Controversial call helps Tigers defeat Hudson Catholic
Veteran Memorial High School baseball coach Tony Ferrainolo doesn’t want to harp on how his team captured the HCIAA Coviello Division baseball championship last Saturday at Caven Point Cochrane Stadium. He’d rather much talk about the fact that the Tigers did, in fact, win the game, giving them an impressive 24-1 record, including the last 23 wins in a row.
“We won it,” Ferrainolo said. “We won the championship. We deserve it. It’s not like we took anything away from Hudson Catholic. We won the game. These kids have come down there (to the HCIAA finale at Cochrane) for three straight years and came away with nothing. They deserved to enjoy a championship.”
Sure enough, after the dust cleared and after everyone was long gone home, the Tigers were the ones clutching the trophy on the way back to West New York. Ferrainolo had indeed brought his team to four straight county title games, only to lose to St. Peter’s Prep each time. So redemption, in this case, was certainly sweet.
Perhaps bittersweet is a better term to use. Because the Tigers received some gigantic help in the form of an apparent blown call by umpire Vin Stapleton, a call that totally changed the emotional state of the game.
With Memorial batting in the bottom of the sixth inning, trailing Hudson Catholic, 2-0, the Tigers rallied to load the bases with no out. Up stepped Wilfredo “Kiki” DelValle, ready to face the Hawks’ ace flamethrower John Walsh.
On the second pitch, DelValle hit a long drive to left-center field that was clearly going to elude the Hawks’ outfield and appeared to take a high bounce on the artificial turf, some 20 feet in front of the fence, and hopped over the fence for what appeared to be a ground-rule double. DelValle thought it was a double as well, because he stopped running when he hit second base. The double should have tied the score at 2-2.
But for some reason, Stapleton believed the ball traveled over the fence on a fly and signaled for a home run, which would put Memorial ahead, 4-2, instead of tying the game at 2-2.
“I did signal for a home run,” Ferrainolo said. “But it could possibly have bounced.”
Hudson Catholic head coach Derek England raced out onto the field to speak to Stapleton.
“I just asked him to ask the other umpires for help,” England said. “He said that he would do that.”
The three-man crew convened for a few moments, then announced that the call would stand as a grand-slam homer and four runs for Memorial. Sure enough, that’s how the game ended, with Memorial holding a 4-2 lead.
Apparently, the umpires were the only three people at the game who didn’t see the ball bounce over the fence. One reporter went to measure the distance where the ball hit the turf and bounced. He walked off 36 feet in front of the fence. How Stapleton didn’t see that ball hit the turf and bounce over the fence is beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.
“I think he must have got a bad angle on the ball,” England said. “I think he just missed it. The other two umpires said that they didn’t see it at all, that they were watching other things.”
To England’s credit, he didn’t belabor the call.
“It’s disappointing, definitely disappointing,” England said. “But if we dwell on that, we’re done. Hopefully, we’ll be able to shake it off and play (Pope John of Sparta) in the (NJSIAA Parochial A) state playoffs. We played so well and were so close to winning. The call definitely took the wind out of our sails. But I told the kids that part of the game is human error. Even an umpire’s mistake shouldn’t take it all away from you.”
England said that the Hawks had to play under some adversity. Their leading hitter and standout catcher Rick Tauber was home in bed with a bad case of strep throat. Their third leading hitter Tom Bender played a few innings, but had to leave early to attend his sister’s wedding.
“Hopefully, there will come a time, maybe three or four years down the road, that this all won’t mean that much,” England said. “But it’s tough right now. It just wasn’t in the cards and we have to move on. It’s done.”
Meanwhile, Ferrainolo is trying to focus on the fact that his team won the title, the school’s first since 1998 and the ninth HCIAA championship in Ferrainolo’s illustrious career. Ferrainolo wants to focus on the great pitching performance he received from Luis Fernandez, who surrendered just five hits and allowed just one earned run.
“It’s not tainted at all,” Ferrainolo said. “These kids have worked real hard and have had a rewarding year. I feel great for my kids. I’ve been in big games over the years and had some calls go against us. So many things can happen in this game. Even if the ball bounced and it could have, we still would have had second and third with no outs and a tie score. I still would have liked my chances.”
Added Ferrainolo: “Both teams played real hard. We were trailing, we never quit and came back to score some runs in the sixth. My kids rose to the occasion. Sure, there was controversy, but I still think we deserved to win and these kids finish their careers as county champs, which is fine with me.”
Ferrainolo tried to sum up the situation as best as possible.
“There are some tough wins and there are tough losses,” Ferrainolo said. “I guess this is a tough win. But it gives our kids something to talk about.”
Unfortunately, so will many other people – not that Memorial won the game, but how the game was won. It will be the topic of conversation for many years to come, until Hudson Catholic gets a shot at the redemption Memorial received with the controversial call last Saturday.