but her back was just getting worse and it was the best idea to drive her to the Point Pleasant Beach train station and send her back to Queens where she lived and let her heal instead of the constant running around, which was upcoming for me.

After spending a few hours at work putting another story together for just our newspaper, I went home, got some sleep and then started anew.

Toms River East American had the only game on the docket on this Sunday, August 23 to open up the World Series. It was a 5:30 p.m. start, so I had plenty of time to pack in the morning and headed out by noon up the Garden State Parkway to I-280, then west into I-80 and into Pennsylvania where the mountains seemed regal as you looked around you. By around 4 p.m., I was in Lewisburg, Pa., and at the Quality Inn, the same hotel I stayed at three years earlier for the first Windsor Avenue Gang, which went 1-2 in the U.S. pool and didn't play in the final.

Keep this in mind: East American went 2-2 in pool play in Connecticut and made the semifinal round as a second seed, but thanks to the pitching of Casey Gaynor, the youngest son of manager Mike Gaynor, and Fisher, their next two opponents went away with goose eggs. Personally, I wasn't sure how much this team would hit after Todd Frazier and Fisher went 1-2 in the batting order, the two best hitters Mike Gaynor had.

Was I looking at being out of here by mid-week like the last time three years ago? I know it sounds cliche-ish, but for me, this group needed to take each game one at a time.

The first team up on the Little League World Series docket: The boys from Georgetown National in Jenison, Mich. I had never heard of Jenison until that moment. And imagine the irony: They had vanquished a team from Georgetown, Del., to win the regional, now it was another Georgetown the East American kids were playing. By the way, I found out that Jenison, Mich., is in the southwestern part of the state and is actually as close to Chicago than it is Detroit.

So there's the geography lesson of the day. Unlike three years ago when I had never been to Williamsport and showed up in the second inning of East American's 11-10 thrilling loss to Spring, Texas, I got to the stadium about 45 minutes before the game. And I noticed a big change from the previous visit. A new stadium was being built where the old parking lot was. That would end up being Volunteer Stadium, where international teams would play games in the Series.

I remembered certain places to go at the complex, so I walked over to get my credentials, then I made the trip into Lamade Stadium and up ramps until I got to where I would sit for my time there -- next to the ramp that led to the ABC/ESPN broadcast booth. It meant my view of everything in left field was obscured.

Fifteen seasons of covering Little League for my paper and this is what I get as a reward? Thanks for nothing! If something happened in left field or down the third-base line, I'd have to stand up and stretch as far as I could to see what was going on. I asked an official there if there was somewhere better to sit for this and he told me there wasn't and that all the seats were taken.

I bit my poisonous tongue without saying a word and accepted the, "Glad to be in the building" mantra.

As always, Mike Gaynor chose to be the visiting team after winning the coin toss. And this was a big deal: By the end of the game, it was announced 13,800 fans had come to Lamade Stadium to see the teams that came four and nine hours away. I knew the team I was there to cover traveled well, but those boys from Jenison had a large rooting section as well.

For this game, Gaynor sent his son to the mound with four day's rest. That was perfect for him. Georgetown National sent a young man to the hill named Tony Clausen, a bulldog who battled East American hitters ... when he found his accuracy.

The dangerous Frazier walked to start the game and three terrible pitches later, Frazier was home, the last being after a strikeout of Fisher. Though Mike Belostock walked and Joe Franceschini singled and yet another wild pitch put runners on second and third, Clausen showed cat-like reflexes to get to a two-out bunt attempt by Gaynor to throw hin out first to keep it 1-0.

In the bottom of the first inning, Gaynor ran into immediate trouble. Leadoff hitter Pete VanderKolk beat out an infield hit. Second hitter Casey Robrahn bunted for a base hit to put runners on first and second. And on a 2-1 pitch, Gaynor threw a meatball that No. 3 hitter Derek Stempin drilled 245 feet over the right-center field fene for a 3-1 lead.

I sat in my seat going, "Here we go again!" I read this damn script before: August 21, 1995, same field against those boys from the Northwest 45 Little League of Spring, Texas. Starting pitcher and future Major League ballplayer Jeff Frazier did not have it that day, and even when East American gave him a lead in the bottom of the sixth inning, he squandered it and Northwest 45 came from behind to win, 11-10, and ultimately cost East American a chance to play for the national championship.

One out later, Billy Miller singled up the middle, but Gaynor settled down to get Sean Markle to pop out and Brandon Button to ground out to third baseman Gabe Gardner.

Auspicious start, but I also knew these boys weren't going to be down that long. In the top of the second, a costly error by Robrahn at first put Eric Campesi on first with one out. No. 9 hitter Frank doubled down the left-field line to get Campesi to third and get the top of the lineup back up. Frazier grounded out to shortstop Markle, but that got Campesi home to make it 3-2. Though Fisher walked, Clausen struck out Gardner to end the inning, one of 10 strikeouts Clausen would have on the evening.

These boys from Jenison, I found out, were relentless. Brett Meyer opened the bottom of the second against Gaynor with a double to left field, pinch-hitter Ben Van Klompenberg singled him to third and a forceout by Vanderkolk to shortstop Frazier at second brought Meyer home to make it 4-2.

The top of the third came. And this was the moment when I realized the spotlight was not going to be too big for the boys I was there to cover.

After Belostock struck out looking, Franceschini -- all 4-foot-8 and 75 pounds of him -- poked a single to left field. Then Clausen had difficulty finding the plate again and walked Gaynor and Cris Cardone to load the bases. Clausen recovered to strike out Campesi swinging, leaving it up to the young man I could rely on to talk my ear off -- beside Todd Frazier.

It waas No. 9 hitter Frank, who, in my opinion, had the best eye at the plate. It's always these darned catchers! Frank worked the count to 3-2 and then he took a borderline outside pitch for ball four. Franceschini came trotting down the third-base line to make it 4-3.

And that meant Frazier was coming to the plate. Clausen had done all he could to avoid the heart of Frazier's aluminum bat in his first two at-bats. The count was 1-1 and the next pitch was probably not where Clausen wanted it. It was letter high and outside and it didn't matter much to Frazier.

That resounding "ping" off the bat meant that ball wasn't coming back. He belted it a good 260 feet away over the right-center field fence to give the Windsor Avenue Gang a 7-4 lead with his grand slam.

Todd Frazier's bat was alive -- and that meant bad news to anyone who faced him the rest of the Series.

But remember, Casey Gaynor was not having a good game on the mound. And Georgetown National knew it ... very well, they knew it!

Clausen singled to left field and one pitch later, Miller blasted another Gaynor meatball over the center field fence to cut the lead to 7-6. After that, Markle doubled to the left-center field gap and stole third. After two strikeouts, No. 9 hitter Van Klompenberg singled to right to bring home Markle and tie the game and when Campesi treated the ball like it was a hand grenade, Van Klompenberg moved to second.

Vanderkolk, who may not have had Frazier's power, but could hang with him as an effective leadoff hitter, then beat out an infield hit and when Robrahn's grounder swallowed Gardner up at third base for an error, Georgetown National was back up, 8-7.

These guys from the Wolverine State were like pests -- they would not go the hell away! And if you gave them an opening, they more than took advantage of it. Whether these guys remembered the other East American team playing in this event three years ago or not, they were willing to stand toe to toe and slug it out with the New Jersey boys for however long it was going to take.

