Today the focus falls upon another American Legion Baseball game, this from an early July week in 1962 as covered in the pages of The Attleboro Sun. It caught my eye because the athletes in the story were all well known to me, being four-five years older - my pals and I rooted them on throughout their schoolboy years in contests at Hayward Field and the Pine Street National Guard Armory, now the Fred Bartek Recreation Center.
O'Donnell Homer Gives Attleboro 5-2 Victory
FAIRHAVEN - A three-run homer by Vin O'Donnell in the top of the seventh gave Attleboro a 3-2 victory over Fairhaven last night in an American Legion Zone 9 League game here at Cushman Park. The game started out as a pitching duel between Ron Gentili and Ernie Lake. A bad throw by third baseman Hank Sousa in the sixth inning on Mike Bussiere's grounder, after Gentili had tripled, allowed the equalizing run to score.
With one gone in the Attleboro seventh, Jan VanDenBerghe singled to left. Ken Brennan fanned but Dick Smith worked Lake for a walk and set the stage for O'Donnell's long poke to left field. Gentili had little trouble disposing of the Tacktowners in the last inning as darkness was setting in. He got Ralph Tate on a pop to first and fanned pinch hitting Steve Vining then Bob Pires to end the game.
Gentili, who lost two games by 4-3 scores on unearned runs - one of them to Fairhaven - had nine strikeouts, didn't allow a base on balls and gave up just five hits. Lake also yielded five hits and had a dozen strikeouts but issued four free passes.
Fairhaven opened the scoring in the first inning when, with two away, Mike Fitzgerald doubled to right and came home on a single by Bob LeBeau. Another tally was recorded in the third on a single by Earl Macedo, another two-bagger by Fitzgerald and a sacrifice by LeBeau.
Attleboro scored its first run in the top of the fourth on a walk to Dick Smith, a double to left by Gentili and a sacrifice fly to center by Joe Tartufo. The 2-1 score prevailed until the sixth when Attleboro tied the score, and then O'Donnell's circuit clout settled the issue in the final frame. Gentili experienced trouble only in the first two innings that Fairhaven scored. He breezed through the rest of the game.
Yet another nugget of diamond lore from that same week in July (only seven years later..) commemorates an accomplishment very seldom seen in all the seasons of hardball played at Hayward field.
John Rarus, catcher for Attleboro high school, accomplished a feat yesterday that is rarer (no pun intended) in Attleboro baseball than a hole-in-one is in golf. He hit a ball over the fence in fair territory at Hayward field.
The first high school player to hit an over-the-fence homer at Hayward was Danny Gilroy. For many years he was the only one. Even when the New England League had a team here, there were few, if any homers over that fence.
If any high school player since Gilroy in the late 30's has hit a home run at Hayward before Rarus clouted his yesterday, the Sun would like to hear about it so that we may relay the information to the sports fans of the area.
NOTE: I believe I mentioned in an earlier column that I recall Attleboro's Peter Gazzola hitting one over the left-field fence while playing for Coyle High School against Attleboro; now I was a pretty young fella during Pete's high school days, and here, nearly 60 years later, I admit that "inside-the-park" home run may have been mutated into "over-the-fence" home run as the years play tricks on the memory, but the recall does seem vivid. Still, it would seem that enough fans would still be around 12-15 years after Gazzola's feat that they would have informed the paper by the dozen. I hope to return to this matter after researching the sports pages which appeared in the weeks subsequent to Rarus' blast.
In the "small world" department, I went through school with Dan Gilroy's son Paul, who has made a fine career at UMass-Amherst, and my first real job at age of 16 was prepping cars at the former Nerney Ford on West Street. Danny Gilroy was a salesman there and became a good friend; so along with a talent for hitting the long ball, he was a quality individual, and Paul is following in his footsteps...
To any of you who may have sent thoughts, prayers or donations to "Ayden's Army" in support of Ayden Nyberg, the 9-year-old Cumberland boy who was waging a courageous battle against cancer, it saddens this writer beyond measure to have to report that Aidan has gone to his well-earned rest in the arms of the infinite.
Please continue prayers and contributions for Cody DesBiennes and Pedro Alicea of the Attleboro Recreation department, both of whom are convalescing from recent cancer-related surgery.
Please be good to one another, and try to do someone a good turn daily; please remember the less fortunate among us, the hungry and the homeless, and please, always make time for kindness. Even amid last week's horrors in Boston, keep in mind that acts of bravery and compassion outnumbered evil by hundreds of thousands to one! Peace...
TOM McAVOY of Attleboro is a community columnist.
