Oneonta, N.Y., is a city of less than 14,000 people. Brooklyn, N.Y., is a borough of 2.6 million, many of them Cyclone fanatics.
But when it comes to baseball talent, Oneonta isn’t so small. Sure, as an affiliate of the Detroit Tigers they are part of an organization that hasn’t won in years. What does that mean? It means that the Detroit organization has been rewarded with high draft choices because of low finishes. Many of these draft choices wind up at Oneonta — and this year, it showed.
So it took some fine pitching and smart baseball from the Cyclones to grab last week’s playoff series against the Tigers to advance to the New York-Penn League championship.
Brooklyn hit only .211 in the series, blew a 2-0 lead in game two and needed 10 innings to win the rubber game.
How was the winning run scored? A dramatic homer? Not exactly.
Brooklyn didn’t hit any home runs in the deciding game. They didn’t hit any home runs in the first two games of the series either.
The Brooks won the series on a bases-loaded walk.
So the Cyclones didn’t demolish Oneonta, but they accomplished their goal — to get to the championship series against Williamsport, and Bensonhurst’s Anthony Bocchino, the noted Cyclone nemesis.
Play ball!
The series started in upstate Oneonta. Before an announced crowd of only 525, Brooklyn starter Evan MacLane pitched five innings, allowing only one run. He gave up five hits and fanned six.
The Cyclones took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Jon Slack led off the game with a triple and scored on a single by Rashad Parker. The Tigers tied the game in the third, but the Clones scored another run in the fourth when Matt Watson tripled and later scored on an RBI groundout by Aaron Baldiris.
The Brooks took a 3-1 lead in the seventh when Brett Harper doubled and scored on David Reaver’s single.
After Oneonta cut the led to 4-2 in the eighth, the Cyclones broke open the game with a four-run ninth inning. The Clones put men on first and second when Aaron Baldiris led off the inning with a walk and Ian Bladergroen reached on an error. Then Harper hit a double down the right field line to drive in both base runners. After catcher Yunir Garcia walked, Slack and Parker followed with RBI singles to run the score to 7-2.
Robert Paulk threw a scoreless ninth to close out the game.
Back in B’klyn
The next night, in Brooklyn, Oneonta evened the series with a come from behind 4-2 triumph.
Brooklyn broke a scoreless tie with two runs in the fourth inning when Slack’s two-out popup was dropped by Tony Giarrantano. The Tigers scored a run in the fifth and took the lead with two more runs in the seventh. Oneonta added one more run in the eighth on a wild pitch.
Reliever Yusimeiro Petit took the loss.
In the final game, played again at Keyspan, Vincent Cordova started for the Cyclones, pitching six innings, and giving up two runs (both earned) on four hits.
The Tigers scored first when they pushed across a run in the third. Vincent Blue led off the inning with a walk. With one out, Eric Rodland tripled down the right field line to score Blue.
The Tigers scored again in the sixth. After one out, Kody Kirkland singled. Then Burgos hit a towering shot to deep center field.
Center fielder Slack immediately turned his back to home plate, running as fast as he could before making the catch.
“I check the wind in between each inning and it was coming in from right center,” Slack explained. “When he hit it I took off after it with my back to the plate and when I looked up at the ball again it was channeling toward left center and I had to angle that way. I didn’t want to take my eye off it and I just watched it over my shoulder and I caught it like a wide receiver and it stuck in my glove.”
Brooklyn tied the game in the bottom of the sixth. Slack walked. After Parker struck out, Watson singled to left, Slack advancing to second. Baldiris singled to center, scoring Slack. Harper then worked a walked, loading the bases.
“He [the pitcher] was working me away a lot,” said Harper. “On the 0-1 pitch it was down and away, and it was pretty borderline, and I asked the ump, ‘Where did you have that?’ And he said, ‘Down and out,’ so I kind of knew where his zone was. The last three pitches were just where that other one was, so I knew to lay off them and they were called balls.”
Ian Bladergroen was up next, and he, too, used good baseball sense.
“He had thrown the first pitch to me the last time up right down the middle,” said the Blade, “so I was looking for a fastball strike on the first pitch, and he did just that, so I was able to drive a fly to left.”
Bladergroen lofted the ball to left and Watson scored on the sacrifice fly to tie the game at 2.
Brian Bannister came in to pitch for the Cyclones in the seventh and worked two innings of scoreless relief.
In the top of the ninth, Robert Paulk took the mound for Brooklyn and Paulk also pitched two scoreless innings, receiving the victory when the Cyclones won the game in the 10th inning.
Have heart
Slack led off the 10th with a walk, his third free pass of the contest. Parker bunted to sacrifice Slack to second. Watson was intentionally walked. Oneonta changed pitchers, bringing in Manuel Contreras, who walked Baldiris. Stacy Bennett pinch hit for Andy Wilson and Bennett drew a walk to force in the game-winning run.
“I found out something about this team,” said manager Tim Teufel after the game. “They’ve got heart. They came from behind to win.”
They played with heart and they played it smart.
Home runs were lacking, but the pitching was strong.
So Brooklyn advanced to the finals. Williamsport is a small city, like Oneonta. They also have a good club — and they have Bocchino, a player Cyclones fans would love to see move up the minor league chain of the Pittsburgh Pirates next year.
September 15, 2003 issue