Turns out it was going to take quite awhile.

Clausen settled down in the fourth to set East American hitters down 1-2-3. But Gaynor settled down and got a flyout, popout and groundout in a 1-2-3, three-pitch inning against Georgetown National.

In the top of the fifth, Gaynor walked and new left fielder R.J. Johansen singled to put runners on first and second with no out. Pinch-hitter Tom Gannon forced out Gaynor at third with a grounder, but Frank came through again: He blooped a single to right field to send Johansen home and tie the game at 8-all.

That meant the top of the lineup was back up, but Clausen got Frazier to fly out harmlessly and Fisher to lineout to second baseman Robrahn, keeping the game tied. By now, Clausen's pitch count was at 117.

Yes, I didn't stutter when I typed that, especially in this era of saving arms and pitch counts. Five innings, 117 pitches. And when Gaynor answered his fourth-inning 1-2-3 with two strikeotus and a groundout for another 1-2-3 inning, Clausen was back on the mound to start the sixth in a tie game.

East American fans were up and excited, knowing a run here and they could go home with the win with another solid Gaynor inning on the mound. But the big boppers -- Frazier and Fisher -- were now hitting 8-9 in the order in this inning, so it was the "other" guys who had to come through.

And Gardner, who struggled the whole evening with two strikeouts and a flyout, got it started by legginng out an infield hit. The go-ahead run was on. And on the first pitch to the next batter, Belostock, Gardner swiped second base.

Now he was in scoring position with no outs. On the very next pitch, a passed ball by catcher Miller had Gardner on third ... and one base away from giving East American the lead. All with no outs. Mike Gaynor had Belostock catch Georgetown National fielders sleeping by pushing a bunt toward the mound. Clausen checked Gardner back to third and threw to second baseman Robrahn at first for the first out.

But once again, the smallest player in the East American lineup delivered as Franceschini lined a single to right-center field to score Gardner to make it 9-8. However, just as East American got rolling, Gaynor grounded into a 6-4-3 double play.

Gaynor had recorded an "economical" 66 pitches, including that three-pitch, 1-2-3 fourth inning. Unlike his tepid start where he struggled, he had found his groove by now. Three outs, and East American survives.

But he was done. His father had made the decision to get Fisher, a hard-throwing left-hander and one of East's top pitchers, on the mound to get the save, save his son's arm and go into the next game at 1-0.

On four pitches, Fisher struck out Vanderkolk, the Georgetown leadoff hitter. One out.

On the very next pitch, Robrahn ground out to second baseman Franceschini. Two outs.

One out left. And up was Stempin, who had drilled a three-run, first-inning home run, but had fouled out and flied out since.

First pitch ... strike one. Second pitch ... swing and a miss. Strike two. One more strike and this was East American's game.

But Fisher missed the mark of where Frank wanted the pitch thrown. What happened here left me a while to pick my jaw up from off the floor.

The left-handed hitting Stempin nailed the 0-2 pitch and send the ball well over the right-field fence. The shot had to be around 300 feet. It was a breathtaking no-doubter. And we're tied at 9-all. Clausen hit a bullet on the next pitch, however right at Frazier to end the inning.

But on one swing, the damage was done. And suddenly it was extra innings between the clubs. Hadn't we gotten enough entertainment already?! It was almost 7:30 p.m. and I had a 10 p.m. deadline to meet with the Observer and an 11 p.m. deadline with the Press. Still, the weather was gorgeous that night and having free baseball was only appropriate for the level of fight both teams showed.

Chris Crawford, the East American center fielder and third player to be in the No. 8 slot of the order, singled against Clausen in the seventh to start the inning. But two outs later, Clausen wasn't having anything to do with Frazier, walking him on four pitches, the fourth a wild pitch that sent Crawford to third. That brought up Fisher, but he got under a pitch and popped out to first baseman Van Klompenberg.

Clausen, now at 147 pitches, survived.

Things got hairy for Fisher in the bottom of the seventh inning. With one out, he hit Markle. Pinch-hitter John Sheeran bunted him to second and a passed ball on the very next pitch by Frank had Markle looking at home plate and ending the game. It was suddenly "Panic Time." Two pitches later, though, pinch-hitter Kody Fennema hit a harmless comebacker to Fisher and we went on to the eighth inning.

Gardner walked and two strikeouts later, Gaynor, now playing first base, singled to right. But Crawford grounded out, giving the Georgetown National players a chance to end the game. especially with the top of the order coming up. Though Robrahn beat out an infield hit, he was forced out at second by Stempin, who Fisher was careful to pitch to this time.

After throwing 174 pitches, Clausen was done. He survived. Now it was Stempin, a left-hander, who came in to keep the East American bats down. But for the third time in the game, Frank delivered a hit, this time a single to center field. And once again, Frazier was carefully pitched to, drawing another walk, his third of the game. On a 1-2 pitch, Fisher just got under what could have been a long ride over the center-field fence. Instead, Clausen, who switched with Stempin, grabbed the flyball out. Gardner struck out on a foul tip into the catcher's mitt, and once again, Georgetown National had another chance to end the game.

Robrahn beat out a two-out infield hit, but a Stempin forceout at second ended the threat.

It was now the 10th inning ... and it was after 8 p.m., and I'm starting to worry (again) about making deadline. All our guys needed was a run ... and hopefully soon!

With one out in the 10th, Franceschini reached on a walk. But on a 2-2 pitch, Gaynor hit a grounder to second base where Robrahn fielded the ball, stepped on second and threw to Van Klompenberg for another double play to end the threat.

But Fisher was up to the task again, getting the Nos. 7-8-9 batters out on two strikeouts and a groundout.

Onto the 11th inning. By now, this was the longest game in the history of the Little League World Series. We were all told this in the press box. The previous longest game was in 1971. I'm thinking as the time ticks away on my 10 p.m. deadline, "God has an amusing way of punishing me." I was hating this whole new system Gannett set up for us and was hating wit now more than ever. 

What a time to stab your eyes out with toothpicks.

The 11th inning started with an innocent walk by Stempin to Crawford. One pitch later, Miller tried to catch Crawford sleeping with a pickoff throw, but it was low and skipped into right field, allowing Crawford to scamper to second base with the go-ahead run.

Campesi sacrifice bunted Crawford up to third, putting him in scoring position.

But throughout the course of the evening into night time, we'd been here before. This time, though, it was Frank's turn at the plate. He was already 3-for-3 with a walk and a sacrifice bunt.

Two pitches later, he was 4-for-4. Frank ripped a single to center field and Crawford dashed in with the go-ahead run, 10-9.

And Frazier was coming to the plate. Well ... he was coming to the plate, but Georgetown National's manager and coaching staff weren't allowing Frazier to do any damage. Four balls later, it was first and second. And when Fisher grounded out to Van Klompenberg at first, there was two outs and runners on second and third.

Gardner came to the plate. One more out and Georgetown National had a chance to tie it in the bottom of the 11th inning. It was 2-1 on Gardner when he made contact with a grounder heading toward shortstop Markle's way, a play he's probably made hundreds of times before.

