Smiles Sports 12

SUNDAY DISPATCH, SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 2012

Elko youth bowlers honored THE SMILE FILES Elko’s and Sons Bowling Lanes recently held their 35th Annual Bowling Banquet at St. Maria Goretti’s in Laflin. Each year the Elko Family and the Dupont Parents Association honor the young bowlers for their achievements throughout the year.

by JACK SMILES -jsmiles@psdispatch.com

Softball gets defensive

Picture#3- Graduating Senior Bowler Patrick Dougherty with parents Pat and Rosemary Dougherty.

PAGE 46

Picture #1- Guest Speakers and and the Elko Family:seated left to right: Rev Joseph Verespy, Pastor of Sacred Heart of Jesus Church, Dupont; Dupont's favorite son the Honorable Judge Fred Pierantoni and his wife Donna and Carmen Ambrosino, CEO of Wyoming Valley Alcohol and Drug Services.2nd row: Neal Elko, Brian Elko, William Elko,Jr., Donna Kasa and William Elko.

Picture#5- Brothers Peter & Charles Kulick, between them, took home a total of eight trophies including the all Wyoming Valley League 1st half Champs- Champions Class B Handicap.

After a couple of school Alex Holtz struck out three. years away from the high Wyoming Area threw out two school sports beat, I was put runners, meaning of the 39 back on it out of necessity outs in the game 28 were toward the end of this school made in the field, with just year. Well, it didn’t take me one error charged, that on a long to goof up. In a list of throw by VV. Of those 28 District 2 track and field outs at least a half-dozen flat medalists I overlooked two out took away hits. Outfield jumpers from Pittston Area. plays by WA’s Adrienne PA junior Jayson Crawford Pryzbyla and VV’s Blayse placed 4th in the long jump.

Cholish were jaw droppers.

For the girls team sophomore Like I heard people screamCales Owens placed fifth in ing “Oh my God, she caught the high jump. They both it.” won medals.

VV’s third baseman Casey While I was away from the Pearce looked like she could sports beat the softball pitchplay third base in a hard ball ing distance was moved back game. What a gun. three feet from By the way, the 40 to 43. It was a While I was away from Pittston Area team good move. the sports beat the was 1-13 and lost a Back in the lot of mercy rule softball pitching day a when a games, but trust distance was moved pitcher like PA’s me, they were no back three feet from where near as poor all-time great 40 to 43. It was a Nikki Kotula a team as that was striking out good move. record sounds.

14 a game that The catcher Mameant the fielrissa Nardone ders had to make only seven would be a league MVP on a outs, or five if two were hit winning team. back to the circle. And beBack to Wyoming Area, cause pitchers like Kotula part of the credit for the WA were so hard to hit, a lot of fielding prowess has to go to batters bunted. Outfielders coach Stephanie Griffin, fell asleep. Understandably, who was a heck of a picker there wasn’t much of a premi- herself as a D-1 caliber short um put on fielding. stop at PA and worked the Now there are far fewer Warriors hard on fielding. In strikeouts and that has an email she wrote about that changed the game for the and the season. better. Fielding is paramount.

“I was very proud of the I was stunned by the qualseason our team had,” she ity of the fielding at the wrote. “They worked hard Wyoming Area-Valley View throughout and never put District 2 3A championship their heads down. We did game Wednesday at Maryhave a lot of tight low scoring wood. games. This league is filled Man the kids on those with great teams, it’s very teams can pick ‘em and throw competitive and as a result ‘em. Valley View’s pitcher you get a lot of tight low Gina Chieffallo is considscoring balls games. We did ered dominant, but stuck out focus on defense this year; only six, none over the last it’s what keeps you in ball three innings. WA pitcher games.”

SUNDAY DISPATCH, SUNDAY, JULY 22, 2012 PAGE 38

Let’s play baseball THE SMILES FILES scoreboard detective

by JACK SMILES - jsmiles@psdispatch.com

Before there were smart phones, before there were computers and an internet, before there was Sportcenter, heck, before there was even cable TV, baseball fans in Pittston could follow the progress of every major league baseball game in real time on the baseball scoreboard at La Torre’s Pool Room on South Main Street.

Take a look at the scoreboard pictured here. Mike Lizonitz scanned a negative to create this digital photo. He emailed it to Bernie Stiroh of duryeapa.com who in turn emailed it to me.

Notice how John “Day” Gargone is updating the scoreboard with the information he’s getting from a Teletype receiver.

