(Picture from the Long Beach PONY website)
Long Beach has been home to all kinds of champions over the years: CIF champs, Big West champs, often state champs and occasionally national champs. But it is rare that we see what we saw Saturday morning on Fox Sports: Long Beach World Champions. Thanks to the Long Beach PONY All-Stars, we are now home to a team bearing that distinction.
The game was as dramatic as it could have been: they’d made it into the championship with dominating play, going undefeated through their bracket. But they looked good last year, as well, when they made it to the championship before falling, becoming “only” the second best team in the world. It was clear to anyone watching that nobody on the team was going to let that happen this team. Playing a team from Taiwan that had dominated their side of the action, the team from Long Beach showed grit, determination, and a ton of talent. Ace pitcher Chase DeJong didn’t have his best game, but still looked good, and his defense rallied behind him, showing a true team spirit.
The game was three days ago, so an extended recap isn’t necessary; writing about the ending of the game, sure to go down in history as a magical moment in Long Beach sports, is. Down 2-1 in the bottom of the final inning, the boys from Long Beach were still sniffing victory. Matt Maccarrone hit a nice little single off the first pitch thrown to him, and then the Long Beach coaches made maybe the best decision of the tourney: they put Oliver Van Buskirk in as a pinch hitter. He fouled off the first pitch, and then smacked the second one out over the centerfield fence, a two-run walk off homerun that gave the All-Stars, and their hometown, a world championship.
According to the team’s website, DeJong and Buskirk’s jerseys were taken by officials to be put on display, one in Cooperstown and the other in the PONY International Hall of Fame. They arrived home on Sunday, and bused to their home turf, Whaley Park (where the Dirtbags got their start) to greet their fans. It surely won’t be the first victory lap the team gets to take together—nor should it be; to win a title of this magnitude, and in such dramatic fashion, is an incredible achievement that should be celebrated by every resident of this city. We’ll have more on the team’s celebrations as we learn of them, but one thing to do right now is mark your calendar for next year’s PONY All-Star season, in July, and for 2009’s high school baseball season—a lot of these kids are playing for Andy Hall at Wilson next season, and they’ll still need your support!
Congrats to manager Ken Jakemer, and coaches Rick Romo and Victor Merill, and all of the All-Stars:
Chase DeJong, Avery Flores, Thomas Walker, Soloman Williams, Cody Elder, Brett Harper, Irie Elizalde, Matt Maccarrone, Oliver Van Buskirk, Daniel DeWolf, Jake Hardy, Matthew Heavin, Victor Martinez, and Ty Provencher.