But not this time. It was as if Bill Buckner had revisited this young boy's body as the ball went under his glove and legs, allowing Frank and Frazier to score to make it 12-9.

It would be reported a couple of days later that the young man who already felt awful about the error that ended up opening this game up for East American got a telegram from a man who was watching this game and did what he could to pick the boy's spirits back up and encourage him.

That man who sent the telegram of support? Country music superstar Garth Brooks.

But no one was more affected by the costly error than Stempin, who walked Belostock, hit Franceschini with a pitch and walked Gaynor to force home Gardner to make it 13-9. Stempin eventually got a forceout for the third out, but the damage was seriously done.

Fisher had the top of the Georgetown National lineup to start the 11th, so he had to be careful again. He got Vanderkolk and Robrahn on groudouts to start the 11th. That brought up Stempin, the young man who with one swing made this game go another hour. Ugh! This time, Stempin beat out an infield hit to the right side of the field, his third hit of the game.

It did no damage. Four pitches later, Clausen, who bravely threw 174 pitches in eight innings of work, hit a pop-up that Frazier gloved for the final out.

At 8:24 p.m., two hours and 51 minutes after the game started, it was finally -- FINALLY!!! -- over.

East American won the longest game in Little League World Series history, 13-9, in 11 innings.

Remembering how the press conferences worked after the game, I had to head downstairs to an area near the front of the entrance way to the stadium off on the side. By the time Mike Gaynor arrived with a pair of players, it was 8:40 p.m. and I'm asking him to go through his mindset of what had transpired on the field in those nearly three hours, especially the move to taking his son out and putting Fisher in to finish it up and how that would hurt him going forward.

Calm, cool and collected, Mike Gaynor said he didn't worry one bit about it. His pitching staff would be fine. For the next game against a team from California, he went with Frazier. East American won, 4-2, as Frazier threw 92 pitches in the complete game. The following night, Gaynor came back with his son on one-day's rest and threw 73 pitches this time in a 5-3 triumph over Tar Heel Little League of Greenville, N.C. For the U.S. championship against Tar Heel two days after that, Fisher pitched the entire game, a 5-2 win, and threw 78 pitches.

Turns out Gaynor was right about the pitching staff. And those who followed this East American Little League to the championship know the rest of the story.

As for my story, I had to get it done for our paper in just under an hour. It felt like a novel ... like this blog piece! But it didn't take as long as it did to tell you all the details. I sent the story to my boss, Al Ditzel, who was now sitting for me on desk on this Sunday night when I would normally play editor. Than I had to do it all over again for the Asbury Park Press and write a completely different angle to the story.

I was done just before 11 p.m. It was a loooooong day, from packing in the morning, to the nearly four-hour trip to the area, to getting into my hotel room, then turning around and heading up US-15 to the stadium, and enduring the longest game in the history of the World Series to finishing two stories and then going back to the hotel and just plunking myself down on the bed and not waking up until 8 the next morning.

This game was simply one of those moments that defined an entire team. East American's Windsor Avenue Gang II did not back down. They weren't allowed to ... there were too many people sitting in those seats behind them that wanted the best for them. And those kids delivered a World Series title six days later.

But the game against the boys of Jenison will live on in history.

It wasn't the championship ... but it sure felt like it was.

Toms River East American Doubleheader Saturday

This particular month as I write this blog story marks the (I can't believe it myself!) 25th anniversary of the legendary Little League World Series championship for Toms River East American in Williamsport, Pa.

The first of the amazing games I covered took place on Saturday, August 8, 1998, and it was a harrowing and long day.

Why? I was having to cover the OLD GUARD of the Windsor Avenue Gang, the 1995 Little League World Series participants, who were playing in the East Regional Tournament, thankfully, in West Deptford, N.J., where the tournament was held once again. The manager of that team was Bob Paschon and his assistant was Bill Castner. For a fourth consecutive year, this group of young men -- players like Jeff Frazier, Colin Gaynor and Chris Cerullo -- had won the state title, first as Little Leaguers in 1995, then as Junior Leaguers in 1996 and the last two as Senior Leaguers.

I was to do that game in the late morning down there (11 a.m. start), come back to the office at the Observer in Toms River, write the story, help where I could with layout for my boss, Al Ditzel, then head north on Route 9 to Sayreville where Toms River East American's "newest" Windsor Avenue Gang -- led by Todd Frazier, Scott Fisher and Casey Gaynor, managed by Mike Gaynor and assisted by Joe Franceschini and Ken Kondek -- would have to defeat Randolph in the winner-take-all, double-elimination state Little League All-Star tournament. East American had lost the night before in Sayreville to Randolph, 3-2, as Randolph scored all its runs the first inning and held on from there.

So this long Saturday started at 9:15 a.m. with that long, boring trip on Route 70 into Cherry Hill, then onto I-295 and off the exit for West Deptford. A year had passed since the disappointment of this group playing like crap and losing in three games. Almost the same group of young men, same manager, same assistant coach, and same setting.

The first matchup was against South Portland of Maine. Paschon tabbed Jeff Frazier to be the starting pitcher. First inning: Ten pitches, nine for strikes, three strikeouts. One ball from an immaculate inning. The first three innings, Frazier allowed just one single.

But it was no score. That changed in the bottom of the third inning. Andy Diaz singled. Jason Campanalonga singled. Chris Aiello singled to load the bases. Then Chris Donnelly singled home Diaz. An error on an Eric Edwards grounder by shortstop Jon Furbush scored Campanalonga. A bases-loaded walk one out later to Jeremy Dandorph plated Aiello.

That was really all Frazier and Campanalonga, who came in to relieve in the seventh, needed for support. East American went on to a 9-3 win. Talked with Paschon and Frazier and I was out of there by nearly 2 p.m.

Got back to the office by 3:45 and started typing away on my story. Helped out with the scoreboard page that afternoon, and by 5:30, I was out the door again, this time heading north in my 1993 Ford Thunderbird LX up Route 9 to Sayreville Little League for the second straight night, this time hoping East American got it right this evening against Randolph for the state title.

Arrived with about 10 minutes to spare as Route 9 traffic got a little challenging in Monmouth County for a spell. Mike Gaynor was sending his youngest son to the mound to get the job done. It had been 14 years and four days since my first trip to Sayreville Little League -- and that ended in a Brick American section final loss and a trip to White Castle afterward.

A trip to Bristol, Conn., was on the line this time around. But as the game opened at a few minutes after 7 p.m., I had to hustle. I brought the Observer's Tandy-TRS 80 laptop to type a story in as the game went on and then send the story through the couplers I was to put the phone into with the hope no one else was looking to use the phone in another room of the building and ruin the feed back to Toms River.

Oh, those were the annoyingly painful days.

East American was the visiting team for this one and broke through in the top of the third, just like its Senior League counterparts did earlier in the day. Chris Crawford singled, Brad Frank bunted for a base hit and Todd Frazier walked to load the bases for the dangerous Fisher. Starting pitcher Marc Nigro really did not want anything to do with Fisher and walked him to force home Crawford.

Andrew Viccaro came in to replace Nigro with the bases loaded and still none out. Mike Belostock delivered a single to left-center field to score Frank and Frazier and it waas 3-0. Belostock would ultimately come around on a weird play. Gabe Gardner hit a pop-up on the right side of the field. Second baseman Scott Lineback caught the ball going away toward the line, but Mike Gaynor sent Belostock home from third and he beat the play at the plate for a 4-0 lead.