At first glance it would seem there is no way to tell when the photo was taken.

But a closer look reveals there are two clues on the board which immediately tells us the photo has to be from 1955, ’56 or ’57. Can you guess what those clues are?

Take a look before you read on.

Okay, now, there are three words on the scoreboard which narrow the date of the photo to ’55, ’56 or ’57 – “Brooklyn” and “Kansas City.”

The Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles after the 1957 season. The Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City after the 1954 season. So the photo has to be from 1955, ’56 or ’57.

After narrowing the photo down to the three years 1955-’56-57 from the clues on the board and using the 2012 version of the Teletype receiver, the internet, it is possible to pin-point, not only the year, but the exact day and to make a pretty could guess at the time of day when the photo was taken.

The photo was taken on Wednesday, May 23, 1956 most likely between three and four o’clock in the afternoon.

Look at the line score of the game Gargone is updating by putting up two runs for the Cleveland Indians in the bottom of the seventh inning. Note the game is in Cleveland because

Cleveland in on the bottom of the line score.

Note under the names of the teams on the line score is the word “BATT” which is short the battery, a baseball term for the pitcher and catcher.

Note the pitchers are Score for Cleveland and that his record going into the game was 4-3, as indicated in parenthesis, and Sullivan for Boston whose record was 3-0.

At retrosheet.org I clicked on the game log for the Cleveland Indians in 1955 and looked for a game in Cleveland where the Indians played Boston and Score and Sullivan pitched.

I found such a game in 1955, but it didn’t fit the clues of the pitchers’ records or the score of the game.

I looked in 1956 and there on May 23 was another game where Score and Sullivan pitched.

Cleveland won the game 6-3.

Note on the photograph that it was 6-0 after seven innings. As Gargone puts the “2” up in the bottom of the seventh, the top of the eighth is already in progress and he knows this, because he has written “Mossi” after the name “Score” on the “BATT” line. Not sure if you can see this, but it’s there.

I learned by looking at the box score that Mossi relieved Score with one out in the top of the eighth.

May 23 was a Wednesday.

The game was a day game. It took 2:39 to play. I don’t know what time it started, but it was very likely at 1 or 2 o’clock.

Let’s say that after the seventh inning we were two hours into the game, so two hours from one is three and two hours from two is four, so the picture was taken between three and four o’clock that afternoon.

By the way, La Torre’s wasn’t going through the trouble of running such a comprehensive scoreboard just to keep sports fans informed.

You can probably guess what the board was for.

SUNDAY DISPATCH, SUNDAY, AUGUST 12, 2012

EMANON GOLF

THE SMILES FILES

by JACK SMILES - jsmiles@psdispatch.com

Richard White at the ’60 games Veteran Richard White, the Chaplin of the local AMVETS chapter, got to see some of the 1960s Olympics in Rome. He was in the Navy then aboard the Sixth Fleet aircraft carrier the USS Independence. The carrier was anchored off Italy.

“The sailors were invited free courtesy of the USO,” White said. “We took launches into port and then buses probably about 30 or 40 miles to the Olympics.”

White recalls he got to see two American gold medalists compete. He saw Mohammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, who won a boxing gold medal and Rafer Johnson who won the decathlon.

But the Olympics were not the highlight of his trip to Rome. “The Olympics were great, but the bigger thing for me was meeting the Pope. The ship’s Chaplin was a Catholic Priest. He made the arrangements. That was one of the best things that ever happened to me.”

White has home movies of the visit with the Pope Fall sports The calendar says summer,

but the high school sports calendar says fall. Tomorrow is the first PIAA official practice day. If it feels as though girls soccer season just ended, it did.

Last year school year it was a spring sports. This school year it’s a fall sport as mandated by the PIAA. For years half the state played spring girls soccer and half fall. The schools and leagues that wanted to stay in the spring were worried about scheduling and referees. Looking at the schedule it looks like the WVC is scheduling boys and girls teams against the same opponents on the same nights home and away whenever they can.

That means, if we count cross country as two sports, boys and girls, there are nine sports on the fall calendar golf, girls soccer, boys soccer, girls cross country, boys cross country, girls tennis, girls volleyball, field hockey and football.

Wyoming Area and Pittston Area are scheduled to play each other in official WVC events in seven of the nine sports. They aren’t scheduled to play each other in field

hockey or golf.

