STATEN ISLAND — Hopefully, this isn’t a sign of things to come.
The Brooklyn Cyclones dropped the opener of their 13th season in the borough to the hated Staten Island Yankees despite the fact that pitcher Robert “Silent G” Gsellman gave up just two unearned runs in five innings of work.
But all the Clones could muster offensively was a seventh-inning homer from James “Papa” Roche, and the Brooklyns fell 2–1.
Gsellman undoing came in the second, when two singles sandwiched between a hit batsmen loaded the bases with one out. The pitcher got Bubba Jones to pop up for the second out of the inning and appeared to get out of the jam when he induced a ground ball to Anthony Chavez at third. But Chavez threw the ball away, allowing the first run of the game to score.
The error seemed to rattle Gsellman, who pitched for the Savannah “Silent G” Sand Gnats earlier in the season, as he walked the next batter, forcing in the run which would turn out to be the difference in the game.
Third-year manager Rich Donnelly, who literally has seen it all during his professional baseball career, chalked up the loss to first-game jitters.
“It was a pretty good game by two teams with a lot of players that hadn’t played pro ball before,” Cyclones manager Rich Donnelly said. “This first week is like the first time you ever did anything in your life. Everything is going fast.”
But it wasn’t all bad news for the Cyclones.
As we predicted L.J. “Mini-Maz” Mazzilli, the highly touted son of former Met Lee Mazzilli, had a stellar professional debut, going 2-for-4 and once again impressing his coach.
“(L.J.’s) been around, and knows what’s going on,” Donnelly said. “That’s how much confidence I have in him. It’s going to be fun to watch him all year. He can do some things with the bat.”
The Cyclones will attempt to extract revenge on the team known to fans as the Evil Empire of the New York-Penn League tonight during its home opener at the refurbished MCU Park, which now features artificial turf. First pitch is at 7 pm. Gates open at 6.