This team was determined.

Randolph got a run back in the bottom of the third on a costly error by Belostock in right field. With Nigro on second base after that play and two outs, Viccaro singled to right field. Belostock got the ball, threw to second baseman Joey Franceschini, who in turn threw a strike to Frank at the plate to nail Nigro to keep it 4-1.

That would turn out to be one of the biggest plays of the game.

East American added another run in the fourth when Crawford singled, pinch-runner Eric Campesi moved to second on a Frank groundout and scored when Frazier rocketed a double to the center-field wall.

Then in the top of the fifth, Gardner got a hold of a 2-0 fastball from Viccaro and deposited it over the right-center field fence to make it 5-1. East American was on its way and the game story was becoming increasingly easy to write as 8:30 arrived by this point and I was going to beat the 10 p.m. deadline imposed on us now that Gannett had put its evil-doing hands on us and made us get done early with the newspaper.

But then things have a way of evening itself out. Gaynor had thrown 59 pitchers and looked good through four innings. Here's where the evening out part happened. And the consternation of getting this damn game over with happened.

Pinch-hitters Mike DeLisa and Brian Margue started the inning with back-to-back singles, bringing up the top of the Randolph order. Gaynor struck out Lineback and got Nigro on a groundout to plate DeLisa, making it 5-2. That's when Gaynor made his worst pitch of the night. It was 1-0 on Viccaro and he smoked it -- well over the center-field fence.

Remember it being 5-1? It was now 5-4. And I really wasn't up to re-writing my story in case Randolph found a way to come back and win the game and the whole East American Little League World Series championship run never, ever exists. Silently with a couple of Sayreville personnel doing PA and the scoreboard upstairs, I'm saying, "C'mon guys! Hold on to this lead!"

Belostock, one of the unsung heroes of that East American team, would deliver the RBI hit in the top of the sixth that scored Crawford to make it 6-4. East American had a chance to put this one way with runners on second and third, but Gaynor hit a heat-seaking missile right at Nigro to end the inning.

By now, it was after 9 p.m. and I was hoping Randolph ran out of rallies. Now at 77 pitches and starting to run out of gas, Gaynor walked the first batter he faced, Kenny Anderson. Dave Kivett hit a forceout to second baseman Franceschini for the first out, but a balk against Gaynor -- and I rarely saw that on this level -- moved Kivett into scoring position.

Hang on, guys! Chris Soriano hit a comebacker to Gaynor for the second out. That left it to Mike Cattano, who came back into the game after DeLisa had pinch-hit for him. Gaynor got to 1-2 on him before Cattano fought back with a pair of foul balls and a couple of balls worked the count to 3-2.

It's 9:20 p.m. Let's go!

On the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Cattano hit a sky-high flyball to center field. I can see Fisher drift back ... and drift back ... and still drift back some more. If this ball had better wings to fly, I would REALLY be in trouble for it would have been 6-all and extra innings looming.

Thankfully, the wings only flapped so much. The ball rested softly in Fisher's right-handed glove. East American was a state champion for the second time in four years, holding on this time for the 6-4 victory.

But I still had to run downstairs, get a quote from Mike Gaynor and then re-construct this story on the Tandy TR-80. Nowadays, I can see my whole screen when I'm writing a story from inside T.I.A.A. Bank Field or Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on a laptop. The Tandy only allowed me to see a few lines at a time. It was annoying.

I had additions to put into the story, including the Gaynor quotes, and a few subtractions to make. I'm sure Al was worried about getting this story. But somehow, I put it in proper English and sent it off to him without much hassle by 9:45 p.m. to beat the 10 p.m. deadline that I despised one month into the Gannett takeover.

Two days later, I had to be back in West Deptford to cover the East American Senior Leaguers again. The original plan was that I was covering the East American Senior League team until its run was over, while someone at the Asbury Park Press (our NEW sisters/brothers in arms after over 100 years of fighting for quality stories against them) was covering the Toms River East American Little League state champs.

First things, first: I was NEVER crazy about going to Kissimmee, Florida in the dead heat of August for the Senior League World Series had East American gotten there. Second thing: The next two games this team HISTORICALLY underachieved like no one's business. It lost to Montoursville, Pa., 6-4, on that Sunday, infamously remembered for Campanalonga's temper getting the worst of him and he getting tossed from this game for arguing a called third strike against him -- in a freakin' game he was pitching!! Nice timing!

This team was a mess and it proved itself in the elimination-bracket game the following day against Fairport, N.Y. when Frazier, pitching a day after his 16th birthday, did not have his best stuff and Fairport beat East American, 10-5, thus ending East American's season and the legendary careers of a number of those players who had built East American's reputation.

Now here's where I turned selfish ... and I got assists unknowingly from the wonderful parents as well as Gaynor and others who knew me for years and years at East American Little League.

My boss said I was ready to go up to Bristol, Conn., and handle the coverage of this TREA Little League All-Star team. He told the higher-ups that at the APP (because we had to do EVERYTHING through them now ... ugh!!!). Meanwhile, the East American group had enough already with the guy the APP installed to write. After a couple of games -- including a tough loss to South Shore of Staten Island, N.Y. -- that young man was replaced and I got to cover that team.

All the way to Williamsport. All the way to the World Series championship.

Still the greatest moment of my career. And I wasn't really up to going to Kissimmee anyway.

The Grudge Match of '92

It was Thursday, and by now, the week had already been an interesting one at Point Pleasant Boro Middle/High School's softball field.

On Monday, June 1, it rained and the first semifinal matchup between top-seeded Central Regional and fourth-seeded Southern Regional had been postponed. And since both semifinals were played on that same field that night, it meant having to stick around and wait for the Jackson Memorial and Toms River East buses to arrive and tell them to turn back the other way and try again tomorrow.

Since this was my first venture into co-directing the Ocean County Tournament with Boro coach Ric Malta, it meant making sure everything was right. But when rain comes, it makes things awfully difficult. And that meant finances, too. The four umpires who were to make calls on the field all had to be paid for that night because they all showed up.

Still OK, though, since we were going to get them again for the two semifinals the next night under absolutely beautiful conditions at Point Boro. In the first game, Southern and Central started over again, and Central would outlast Southern, 10-8, to advance to its first final in four years. The second game was an absolute thriller with East coming out on top in eight innings, 8-7.

We had our championship game albeit a day late. The top-seeded Golden Eagles would be taking on the second-seeded Raiders for the first time ever in the final on Thursday night, June 4, 1992.

But this was more than just No. 1 vs. No. 2. This was going to be a grudge match where no one was going to be really friendly before, during and after the game. The cause? That was Toms River East sophomore pitcher Erin Tulko. Tulko was a member of Central Regional's team as a freshman, but was relegated to "sometimes" duty behind fellow freshman Tara Menschner, who was beginning to make a name for herself in the circle. 

So during the next school year, Tulko's family transferred her to Toms River East. And, immediatley, Raiders coach Debbie Schwartz had an instant ace to return after taking a year off for maternity leave. Schwartz was not afraid to ride Tulko's high-powered arm and the Raiders were a big-time threat after a five-win season under temporary head coach Joe Arminio.

