Wait 'til Next Year! 'Big Game Curse' to be Overthrown
Published on September 23, 2004 under Atlantic League (AtL)
Bridgeport Bluefish News Release
There we were, my 10- and 11-year old sons, and my wife, and 3,500 fans cheering on our team as we tied the Road Warriors, 2-2, in the fifth inning of last Sunday's Bluefish regular season finale at the Ballpark at Harbor Yard. Just as we tied the score, my son Mickey, with a portable radio to his lead, listening to a Long Island broadcast, announced that Cole Liniak had singled for the Ducks to tie up their game against Nashua, also 2-2, in the top of the sixth inning. We were bringing in to pitch one of our ace relievers, T. J. Mathews, and the Ducks were bringing in All-Star pitcher Lance Davis (with Joe Cotton and Bill Simas in the bullpen). For the next ten minutes or so, I felt like we were actually going to pull it off, "it" being our seventeenth victory over the Road Warriors in eighteen games while the Ducks were going to find a way to eke out a victory over the Pride. However, it all came unraveled in the next few minutes as the "big game curse" (which has haunted our team ever since that improbable loss in the playoffs last year up in Nashua) prevailed and we fell to the Road Warriors 3-2, and the Ducks succumbed to Nashua 5-3. So despite having the second best record in the league (see below), we became the last Atlantic League team to be eliminated from the four-team playoffs which began two nights ago. A full seven games ahead of both the Long Island Ducks and the Nashua Pride!
Go ahead and call it sour grapes, but here's how the teams in the Atlantic League finished up:
Team Won Lost G.B.
Camden Riversharks 76 49 -
Bridgeport Bluefish 72 54 4.5
Atlantic City Surf 71 54 5.0
Somerset Patriots 68 58 8.5
Nashua Pride 65 61 11.5
Long Island Ducks 65 61 11.5
Newark Bears 63 63 13.5
Pa. Road Warriors 23 103 53.5
So, in the Southern Division, you had the #1 and #3 teams playing each other, with the #1 team (Camden) advancing to the Championship Series, while in the Northern Division, you had the #5 and #6 teams playing each other (tied at one game apiece at this moment). It's not really sour grapes, folks. Our team knew the rules all along, and we have certainly abided by those rules in the past when they have worked to our advantage. The biggest frustration, of course, is that of not being able this season to overcome that "big game curse".
It seems fitting that this editor would write some post-mortem essay on this Bluefish season, especially with all the riveting games we played throughout the entire year. Maybe I actually will write that essay later this fall, but suffice it to say that it truly was an extraordinary year, marked with exhilarating highs and devastating lows. For me personally, this was the year my two youngest sons, Mickey, age 11, and Charlie, age 10, became passionate Bluefish fans. No more would I trek off to Bluefish games alone. They insisted on coming to every home game, and pestered me to take them to every other ballpark in the league when the Bluefish went on the road. Mickey was at overnight camp and had to miss most of that incredible weekend series in early July against the Ducks, and he also missed the All-Star game that followed, so we sent him detailed e-mails to his camp to keep him up to date. Meanwhile, Charlie and I had a memorable trip to the All-Star game and its festivities, and promised Mickey that we'd be sure he joined us next summer for those same festivities during the All-Star break in Atlantic City.
Despite the disappointment with the way our season ended, the very fact that we had another great year, and provided terrific entertainment at the Ballpark at Harbor Yard for the 243,000 fans who came to the ballpark has already energized us to begin preparations for the 2005 season. It's no secret that sustaining the Bluefish team here in Bridgeport is a major financial challenge, but we all know what this team means to this city, not just as an outstanding and affordable entertainment venue, but also as an engine in Bridgeport's economic renaissance, and, most importantly, as a compelling symbol of community pride.
Maybe you didn't notice, but as the Bluefish struggled in the month of September, we certainly had one player stand out: Keith Lu'uloa. An All-Star third baseman, Keith was moved to shortstop and then second base as the team struggled with injuries to key players. All Keith did was play all three positions brilliantly, and bat a scorching .375 in September, with some memorable game-winning hits that kept us in the playoff hunt right up to the final game of the season. The most memorable hit he got at home was clearly that three-run home run in the bottom of the seventeenth inning against Camden to give us a 5-2 victory on Labor Day in the longest game ever played at the Ballpark at Harbor Yard. The league hasn't awarded a Player of the Month for September yet, but Lu'uloa is clearly our choice!
Also, speaking of awards, we have two pitchers, Kevin Henthorne and Tim Cain, who are deserving of the Pitcher of the Year award in the Atlantic League. Arguably, the only other contender is Lincoln Mikkelsen of the Riversharks, but Henthorne had a better record and ERA than Mikkelsen (12-3, 2.69 vs. 12-4, 3.01) while Cain had a better record (12-3 vs. 12-4). All three pitchers threw between 150 and 160 innings, with Henthorne's strikeout to walk ratio being far better than Mikkelsen's or Cain's (5.3 vs. 2.4 vs. 2.5). It might hurt Henthorne that he had to return home to Texas in early September for personal reasons, but his statistics speak for themselves.
He played 100 years ago, and many baseball historians consider him the greatest shortstop ever, though he actually played many different positions. His baseball card is the most valuable ever. He's Honus Wagner and Dennis DeValeria and Jeanne Burke DeValeria have written a great book about Wagner, called, appropriately "Honus Wagner: A Biography". Honus was nicknamed the "Flying Dutchman" (it's on his Hall of Fame plaque), and this editor always thought that Wagner was, in fact, of Dutch descent. Not hardly. He was German through and through, from the Deutschland, as it were. One when the Pirates had brought up a promising new player named Johnny Miller, reporters asked Wagner who the new kid was. Wagner replied "that's Miller", but the reporters heard "Dots" Miller, and for the next two decades that Miller played in the big leagues, he was known as Dots Miller. Another great vignette concerns President William Howard Taft, a huge fan of Wagner, who came to see him play a game in Pittsburgh in May, 1910. When Taft stood up in the seventh inning to stretch his portly body (he weighed over 300 pounds), many in the crowd, believing the president was departing, stood as well. As the book reports, this episode is sometimes cited as the origin of the seventh-inning stretch (even though the actual practice predates this 1910 event). The book was published in 1998 and is worth reading. Next up: a biography of Cy Young. Stay tuned.
There will be one more edition of this Volume Four of Mickey's Mail. In it, we'll congratulate the team that actually wins the 2004 Atlantic League championship, and we'll tell you who the league's post-season awards. Then, the very next edition of Mickey's Mail will be the first issue of Volume Five as we build our team and our fan base toward an exciting 2005 season. Hard to believe, but there have been well over 200 of these e-mailings over these past four seasons. For those who actually read them, thanks for paying attention, and thanks for supporting our team
Atlantic League Stories from September 23, 2004
- Wait 'til Next Year! 'Big Game Curse' to be Overthrown - Bridgeport Bluefish
- Commerce Bank Ballpark selected by Baseball America for 2005 Great Parks Calendar - Somerset Patriots
The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.