That’s been the case in field hockey the last couple years, but it’s new to golf which for the first time has gone to two divisions. In the past there was only one golf level. This year there are two AAAA-AAA and AA-A, with PA in the former and WA in the later.

PA coach Len Benfante said he might try to arrange an exhibition match with Wyoming Area later this week before the regular season starts. The past few years the Wyoming Area and Pittston Area field hockey teams played an exhibition tied to a fund raiser. If they do that again, that will mean a full slate of Bridge Award events for the fall season. Below are the scheduled WVC games between the local teams PA – WA WVC games Aug. 21 G. tennis PA at WA Sept 15 B. X country (at GAR) Sept 15 G. X country (at GAR) Sept 17 Volleyball PA at WA Sept.21 B. soccer WA at PA Sept.21 G. soccer PA at WA Nov. 2 Football WA at PA

EMANON GOLF

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Mecca wins Emanon championship Bill Mecca won the Emanon Country Club regular Club Championship with a birdie on the second playoff hole of a four-player playoff Mecca forced the playoff after he three putted the rain soaked 18th after a long rain delay.

He edged out Tom Kerrigan, Ted Matthews and Joe Coleman who all had a two day total of 145. Those four along with Len Coleman will represent Emanon in the Coal Scuttle at CC of Scranton on September 29.

Championship Flight

1st - Bill Mecca 73-72-145

2nd - Tom Kerrigan 73-72145 3rd - Ted Matthews 73-72145 4th - Joe Coleman 70-75-145 5th - Len Coleman 71-76-147 1st Flight

1st - Ed O’Dell 79-75-154 2nd - Rich Petrillo 77-78-155 3rd - Dave Wisnosky 78-77155 4th - Len Benfante 77-78-155 2nd Flight

1st - Mike Amitia 80-78-158 2nd - Kevin McCracken 8475-159

3rd - Alex Brogna 79-81-160 4th - Rich Barni 82-79-161 3rd Flight

1st - Mike Busch 86-81-167 2nd - Mark Kolmansperger 85-83-168 3rd - Jack Gilbride 85-84-169 4th - Mike Matute 88-82-170 4th Flight

1st - Jack Linksky 93-76-169 2nd - Jim Pethick 92-80-172 3rd - Jack Vasil 91-85-176 4th - Bob Kovitch 91-87-178

Red Mill extends lead in Thursday League Red Mill defeated Selensk’is 2 - 1 to extend the first place lead they have held most of the year.

Guy Fasciana 37 and Dave Snell 38 led the winners while Rick Laneski had a one-over par 35 with a eagle on the last hole.

Adonizio’s swept Hoffman Electric 3 - 0 and stayed in the playoff picture. Mike Fereck 38 and Rob Belza 39 led the winners and John Polak had a 38 for

Hoffman.

Power’s swept Ashley Machine 3 - 0 with Clem Parulis 38 and Jim McCannn 42 leading the winners and Alex Brogna had a 36 for Ashleys.

O’Connor Plumbing edged Bryan Construction 2 - 1 with Jack Mayer 36 and John O’Connor 39 leading the winners while Joe Farrell had a 41 for Bryans.

Galli black belts

Newly-ranked black belts from Galli's Fighting Chance School of Self Defense are, from left, first row, Michael Abromavage, Wyoming; and Jordan Cicon, West Wyoming. Second row, Master Len Galli, Master Christina Ackourey and Master John Byrd.

YA T E S V I L L E B O C C E B A L L

Tight race with three weeks remaining The second half race tightened up with both Bassler Equipment and Atlas Realty winning both matches this to tie for first place with only three weeks remaining in the regular season. The Bassler boys are Doc Campanella, Mark Millington, Joe Chiumento and Ed Seprish.

Mayor Joe carried the day by making some super shots. The Realtors are led by Gene Cardoni, Erald Biondi, Joe Zambetti Sr. and Joe Zambetti Jr. Kudos to the Dyller Law Firm

for breaking into the win column.

Standings......................... Points

Bassler Equipment 6-2...... 83 Atlas Realty 6-2 ................ 83 Cuz’s Bar & Grill 5-3........ 68 KWIK ’N EZ Market4-4 .. 82 Roberts’ Repairs4-4 .......... 75 Blandina Apartments 4-4.. 73 Old Forge Chiropractic 3-5 67 JetSurge Cleaning 3-5 ....... 66 Dyller Law Firm 1-7.......... 55