Tulko was a threat both in the circle and in the batter's box, where she delivered seven home runs for the Raiders. She was the main attraction of a Raiders team that turned things around in 1992. The "other" parts of the Raider lineup fit nicely, starting with catcher and leadoff hitter Vicki Kube, sisters Angela and Stephanie Velardi, shortstop Amy Mullane and freshman center fielder Vicki Guarneri.

But, let's face facts -- Tulko's heat was a major reason for the Raiders' success. A 1-0 deficit felt like 3-0, maybe 4-0 and a 2-0 deficit felt like 6-0. She was that good.

Still, there was a reason why Tulko was no longer at Central Regional. I mean, you don't force kids to go somewhere else, and a lot of it ... was attitude. If you knew Golden Eagles coach Norm Selby and assistant Gloria Garibaldi, they were no-nonsense people. They didn't want prima donnas dotting their premier lineup and they would tell you in not so many words to get an "attitude adjustment." 

Selby had run this program since 1981 when he took over for Marshall Davenport and had won numerous division titles and four OCT championships in the 1980s. The Golden Eagles even went to the NJSIAA Group III championship game in 1986, and won another NJSIAA South Jersey Group III title in 1988.

But after that 27-3 season for the Golden Eagles, the wheels began to loosen up. Star third baseman Michelle Carlson transferred from Central to East -- not her choice, mind you. And though the Golden Eagles were still winning, the win totals were not very high between 1989-91.

However, the 1991 Golden Eagles team offered a glimpse into the future. That team offered a look at very young players growing up. By the following year, the Golden Eagles had won 20 games and shared the Shore Conference Class B South title.

Now in what was the final game of the season for the Golden Eagles, they had that first county championship in four years on their minds. Menschner was back in her normal place in the circle. Senior Amy McGowan was her catcher the last two years. They had a steady infield of junior first baseman Amber Dafeldecker, junior second baseman Tara Gardner, freshman shortstop Dana Kennett and sophomore Erika Applegate.

Anchoring Central's outfield were a pair of seniors -- Selby's daughter, Lorrin, was in left field, and easily the best senior athlete in Ocean County, Lauren Wagner, was roaming center field. Freshman April Rose was in right field.

The night was already long. For the one and only time in the tournament's history, a third-place game was played (both Ric and I thought it was a great idea when we came up with it). And that game took over two and a half hours to play, but in the end, it was Southern outlasting Jackson, 9-8, in eight innings.

So a 7:30 p.m. start time was already not happening. Immediately, you can see a difference in both finalists' approach in this game. East struggled with its 15 minutes of warmup before the finale, struggling to come up with groundballs. East used up every last second of that 15 minutes of warmup. I can still see Selby pointing to the watch on his right wrist. Thankfully, East was finishing up and Central took the field. Central's fielders looked confident in snagging groundball after groundball, while the outfielders were snagging all the flyballs.

Usually, you don't read much into that whatsoever. Just because you have a good or bad warmup doesn't mean you can carry that onto the field.

On this night, both teams did.

In my normal position as public address announcer, I did my normal duties of announcing the substitutes and the starters for both teams. I played the national anthem and then there was a first pitch -- provided by OCT Most Valuable Player Lynne Prudhomme of Toms River South, who had won the honor 10 years before in 1982. She delivered a throw like she was still playing shortstop that I thought was going to take McGowan's glove off her hand.

But it was all finished and we finally got to play ball as the darkness was slowly settling in on the Point Boro field that evening.

If Menschner had any jitters, she did not show it. She struck out Kube looking to begin the game. She got third baseman Theresa Madden to pop out to Menschner. Tulko would bloop a single into right-center field for the first hit of the game. But Menschner controlled Angela Velardi, forcing her to hit a comebacker to end the first.

So far so good at Central's end. Now it was Tulko's turn to watch her let rip of her fastball on this night. She simply had one thing in mind -- overpower her former teammates, make them understand how much they missed not having her. And right off the bat, she began to prove that point against leadoff hitter Wagtner. She blew her fastball past Wagner for the first out on strikes.

Next was Lorrin Selby. She was able to make contact with Tulko and lofted a single into right field.

Selby's hit proved that their former teammate was not invincible. Then again, I'm sure coach Selby and Garibaldi had already shared that bit of wisdom with the players beforehand. Rose was next at the plate. She hit a grounder that should have been at least a forceout at second. Nope! Gyurecz fumbled the grounder for an error and runners were on first and second.

McGowan was the cleanup hitter, but she was not your quintessential cleanup hitter. But she was smart enough to stay away from chasing Tulko's pitches. Eventually, she worked out a walk and suddenly, Tulko had issues with the bases loaded and one out.

Her opposite number, Menschner, was at the plate. But it didn't take long for Tulko to overwhelm her, striking her out for the second out of the inning. All that was left was No. 6 hitter Applegate. Tulko got ahead of Applegate at 0-2. Then she tried to put one to the outside part of the plate. Applegate got enough of the bat on the ball to loft it into an area where no one was.

Selby and Rose scampered home with the first two Golden Eagles runs. After getting the ball late at the plate, Kube tried to make a pickoff of Applegate back at first.

Big mistake. The ball sailed over Angela Velardi's head and into the outfield to easily plate McGowan. Applegate got to second on the overthrow. Then Dafeldecker made things easily by hitting a grounder in between the plate and the circle. Tulko was slow to get to the ball and it took Kube's cat-like reflexes to throw Dafeldecker out by a step to end the inning.

The smoke figuratively cleared and the Raiders were down 3-0 after one inning. Their shoddy defense failed them in this moment. Still, East had a good enough team that they could gets hits off the accurate Menschner, put the ball in play and force the Golden Eagles to make plays. That's the plan, right?

The first out of the second inning was going to be all you needed to know about this game. Stephanie Klunk hit a foul ball over by the first-base fence. Dafeldecker hustled from her position lunged out and made the catch while also trapping East assistant coach Dawn Dziedzic, who could not get out of the way of the foul pop.

That play signified the rest of the night for the Golden Eagles defensively.

East, though, got a rally started as left fielder Jen Beresh and Mullane delivered back-to-back singles. That brought up Stephanie Velardi. Schwartz put the bunt on for Velardi, but she popped it up by the first-base line. Anticipating the bunt, Dafeldecker rushed in to make the snag, then turned around to where Gardner was at first base and fired a strike to double off Mullane to end the inning.

We were not in the bottom of the second inning, yet the Golden Eagles were operating on all cylinders, making big play after big play, holding the 3-0 lead.

In the bottom of the second, Tulko turned it up a notch. She struck out Kennett, Stacey Sperling and Wagner all swinging, winning her battle with Sperling after Sperling fouled off seven straight two-strike offerings.

Both teams went down in order in the third and by the top of the fourth, we were in darkness with the lights above us detailing what was happening. In the top of the fourth, Menschner got Tulko for the East slugger's first time in the tournament on a flyball out to Selby. But the Golden Eagles would make their only mistake of the night defensively, courtesy of the freshman Kennett, who threw an Angela Velardi groundball away and into dead-ball territory, putting Velardi on second. 

How would East's bats respond? How would Central respond from the error? These were very important questions as we neared the midway point of this so-called grudge match.

