Yankees are doormats no more

Win over Fleetwings has them a win away from first-ever series win.

By Keith Groller
Of The Morning Call

 

The real Yankees conjure up images of majesty, power … the sports world's most famous and honored franchise.

The Yankees of the Tri-County League have been more like the Devil Rays.

In their first 11 seasons in the local amateur league, the Northern Yankees went 133-222 for a winning percentage of .375, made the playoffs just one time and lost their only postseason series.

On the heels of 9-22 and 11-22 marks the previous two summers, the team was in jeopardy of folding prior to this season, due to lack of players.

Team owner Lee Higgins recruited Brian Polaha to manage his team and Polaha recruited a slew of new players.

Even George Steinbrenner would be content with the results so far.

The once-moribund club tied a franchise record with 18 regular-season wins and, on Sunday night, won the opener of their quarterfinal-round playoff series against the favored Woodlawn Fleetwings.

Joe Grazer tossed a six-hit shutout and the Yankees bunched seven hits to score six runs in the fourth inning in a 6-0 win in Scherersville.

The best-of-three series moves across the creek from Scherersville field No. 1 to field No. 5 at 5:45 tonight when the Yankees (19-16-2) can nail down their first playoff series win ever.

''We have the talent and the pitching to win this series, and, frankly, we have enough to win it all,'' Grazer said. ''I said that to Polaha when we first got started. We have a young team. The average age here is probably about 20 and at this stage of the season, after 36 regular-season games and in this heat, younger teams should have an edge.''

The Yankees gave Grazer, 23, all the edge he would need in a 12-batter fourth inning. George Kressley, Pete McCauley and Dan Repsher all singled to load the bases and set the uprising in motion.

Steve Benavage, Darrin Lenhart and Kressley (up for the second time) singled in runs. Chris Watts forced in one with a bases-loaded walk and two scored on errors.

''We haven't scored a lot of runs in the games I have pitched this year, so it felt great to get those six runs,'' said Grazer, an Allen High graduate who walked one, picked off one and struck out five. ''It took a huge weight off my back. It was great to get that lead and the defense played great to hold them.''

The fourth-seeded Fleetwings, who hit .305 as a team in a 24-12 regular season, had two runners on base four different times, but couldn't muster a clutch hit.

All six Woodlawn hits were singles, two of them by veteran slugger Dave Toth.

''We've been here before,'' Fleetwings player-manager Jeremy Arner said. ''We were down 1-0 to Lehigh Township in our first series last year and still made it to the finals. We had a long layoff [not playing since July 23], which is no excuse. We just didn't come ready to play. If we come out like this again, we'll be done.''

Polaha said Northern, which dropped three of four to the Fleetwings in the regular season, can play better.

''We just had one good inning and thanks to Joe, that was enough tonight,'' Polaha said. ''I thought we struck out way too much [12 times].''

Other than the fourth, the Yankees had just two hits off Woodlawn hurlers Scott Bolasky and Matt Wiltrout.

But five Fleetwings errors made their jobs a lot tougher.

Now, the tough job for the Yankees is to finish it off.

''This has been quite a story from where we started,'' Polaha said. ''This is my first year with this team, but I'm an avid follower of league history. The Fleetwings have always been a top team. Us winning this series would be pretty big.''


Northern Yankees  000 600 0 — 6 9 1

Fleetwings             000 000 0 — 0 6 5


Grazer and McCutcheon; Bolasky, Wiltrout (4) and Arner.



keith.groller@mcall.com

610-820-6740

From The Morning Call -- July 31, 2006

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