The score was 5-3. The story tells all the details of each big play and run scored. The headline is straight forward.
“Westwood girls softball champions.”
Fifty years ago, Westwood beat Paramus to win the first Bergen County softball tournament. Well, it wasn’t really an official Bergen County Tournament. It was an Invitational and included Passaic County's Hawthorne, along with seven Bergen County teams. (The Passaic County softball tournament started in 1976.)
Eileen Finnegan was the winning pitcher that day in 1974 for the Cardinals. She still lives in town. Her friends still call her “Finny.”
“I can’t believe it’s 50 years already,” Finnegan said. “But I guess so. Our 50th class reunion is coming up.”
The author of the story in The Record ? Paul Schwartz, our Hall of Fame track and field writer, who was just starting out.
“I was a young reporter and I was just thrilled to be in the beginning of women’s sports,” Schwartz said. “It was wonderful because it was a real ball game. I could remember some games where at halftime, the girls wouldn’t go into the locker room, they would stay out and eat oranges like it was a rec activity. This was a softball game.”
Does Finnegan remember that specific game, that specific moment? Not too much. She remembers the sectional final better, when Westwood beat Passaic Valley, 1-0.
“They were thrilled anybody had shown up,” Schwartz said. “I don’t remember there being any real pageantry around it being the first [county final] game. People were just excited that this sport was growing.”
With three brothers, Finnegan was a self-described tomboy, into both softball and basketball. Her freshman year of softball (1972), teams played with four outfielders. The ball was white.
“We had uniforms; at first they were shorts,” Finnegan said. “And when you slid, you got raspberries, so then we got pants. We didn’t have that many spectators back then. It was just different.”
Finnegan had always wanted to pitch, but Westwood coach Judy Morofsky wouldn’t let her, keeping her at catcher as a freshman and a sophomore.
But Finnegan remembers how committed Morofsky was.
“Her heart was all in to softball and basketball,” Finnegan said. “I remember after one loss, we were on the bus and were giggling and she got up…. I don’t remember what she said, but she told us we had to fold our hands and think about the loss.”
The first time Finnegan ever pitched came in a game the Cardinals were supposed to win. Morofsky called Finnegan out just before the game started and handed her the ball. Finnegan laughs at the memory of how she had to take off her catcher’s equipment to pitch. She was a so-called slingshot pitcher with a short step and delivery.
“I never did a change-up,” Finnegan said. “I had a fastball and a natural curve.”
As a junior, both of the Cardinals' returning pitchers didn’t come back out for the team. So it was Finny in the circle full-time, which was 40 feet away (now it’s 43 feet).
Finnegan was named All-County in softball in 1975, but there was no dinner celebration, that was only for the boys. Same for the pictures in the paper. All-County boys got pictures in the paper, the girls did not, they just got their names.
The 1974 Westwood softball team was inducted into the first class of the Westwood Athletics Hall of Fame. Finnegan is in the Hall of Fame, and so is Morofsky. Finnegan went 20-4 in her softball career, and still holds the school record for lowest ERA in a season at 0.91. She played four years of basketball.
Finnegan played softball recreationally for decades, and she’s popped over at a few Westwood games over the years. Westwood has never won another Bergen County softball title.
Finnegan is humble about her accomplishments, but she’s more than a footnote. She’s the first headliner in a 50-year Bergen County tradition.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Softball: As the Bergen County Tournament turns 50, we look back on the first champion
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