It didn't take long to answer. Klunk hit a grounder back to Menschner, who looked Velardi back to second. She threw to Dafeldecker, but Velardi started toward third. The out was made at first and Dafeldecker delivered a low strike to Kennett covering third to nail Velardi to end the inning.

Once again, it was Central's defense saving the proverbial day. How could this keep happening, especially with East being the constant victim of this defensive wizardry?

East's own defensive wizardry? It was missing a wizard. With one out, Applegate beat out an infield hit. Dafeldecker hit a grounder to Mullane, but second baseman Kelly Gyurecz was not fast enough to get to second. That didn't stop Mullane from throwing toward the bag and throwing the ball into right field, allowing the runners to move up a base on what was East's third error of the game.

Central had a chance to put this one away, but Tulko found the gear to go into and strike out Kennett and get Sperling to softly line out to Angela Velardi, keeping it a three-run game.

While many in the crowd were awed by Tulko's speed and go-after-it attitude with Central hitters, no one was noticing the masterpiece Menschner was putting together. In the fifth, she got Beresh to ground out, Mullane to fly out and Stephanie Velardi to ground out.

Tulko induced three groundouts from Wagner, Selby and Rose in the bottom of the fifth.

My vantage point for this final was on the right side behind the backstop next to East's dugout on the first base side. You could start seeing the concern on their faces and the body movements were not as spry as before. This sixth inning was going to be a big moment for the Raiders. Either they were going to break through and make this game or they were just not destined to do anything on this night.

And the sixth started simply with an innocent bunt laid down by Guarneri along the first-base side. Dafeldecker had made just about every play on this evening, but couldn't for this one time. Eats had a baserunner. Kube then roped a single to left to move Guarneri up to first and second with no one out.

Suddenly, this was the moment East was looking for. With Tulko in the on-deck circle, Schwartz most of the time had Madden lay down a sacrifice bunt. And this time, she was perfect in her quest to do so as Dafeldecker got the ball and made the tag for the first out.

There were Guarneri and Kube in scoring position and the biggest threat at the plate. Let Tulko get her three rips in and make something happen. She hit the ball well in her two at-bats so far. Everyone within shouting distance was anticipating this moment -- the biggest moment of this championship.

What happened next still defies explanation to this day. Tulko squared up to bunt. Whether Schwartz asked for the bunt or not, I've never asked. But Tulko was there bunting, trying to catch the Golden Eagles' defense off guard. But all Menschner did was pick up the ball, look Guarneri back to third base, and put the ball back in her glove.

Yes, she knew when she did that the tying run was on base in a 3-0 game. This was the risk she and her Golden Eagles teammates were making on this tense night. Menschner -- as well as coach Selby -- knew the next two hitters weren't going to beat his pitcher the way Tulko could have.

On the very first pitch to Angela Velardi, she popped up. The infield fly rule was in effect as Kennett squeezed the ball for the second out. Now it was up to Klunk to finally loosen the vice grip of a lead Central held. The count got to 3-2. Then Menschner threw a pitch down a bit in the plate. Klunk lofted a sinking fly ball toward Lorrin Selby in left. It seemed to take an hour for Selby to get to the ball, but she reached out and snagged the flyball that ended the bases-loaded, one-out rally.

And was the next dagger mark in East's collective body. Now it was up to Central to add to the lead. And while I can hear Schwartz encouraging her players to get back up and get out of the bottom of the sixth, the Raiders looked already like a beaten team.

Tulko was also losing her invincibility. McGowan singled to right field. Menschner hit a grounder to Madden at third, but Madden threw the ball away for the fourth East error, moving the runners to second and third.

Now it was Central's turn to put it away. Denise Reiser came in to run for Menschner to give the Golden Eagles some added speed. Up stepped Applegate. She, like Tulko, attempted to surprise the defense by putting down a bunt along the third-base line. Tulko picked the ball up, never looked back at third and fired the ball away from Velardi into right field. The fifth East error of the game brought in both McGowan and Reiser and it was 5-0.

Game. Set. Match.

Applegate got to third on the play, but she would be left there as Tulko got Dafeldecker on strikes, Kennett on a foulout to Kube and Sperling looking to give her 11 strikeouts for the night, the most by a pitcher an OCT final that was set only one year earlier by Brick's Viki Kara with 10 in a 9-2 win over Toms River North.

But while Tulko may have been the person most talked about in this final, it was her ex-teammate Menschner who was the star of the game. She was three outs from making history -- the first pitcher to ever throw a shutout in an OCT final.

She didn't waste time, either. She got Beresh to pop out to start the seventh. Mullane would deliver her second hit of the game, a single to left-center field. But once again -- and it wasn't all that successful on this evening -- the Raiders tried to bunt on Menschner. This time, Stephanie Velardi popped out to Dafeldecker.

One out to go. It was No. 9 hitter Guarneri. And she, too, attempted to put a bunt down.

But like almost every other bunt on this night, Central had an answer. Menschner calmly picked the ball up and fired to Dafeldecker.

Central players began to mob McGowan, Menschner and Dafeldecker by first base. After an entire season of proving the Central Regional product was still a strong one you can rely on, the Golden Eagles had their championship in a 5-0 triumph over East ... and their former teammate.

Schwartz would say to me afterward her team did not have a good practice Wednesday after playing a late OCT semifinal on Tuesday night. Selby, meanwhile, was elated about the fifth OCT championship.

Tulko would win the top hitter honor of the tournament at .875, going 7-for-8 with two home runs. Kube was the tournament's top defensive player, fielding 21 out of 22 attempts successfully. Menschner would be the Most Valuable Pitcher.

And the Most Valuable Player? That was a surprise to quite a few people ... including the young lady who won it. And as I announced Erika Applegate's name for the honor, I can still see the hands over her face in disbelief as she went over to Malta to pick up her honor.

But this was also an emotional night, too. Not just for the fact Central won. This was supposed to be Norm Selby's swan song as coach. He was taking his 244 career wins and riding off into the sunset. There were plenty of tears being shed. Menschner in these big moments was a river of tears. 

Selby told me this was going to be it ... period. He had no plans of coming back in 1993. Well, those plans were taken back when he was reminded that his niece, Jill Hirschblond, was only a sophomore and wanted to play for Uncle Norm until SHE graduated in 1994.

So Selby and Garibaldi stayed for two more years, accumulating 50 more wins and in the 1994 finale -- and Selby's finale for real -- the Golden Eagles took down Allentown, 7-0, for the Shore Conference Tournament championship on East's field.

Selby would tell me two years later that he had a conversation with Schwartz and Dziedzic and that the pair sarcastically thanked Norm for letting them have Tulko. Apparently, she was wore out her welcome, though two years later, she was the Most Valuable Pitcher in East's OCT championship win over Lacey, 9-5, after Lacey upset Central in the semifinal round.

Schwartz would go on to a Hall of Fame career herself in which she would win numerous titles at East, then switch over to Donovan Catholic (former Monsignor Donovan) and win state and overall Tournament of Champions titles there.

But my mind always goes back to that night at Point Boro in June 1992. And the Grudge Match.

That night also defined both the two greatest programs in Ocean County softball history. Central Regional on that night was the teacher. East was the student which one day would be the teacher.

