It's playoff time for Tri-County, Blue Mountain

By Keith Groller
Of The Morning Call


The first day of August means different things to different people.

For Eagles fans, it means Bird watching season has arrived. For parents, it's time to pounce on those "Back-to-School" sales, and for kids, it's time to get to savor every free second left before the school bells chime again.

But for local amateur baseball fans, the first day of August means it's playoff time.

Today at two locations -- Emmaus and Scherersville -- the Tri-County League begins its postseason tournament. And within a few days, possibly as early as tomorrow, the Blue Mountain League begins its playoffs.

* In the Tri-Co, the six teams going in have been determined for some time. Gilbertsville, with a record-setting 27-3 season mark, won the South Division title, while Limeport (20-9) took the North crown.

As a reward for copping division honors, both Limeport and Gilbertsville will receive first-round byes. Meanwhile, Silver Creek (19-11) visits Emmaus (20-10) and Haviland Grille (14-15) takes on defending league champ Stahley's Bar (16-13) in the opener of their best-of-three series tonight.

The Haviland-Stahley's winner will face Gilbertsville in the semifinals, while the Silver Creek-Emmaus survivor moves on to meet Limeport.

The semifinals, like the opening-round series, will be best-of- three events. The finals, however, will be a best-of-five battle.

* In the BML, the final berth was set last night with Martins Creek's win over Bethleon.

Bicentennial and Hellertown, both 27-13, and Northampton (26-13) had clinched spots earlier in the week and were joined by the Creek (25-15) last night.

Bicentennial owns the tie-breaker edge (based on season series between the teams) over both Hellertown and Northampton and thus, will be the top seed.

As the second and third seeds, respectively, Hellertown and Northampton will battle in one best-of-five playoff series with the Royals owning the home-field edge. Bicentennial, the BML champ seven times in the last 12 years, will face Martins Creek, which will be making its first playoff appearance in close to 30 years.

Those two winners move on to the best-of-five championship series.

And when the leagues finally crown their champions, the Tri-Co's and BML's best will meet in the 2nd Annual Lehigh Valley Championship Series. That best-of-three series is slated to go Aug. 21-23, all at Limeport Stadium.

Limeport, last year's BML and Lehigh Valley champion, failed to qualify for a BML berth this year.

* While much of the attention in the BML has been focused on playoff positioning the past few weeks, a few fans have been captivated by Martins Creek's assault on the BML record books.

With seven homers in its 15-4 rout of Saylorsburg Thursday night, the Creek had swatted 77 "big flies" this season entering last night's game, easily shattering the previous BML mark of 65 for home runs by a team.

Even more intriguing has been the chase to rewrite the record for home runs by a player in a season. Muzzy Jackson set a new mark with his 20th blast Thursday, breaking the old standard set by Hellertown's Tim Fisher in 1983 and equaled by Banko's Fred Tomasko in 1986. He added home run No. 21 in dramatic fashion last night to beat Bethleon in the top of the seventh inning.

Jackson's Creek teammate Bob Siemon finished with 19 homers.

Clearly, it's a power display the BML hasn't seen before in its 47-year history.

But the question persists: Should there be an asterisk placed aside of Jackson's and Siemon's name in the record book, like the one Roger Maris received after his 61 homers in 1961?

Saylorsburg's George Cobb, who recently set a remarkable milestone of his own with his 1,000th career hit, thinks an asterisk isn't a bad idea.

"I don't want to take a thing away from those guys, especially Muzzy, because every ball I've seen him hit has been a real shot," Cobb said. "But it can't be forgotten that both Tim Fisher and Fred Tomasko played in difficult ballparks to hit home runs. These guys are playing in a home run hitters' paradise at Martins Creek.

"I remember Fisher hitting dozens of deep flyballs that were caught in Hellertown that would be way out of Martins Creek. And he also played in a lot of parks that had no fences and guys could run forever to catch some of his deep shots. Now, every park in the league has a fence.

"Also, Fisher and Tomasko did it in 36-game schedules and these guys did it in 40 games. Still, they're really tough guys to get out right now. I'm in awe of that lineup. They're going to be tough to beat in the playoffs."

The debate over the home run mark may continue for some time. But the debate on who's the Tri-County and Blue Mountain's best will be settled in the next few weeks and local fans should enjoy seeing it unfold.



keith.groller@mcall.com

From The Morning Call -- August 1, 1992

Copyright © 1992, The Morning Call