By The TimesLedger
The Vitality Drug All-Stars had a prescription for winning. Their 9-4 record ranked them as one of the top four teams in this summer’s annual Rosenbluth Tournament for 9- and 10-year-olds.
“The Glen Oaks Little League has not produced a team that faired this well in quite some time,” said manager Bob Kruczowy. “Our toughest competition has always been against Forest Hills, Elmjack, Bayside, and in most recent years DAC. These other little leagues are generally larger in size which for Glen Oaks has always made it tough to compete against — but not this year. Our boys just simply played great baseball and never gave up.”
Having drawn the most difficult schedule, the Glen Oaks team went into this last week of tournament play needing to win two of its last three games to make the playoffs. Glen Oaks won its first game over their other Glen Oaks counterparts. The next two games were by far the most exciting games imaginable.
In the second game, Glen Oaks squared off against the first place team from Forest Hills. Trailing by six runs in the fifth, Glen Oaks came back to tie the game 8-8. Forest Hills scored another run to go ahead in the top of the inning, but once again Glen Oaks came back to tie the game and had the winning run at second base. But the Forest Hills pitching came through and stuck out the last two batters leaving the winning run stranded at second.
Darkness ended the game in the seventh in a 9-9 tie, leaving Glen Oaks with only one game left in a must-win situation. This game had Glen Oaks paired against an always tough Bayside team.
The game would prove to be the best game overall for both teams, as great pitching timely hitting and solid defense had the scored tied at 4-4 going into the fifth inning. Bayside, however, was able to push across two more runs in their half of the inning to take a 6-4 lead. Glen Oaks once again fought back and had the tying runs on base, but Bayside was not to be denied as they made two great plays to end the Glen Oaks rally and the team’s last shot to make the playoffs.
Both teams lined up after the game to congratulate each other and the Bayside coach told our boys that that was the best game he had played all summer, Glen Oaks was quick to agree.
The 2002 Vitality Drug All-Stars: Jeremy Goldberg, Sam Hoffman, Matt Kruczowy, Carlos Rodriguez, Kevin McCarthy, Josh Weinstein, Mike Mandarin, Steven Trummer, Justin Namit, Vincent Antanuchi, Mike Labrada, Tyler Brodney and John Rubeneau.