It was just magical what happened.

The comeback of all comebacks in a fog

The 1997 Ocean County Softball Tournament semifinals had come down to the top four seeds remaining, all converging at Toms River High School East on Saturday, May 31, 1997.

The first game featured the top seeds and host Toms River East Raiders against fourth-seeded Toms River North. East won the Class A South title and had earned the top seed for the tournament as voted on by the coaches. The Mariners had struggled a bit, but got better as the season went along and came in to this game at 19-4.

In this first game, a 5 p.m. start, it was never a contest. East hit North hard-throwing righty Lauren Anderson for eight hits, but they never got a clutch hit throughout the game, stranding 13 runners, while North hitters hit Nicole Brigandi around for 12 his and turned the Raiders away, 10-2. Anderson only had four strikeouts on this damp, grey-skied evening, but it was enough for North to advance to its first final since 1993 and third final in the 1990s.

The game dragged on for two hours and 22 minutes and, in actuality, was a snooze-fest. Now North had to wait to see who it was playing in the title game.

For the third straight year, it was Central Regional facing the defending champion of the tournament, Jackson Memorial. At the same seeding meeting where East was made a No. 1 seed, Central Regional, which had been scuffling during that part of the year, was given the second seed. And now at 21-5, the record was shining as brightly. These Golden Eagles were playing to the same level as the 1996 Golden Eagles that made history by becoming the first Ocean County team to win a state title, taking down Paramus, 1-0, for the NJSIAA Group III championship in storybook fashion.

And most of that team was back for the '97 season, led by three-year starter Kristy Tice, and All-State first-team centerfielder Cheryl Zellman, both seniors. Other seniors led the way -- first baseman Jill Homage, catcher Kelly Honecker and right fielder-pitcher Robin Pepper, who was the winning pitcher in that Cinderella story of the 1996 state championship at North against Paramus.

Shortstop Toni Penniman and left fielder Becky Barrett were among the junior leaders on this experience-laden team of third-year coach Joe Winkelried.

But coach Al Aires had a number of key returnees to his third-seeded Jackson Memorial Jaguars team, led by senior shortstop Kerri Gleason. The rest of the team was filled with underclassmen with plenty of experience in their own right -- junior second baseman Rosanne Rocca, junior third baseman Tracy Goldych and catcher Erin Leonard. They were there when the Jaguars won that OCT title over top-seeded Southern Regional the year before. They knew the ropes.

But Jackson Memorial had a wild card at first base who was going to deliver a terrific career eventually at shortstop named Toni Williams. She didn't play like a freshman.

Those dark, damp, humid conditions at East were about to add a new element as the first pitch was about to be thrown sometime after 8 p.m. when both teams had finished out warming up.

The fog. In the distance where the trees were well beyond the outfield, it was starting to get tougher to see anything there. Little did I know this was going to be the telling tale of what would become an absolute classic.

Sitting in the same public address spot on the first base side behind home plate, I read the lineups and got Central out onto the field to get it all started.

For Tice, this was a senior year to finally win a championship for herself. As a sophomore, she was the winning pitcher when Central beat Jackson for the crown, 11-4. But she got injured badly in that state championship game in the first inning when she fouled a riser off into her face and did awful damage to her teeth and face. Pepper stepped in to throw that two-hit shutout at Paramus.

Right on cue, Tice was strong out of the gate. She struck out Cheryl Fossati and got Rocca on a comebacker. However, things changed quickly. Gleason walked on four pitches. And Goldych rocketed a shot to the right-center field gap to bring home Gleason. Goldych ended up on third with a triple. Williams hit a grounder that Penniman could not come up with, and the error allowed Goldych to make it 2-0. Tice struck out Leonard, but the early damage was done and the Jaguars had control at the start.

Starting pitcher Fossati got the dangerous Zellman to fly out to left fielder Krissy Sherman, and though Homage walked, Barrett hot a rope at Rocca, who caught the ball and tagged out Homage to finish out the double play.

Tice got herself in trouble in the second when No. 9 hitter Jen Kubinski reached on yet another Penniman error, was sacrificed to second by Fossati and moved to third on a Rocca single. But Tice got Gleason to pop out to second baseman Dawn Wilson to end the threat.

Fossati handled matters in her half of the second with a popout, groundout and strikeout.

The third came and darkness had covered the East field by now. On four pitches, Tice walked Goldych, bringing up Williams. Tice got ahead 0-2, but made the mistake of putting a pitch with too much strike zone in it.

"Plink!"

The sound reverberated around the East complex as the ball hunted the gap on the fence-less East field. Zellman and Pepper seemed to be running after a thoroughbred the way the ball kept tracking in the right-center field gap. Goldych scored easily and by the time the ball reached the infield, Williams had circled the bases with a two-run home run to make it 4-0.

Not a good start for a Central team that was looking at the end of its season if it did not get its act together. Sherman popped out and Leonard flied out, but up stepped No. 8 hitter Katie Barry. She singled and promptly stole second on Honecker and Tice. On another 0-2 pitch Kubinski took advantage of a ball that had enough plate by stroking a single to right field to score Barry.

Jackson 5, Central 0. And when Fossati struck out Pepper and Wilson and got third baseman Tricia Friedman on a soft liner to Rocca, reality was quickly setting in that Jackson had control of this game and really wanted one more shot at Toms River North in the final.

Tice finally had an easy inning with a strikeout, lineout to her and flyout against the Nos. 2-4 in the Jaguars lineup in the fourth.

Central was running out of outs. There was 12 left for the Golden Eagles. And it took the simplest of plans to get things going on their side of the field. It was a bunt on the right side of the infield that had every Jaguars player on that side flustered as Zellman beat it out for a hit.

Within the first two pitches, Zellman stole second and took third on a wild pitch. Homage singled to center to score Zellman with the first Central run, but she got greedy and Kubinski threw a strike to Rocca at second to nail Homage for the firsts out.

The out was costly -- Barrett boomed a triple to right-center field that would have delivered an RBI. She would come home on a Penniman groundout to Rocca.

The Golden Eagles had chipped into the 5-0 lead. But they weren't done.

Tice settled in the next two innings, allowing just one hit. In the bottom of the fifth, Honecker walked, moved to second on a Pepper groundout to Williams and scored when not only did Rocca fumble Wilson's groundball, but threw it away, making it 5-3.

Chip. Chip. Chip. Chip. Chip.

Homage began the sixth inning with another clutch moment -- a triple to the right-center field gap. Barrett struck out against Fossati, but Penniman walked. This is when Winkelried rolled the dice and took a chance. He had Penniman take off for second. Homage started down for home, but Rocca's throw to the plate missed the target and got by Leonard, allowing Penniman to move to third and 70 feet from being the tying run.

When Tice hit a grounder to Williams, Williams took the out instead of trying to make a play at home. Penniman easily scored and that 5-0 lead was now gone and over with.

A 5-5 tie made this game a lot more palatable for softball fans.

If the first six innings offered the drama, the suspenseful seventh was going to tell us the who, what, when, where, why and how of the game. And as I looked out at Central warming up in the seventh, I noticed something that was becoming way too obvious -- the fog had finally found its way to the outer stretches of the outfield.

Could it play the role in the end?

