After the death of veteran District 7 coordinator Carmine Conti last year, two worthy and highly knowledgeable baseball men, namely veteran umpires Gene Klumpp, Sr. and Tony Saltarelli, were selected to fill the gigantic shoes left by Conti’s passing.
One of the things that long-time friends Klumpp and Saltarelli wanted to address was the fact that the All-Star teams only played two games in District 7 tournament.
"We wanted the kids to get more games in," said Klumpp, who watched the tournament last weekend in a wheelchair, just a few days after having both knees replaced. "I’m a kids’ man and everyone knows it. We wanted the kids to play."
So, instead of simply playing two games in the tournament, Klumpp and Saltarelli devised a round-robin format, where all of the 12 teams in the tournament played five games, instead of just two. Then, the teams with the best records would face off in the best-of-three championship series.
Sounds easy enough, no?
Well, the best laid plans didn’t exactly turn out the way they were expected. And the simple round-robin format evolved into a tenuous position, when three teams, Pershing Field, Hoboken North and Secaucus, all finished their pool play with identical 4-1 records.
West New York American was the lone undefeated team in the tournament, with a 5-0 mark, so they advanced to the finals.
But how did the administrators decide which one of the other three teams would face WNY American? By a silly run differential rule, established, incredibly, by the international Little League baseball organization out of Williamsport, Pa.
So since Pershing Field had allowed the fewest runs in its five games, they were able to advance in the tournament. At the same time, Hoboken North and Secaucus were sent home, even though those teams had identical records to Pershing Field.
Hoboken North had even more of a legitimate complaint, because they defeated Pershing Field, 3-2, in head-to-head competition.
The move has angered representatives from both leagues and put the new administrators in a quandary. They tried to do something good for the kids, giving them a chance to play more games, and the experiment blew up in their faces, when equally worthy kids are sent home.
"Having all those teams finish 4-1 really hurt us," Klumpp said. "It’s unfortunate that it turned out that way. We never expected that it would. But we had to go by the Little League rules, and that’s what made it tough. In the past, teams would come into the tournament, get beat, and go home. We wanted to give them more games, give them something to be proud of. We knew that there was always a chance that something like this could happen, but we really didn’t think it would."
So what can they do?
"I don’t know what way we’ll go for next year," Klumpp said. "The kids put so much time and effort into playing. We just wanted to give them a reward for their hard work."
Here’s an idea. They can start the tournament earlier and play the earlier round games at more than one site throughout the county. Also, they can schedule one playoff game for each division; this way, if there is a tie, the tie can be broken on the field, not by silly run-differential rules.
Getting scoring involved as a criteria whether a team should advance or not only sets a bad precedent and a bad example, where teams will be trying to humiliate other teams, simply for the run-differential rule. No one wants to see a team "run up" a score, especially in the innocent and playful world of Little League baseball.
"It was a great turnout and we crowned a great champion," said Klumpp, who had his physical therapist push him in the wheelchair the nine blocks from St. Francis Hospital downtown Jersey City to the Enos Jones Baseball Complex.
That feat alone shows Klumpp’s dedication to Little League baseball. He deserves a flier on a good idea gone sour and here’s to hoping that there are slight changes to the format for the 2003 tournament. – Jim Hague