Talk about your superstitions. St. Dominic Academy softball coach Dave Majewski was spotted at last Saturday’s HCIAA Coviello Division championships enjoying a bit of nostalgia, courtesy of a good luck feeling the coach had. He was wearing an old New York Giants baseball cap, instead of anything resembling the Blue Devils’ logo. In his pocket was a baseball card, also featuring an artifact of the 1950s New York baseball era, from a memorable place called the Polo Grounds.
Majewski was seen clutching the old baseball card, encased in a protective plastic holder. The card was of old-time player and eventual manager Eddie Stanky, who was never a superstar, but was a player who was near and dear to legendary Giants manager Leo Durocher.
“Leo Durocher once said that Eddie Stanky can’t hit, can’t throw, can’t run and can’t field, but all he does is win,” said Majewski, who was compared to Stanky by an old-time sportswriter when Majewski was a baseball player at Hudson Catholic in the early 1990s.
Majewski was so impressed that he was compared to an old-time legend that he went out and purchased his card. Last Saturday, Majewski pulled out all the nostalgic stops to give his team any edge they could get. He believed his team had the same characteristics that Durocher said Stanky had.
“Well, that’s what this team is all about,” Majewski said. “We don’t do a lot of things well. We don’t have players that people want to talk about. People don’t think we’re that good. But we keep winning.”
That’s exactly what happened during the HCIAA Coviello Division regular season, when Majewski’s Blue Devils didn’t lose a single game, taking on all comers, even though skeptics didn’t believe they were a dominant team – despite being the defending league champions.
“To think that the team that no one had belief in could actually go undefeated in the league is a wonderful experience,” Majewski said.
But the final game in the undefeated run wasn’t going to be an easy one, considering the final opponent was rival Holy Family Academy of Bayonne, which had faced the Blue Devils five times over the last two seasons, all five contests being thrilling nail-biters. It would be only fitting that the sixth meeting between the two highly competitive teams would be of the same variety.
When the Blue Devils fell behind, 2-0, early in the game, most teams might have sensed a little panic. After all, the Blue Devils were facing HFA ace Lacey Skowronski, perhaps the most powerful pitcher in Hudson County. A comeback would not be easy. But the Blue Devils never wavered.
“I told myself that when we were losing, 1-0, that it was only one run,” said senior outfielder Holly Fagan. “Then, when they scored the second run, I said that it was only two. We’ve come back all season long. I knew that we would come back strong.”
“I was never nervous,” junior pitcher Leigh Ann Murduca said. “I trusted my teammates would come back.”
Sure enough, the Blue Devils chipped away at the lead. Fagan keyed two different rallies, driving in a run with a triple and scoring another run on a double by the reliable Roxanne Schneider.
When the dust cleared, SDA had another one-run victory over the snake-bitten Falcons, this time taking a 3-2 decision that enabled the Blue Devils to capture their second consecutive HCIAA Coviello title and finish the remarkable season without a single local blemish.
“When we’re down, we do a really good job of picking each other up,” said Fagan, who was named the game’s Most Valuable Player. “Especially mentally. A lot of what we do is mental.”
Just how much? Try this one on for size. The Blue Devils regularly partake in yoga instruction, coming to school 45 minutes before the first bell in the morning to get mentally and physically prepared.
“It helps with stretching and it helps with play making,” Majewski said.
It’s been said that it’s one thing to win one championship, but a totally different thing to repeat. Three of the four champions crowned Saturday were able to repeat, but perhaps none was sweeter than the one the Blue Devils enjoyed.
“It feels good to win again,” Murduca said. “Holy Family is a great team and we knew we were going to have to be at our best to beat them. It wasn’t expected for us to be able to win again, but we all worked so hard to get back here. It’s great to get another chance to win.”
“It’s good to know that our hard work paid off,” Fagan said. “We began working during the off-season, both on our offense and our defense. Since this is my last year, I’m glad we won again. We left no doubts. It was a good feeling for me to be able to come through in the clutch.”
Just like Eddie Stanky used to do some 50 years ago. – Jim Hague