Gleason started the seventh with a walk. Goldych made good contact on a 3-1 pitch and singled to left to send Gleason to second. That brought up Williams. Williams worked the count 3-2, then Tice offered her a pitch that looked like a beachball to the freshman -- she roped it over Zellman's head in center field.

Yes, Cheryl Zellman had a ball go over her head. But Gleason and Goldych scored and Williams stopped at third with a triple and the Jaguars regaining the 7-5 lead.

On a team with experience, the hero was going to be this freshman phenom named Toni Williams, who was 2-for-4 with two runs scored and four RBIs. But the inning was far from over.

Sherman bombed a double to right field to bring in Williams and it was 8-5 ... and still nobody out.

At this point, Winkelried made the walk out to the mound. I know he didn't want to do this, but the reality had set in -- Jaguars hitters were timing Tice's pitches perfectly. He painfully had to take the ball out of Tice's hands and bring in Pepper from right field. Pepper had more motion in her windup than Tice did and that fooled the Paramus hitters in that 1-0 victory at the state Group III title game the year before.

But things did not start so well for Pepper. She walked Leonard. Then she walked Barry to load the bases. For a moment, though, Pepper recovered to get Kubinski to pop out to Penniman, then strike out Fossati. But on a 3-2 pitch, she walked Rocca to force home Sherman.

Pepper would strike out Gleason, the 10th hitter of the inning. But the damage was done again -- four runs, three hits, no errors, four walks, three left on base. The inning could have been much, much worse.

Now the Jaguars and Fossati had three outs to get. But again, I'm watching the outfield and the fog has now rolled in to nearly the central part of the outfield. That's how long the inning to play! And it still was damp and yucky.

For Jackson, I was hoping the inning was not going to be long enough for where the fog may take effect somewhere.

Immediately, Fossati got in trouble by walking Wilson. From the side of the Jaguars' first base dugout, I could see Aires visibly upset. And when she threw a first-pitch ball to Wilson, Aires came out.

That was it for Fossati, who had her moments of trepidation in the circle, but was still in control of this game at 9-5 with three outs to get. What could possibly go wrong?

Fossati moved to left field, Sherman moved to right field and Barry came out of the game. And in came a freshman who had seen some time in the circle and would become the fulltime Jaguars starter the following year.

This was Dara DeVincenzo's time to shine. The daughter of Freehold Township softball coach John DeVincenzo, now she was asked to come up with the final three outs and secure the victory. That's not asking too much of a freshman, is it?

DeVincenzo got the count to 3-2, but walked Wilson to put runners on first and second with no outs. Friedman would loft a flyball to right fielder Sherman for the first out. Now, though, DeVincenzo had to face the teeth of the Central lineup.

Zellman was what we call the "trouble maker" of the Golden Eagles lineup. Her bunt eventually led to the first Central run and ultimately, a 5-5 tie a couple of innings later. She fell behind 0-2. Then she hit a groundball that she was going to beat on the right side of the field for an infield hit. But instead of swallowing the ball, Rocca made the mistake of throwing it past Williams and into dead-ball territory, scoring Pepper to make it 9-6, but both runners were now in scoring position.

What happened next was about to make things worse and intriguing. On the first pitch, Homage hit a grounder to Gleason at shortstop. The Jaguars were going to concede the run to get an out, but the moisture and dampness did something terrible and Gleason's throw went astray for another two-base error, scoring both Wilson and Zellman and moving Homage into scoring position.

Worse, it was 9-8 with Jackson holding on by its fingernails. After the walk to Wilson, DeVincenzo was throwing good pitches to Central hitters, but could only get one out in the deal.

Out came Homage and in came Meghan Barrett to run for her at second base as Winkelried was needing some extra speed for the occasion. Would it be Barrett's older sister, Becky, who would deliver the big hit to send her home? On a 2-2 pitch, the older Barrett grounded out to Gleason, this time taking the time to throw an accurate strike to Williams.

But Meghan Barrett was 70 feet away from tying this game ... again.

It came down to Penniman, who was 0-for-2 with a walk and an RBI. She had a good hack at DeVincenzo's first offering, but fouled it out of play. With the 0-1 count, I'm thinking, "Dara, just throw the ball at the corner of the strike zone and down or jam her. Whatever you do, don't give her anything good to hit!"

On the very next pitch, Penniman got a pitch she could handle and hit a flyball toward left field.

I'm watching Fossati out in left field thinking she can line this ball up. But there was the fog about to play havoc on her and Jackson's hopes of moving on. By the time Fossati had picked up the ball in that fog, she was starting to chase it down behind her. Meghan Barrett scored and Penniman did not stop until she slid into third base with a triple, popped back up and gave Winkelried an emphatic high-five.

Jackson 9, Central 9. How could this happen? Why did it happen? Well, you know the circumstances from reading those last few graphs on the bottom half of the seventh. As Central fans began to vociferously cheer and Jackson fans were trying to encourage their daughters and friends on that field, only one thought came to my mind.

Please don't go into extra innings. It's 10:27 p.m. and this game and day have gone on too long since I'm the one who had to beat a 12:30 a.m. deadline to write BOTH stories. Lucky me!

But all those worries went away with Tice. It was earlier in the seventh the senior was taken out of the circle by Winkelried and placed in right field while Pepper got to finish it up.

It was one pitch ... one pitch only. A high pitch that Tice thrived on. She laced her shot into left field to score Penniman and end the game in an improbably 10-9 victory. Just 20 minutes later, I was ready to write Central's obituary and the greatness the team generated in the '96 and '97 seasons, including that state championship.

Now it was Central mobbing Tice after her hit, happy she was the one who delivered the RBI smack. And while that was happening, I was watching Leonard leave to go back to the dugout in absolute shock. Jackson players walked to the dugout like it was a funeral procession. Aires and his brother, Marco, who helped him that season, did all they could to keep the players' spirits up.

But it was the end of the season for the Jaguars at 14-11. How do you even try to find a positive after seeing your season end like that -- the walks, the costly errors, the triple that got lost in the fog and the single that ripped their collective hears out? How?

I quickly grabbed Winkelried and talked to him about his win and he was grateful for the effort his team put into it by not just coming back once, but twice. I packed up all my PA gear, got into my car and sped back to the Observer office to type in two agates and then the details on the two games in one story.

Looking back, this was the greatest Ocean County Softball Tournament game ever. Just when Jackson had this game won and had the opportunity to become the first team in the history of the tournament to win back-to-back titles, Central Regional came back to win this thriller.

And five nights later on the same East field, Central and North played another classic. It ended with Zellman hitting a solo home run in the bottom of the ninth inning off Anderson in her final high school at-bat for the 2-1 victory.

Within those five days, the two greatest games in the tournament's history were played.

Jackson would make it back to the OCT final the next two years and lose to North in 1998 and beat East in 1999. Central Regional would lose in back-to-back years to Anderson's North Mariners, but in 2000, the Golden Eagles would win their last of eight OCT crowns, beating Pinelands in the final.

When I have to talk about this game between Central and Jackson in 1997, it's hard to really describe in in a few years. Jackson got a big lead, Central tied it. Jackson took a four-run lead into the bottom of the seventh, only to have Central score five times to win it.

Let's just say I was proud to witness it and report about every detail in the end.

Even the fog that had the final say.