6^th Annual Alumni Baseball Weekend--6/10--6/12/11

Our 6^th annual Alumni Baseball weekend was certainly one to remember.  It started with an 18 hole golf scramble at the Deerwood Golf Course in North Tonawanda.  We had 21 golfers attend.  Two teams ending tied for the best score of -7.   The team of Jack Pittsley('73), Jon Holden('77), Brian Graham('77) and Bob Honadle('77) tied the coaches team of Tim Racey, Chris Prezioso, Nate Beutel('05) and Sark.  Longest drives (Pittsley and Marc Chaffee('05)) and closest to the pin awards(Alex Boyce('07), Pittsley and Rob Pusateri('88) -2 times) were also given out.

The baseball game was a slugfest.  Team Garnet, the odd year grads, came out strong scoring 16 runs in the first 3 innings.  Team Grey, alumni from the even years, took a while to get started but finished strong enough to throw a scare into Team Garnet but it wasn’t enough as the Garnet Spartans won 24 to 17.

Derek Speaker (’07) led all hitters with a record setting day.  Derek did better than hitting for the cycle with a home run, triple, double and two singles.  Nate Beutel (’05) had three hits and Marc Chaffee(’05), Cory Clark (’05), Kyle Kozlowski (‘07)and Ross Johnston (’07) all had two hits. The oldest player on the winners was Jack Pittsley from the Class of ‘73.

Team Grey had the oldest player participating, John Jenks from the Class of 1966.  He got to play with his son Jacob (’04).  John could still swing the bat as he had two hits on the day.  The Grey’s were led by Mike Koziol('04) who had a double and two home runs.  Paul and Andy Lane (’10) both had two hits.  Brendan Reinert('10) and Justin Tate('00) each had three hits.

Our umpire, again this year, was Marv Otto (’71).  This year Marv asked to take a few swings at the end of the game.  Marv said he hadn’t swung a bat for about ten years but it didn’t take long to see why he achieved Hall of Fame status at Starpoint when he took the third pitch 350 feet out of the park over the right field fence.  At that point Marv said he had had enough.  Check the picture of the home run swing.

Again, we provided hot dogs and drinks for all the players and all the fans who came to support their favorite alumni player.  It was a great day with the public address system in the hands of Coach Racey announcing each player and playing music throughout the game.  The players said they are all looking forward to next year already.  The tentative alumni baseball weekend for next year will be June 8-10, 2012.