Hemerly's double lifts Stahley's Bar

By Keith Groller
Of The Morning Call


Herb Hemerly has been around the game of baseball long enough to know anything is possible.

Still, Hemerly figured about the last thing that would happen last night is that he would come off his well-worn spot on the Stahley's Bar bench and stroke the game-winning double in the top of the eighth inning to give his team an amazing 12-11 Tri-County League playoff win over South Whitehall.

Believe it, Herbie, because that's exactly what happened.

Hemerly's hard grounder kicked off the third-base bag and rolled down the line to allow Dale Weiss to score the deciding run with two out in the top of the eighth as Stahley's completed a comeback from deficits of  4-1, 9-5 and 11-7 to complete a two-game sweep in the best-of-3 first-round series.

Hemerly, who has played in the Tri-Co 22 years, never saw his heroic moment ahead on the horizon. He only got in the game because Stahley's left fielder Joe Teresavage got ejected for arguing a call at first base.

"No way did I expect this to happen," Hemerly said. "In fact, I was surprised I got to play even after Joe got tossed. I looked around and wondered if there were any other options. I basically just come to help out. I don't really come to play. But things just happen in baseball. When I go in there, I go in there hacking. I don't come ready to play, but I come ready to swing."

Hemerly was actually 2-for-2 in the wild 18-hit explosion by Stahley's, which advances to the Tri-Co semifinals Thursday against one of three teams -- Silver Creek, Upper Perkiomen or Center Valley.

Keith Brader was 4-for-4 (6-for-6 over two games) and Weiss added three hits at the plate, while player-manager Ray Ganser slowed the Serpent bats down before pulling a hamstring muscle and turning the ball over to Jim Brezack in the bottom of the eighth.

But the moment of glory belonged to Hemerly, who is usually counted on for things like chasing foul balls, coaching third base, cracking a few jokes and keeping the cooler stocked and cold for the post-game party, but not for game-winning hits.

You've heard about guys who could roll out of bed Christmas morning and rip a clutch hit? Well, Hemerly had a new spin on that old expression.

"I just rolled out of my buddy's pool today," he said. "Don't tell the coach that. That's not the way you're supposed to prepare for a game. But what the heck?

"I just hit an inside fastball and the ball hit the bag. The tough part was getting around the bases. At my age, I like to take it one base at a time."

Both teams spent a lot of time on the bases at the Cedarbrook complex. Stahley's scored four runs in the third to move in front 5-4, only to see the Serpents strike for five runs in the bottom half of the inning when five different players collected RBIs.

Jeff Erie's two-run double made it 11-7 in the bottom of the seventh, but Stahley's got two back in the sixth and two more in the seventh on Greg Wotring's two-run double to tie it.

In the eighth, Weiss got the winning rally started with a one-out double. He stayed there on Jeff Snyder's groundout. Then came Hemerly.

"It was just one of those games," said Hemerly, a 1971 Dieruff High grad, who will turn 42 in September. "South Whitehall's a good ballclub. It looked like it was going to come down to the last at-bat. They still had a good chance in their last at-bat."

Indeed, after Ganser departed after pulling his hamstring running out a rare single in the top of the eighth, Brezack surrendered a double to Jeff Erie to start the eighth. But he struck out the next two hitters and got Scott Kolumber on a tapper to short to end it for Stahley's (25-9).

"This is the best part of the season ... the playoffs," Brader said.

But it's the toughest part of the year for South Whitehall -- time to pack up the equipment after a surprising 20-14 campaign.

"We made a big turnaround after going 9-20 last year," said manager Kevin Hutter. "But this is a tough loss to stomach and a tough way to end the year. We need a couple more stoppers. We certainly couldn't stop them today."



keith.groller@mcall.com

From The Morning Call -- July 31, 1995

Copyright © 1995, The Morning Call