Teams, grounds crew persevere through rain

BANGOR – Mike Brach, manager of the Freehold Township (N.J.) Senior League team, said Saturday was the “longest day of my life in sports.”

A steady rain, punctuated by heavy downpours, had threatened to wipe out his team’s Senior League World Series championship game against the El Rio Little League of Oxnard, Calif.

And since the teams had flights booked for Sunday morning, postponing the game wasn’t an option.

They had to play Saturday or return to Freehold and Oxnard as co-champions.

The rain finally stopped and Freehold Township, the U.S. East champ, triumphed 10-1.

“We were just wondering what was going to happen. We really wanted to get out here and play it. We didn’t want to finish it that way [as co-champs]. I can’t say enough about the [grounds] crew here and the people. They did a fantastic job to give us a chance to do this. It’s all because of them,” said Brach. “They’re great people here. I couldn’t believe how good the field was considering all the rain we had. These guys do an unbelievable job. It was an unbelievable experience.”

El Rio manager Pancho Tinoco said the rain delay “put a little stress on our kids. They were restless. But they [Freehold] had to deal with the same thing. I knew the field would be in excellent shape. The grounds crew is magnificent.”

Freehold Township first baseman-third baseman Ryan Cuneo said he and his teammates were elated when they found out they were going to play.

“Nobody wanted to be co-champions. Everybody wanted to have a victory and a celebration like this one,” said Cuneo. “It was rough sitting around not knowing if you were going to play or not. We were praying we were going to play. When we heard we were going to play, everybody started getting pumped up.”

He said he was surprised they were able to get the game in and that the field conditions were as good as they were.

“This is an unbelievable field. I don’t think any other field could hold water like this one,” said Cuneo. “They have great people who take such good care of it. They had downpours all day but the field was in great condition. The ball got a little wet but that was it. There were no real puddles and there was no sogginess.”

The game originally was scheduled to start at 1 p.m. but due to the rain, tournament director Mike Brooker pushed it back to an 8 p.m. starting time.

“My dilemma was trying to make a reasonable assumption when we were going to be able to play. I didn’t want to say we’ll go at three and then postpone it. Or that we’ll go at five and then postpone it.

“I had to make a reasonable assumption when the weather was going to clear enough to let us play,” added Brooker. “We guessed pretty good.”

Brooker had access to several weather services on the Internet and he speculated that the rain would end around 7 p.m.

Brooker and field director Ron St. Pierre knew they would get the game in if the rain stopped.

“I was very confident,” said St. Pierre. “I figured the minute it stopped raining, we’d take the tarp off and, within an hour, we’d be able to play on it.

“I have a tremendous amount of confidence in our drainage system, obviously.”

“It rained for about 18 hours beginning at midnight until 7 o’clock tonight and we were playing an hour and five minutes after pulling the tarp off,” said Brooker.

And they had plenty of help pulling the tarp off the field, nearly 40 people at one point.

“The New Jersey parents were here at 10 a.m. looking into the situation and when I told them it would be late evening before we’d be able to get going, they said we’re here and we’ll do whatever you need to help. I said I can use some help pulling the tarp and they said they’ve done that before. So there were 10 or 12 of them helping us pull the tarp as well as the stadium grounds crew and volunteers. The [12] umpires came out and helped also,” said Brooker.

“We’re used to doing that at home so there was no reason we couldn’t help here,” said Randy Elo, father of Freehold Township pitcher-first baseman Jason Elo and vice president of the league.

St. Pierre and his crew dispersed the water from the tarp with their plows; used tractors in the outfield to “knock the drops sticking to the blades of grass down” in order to keep the baseballs as dry as possible and used a drop cloth with a rake on it to do the same to the infield grass.

They also used Turface, a baked clay substance, on the mound.

“It soaks up water like a sponge. The mound was perfectly dry [thanks to the tarp] but when the pitchers step off it onto the grass, their cleats get wet and the [regular] dirt on the mound sticks to their feet. Turface doesn’t stick to anything,” said St. Pierre.

“I was nervous when I heard thunder and lightning but then the rain started to let up and I knew they’d work on it and we’d get it in,” said Freehold Township shortstop A.J. Rusbarsky. “The field was great. I never expected it to be like this.”