Just thought I’d empty out my reporter’s notebook while happy that the best show on television – Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever – has returned after a 25-day Olympic hiatus …
A Sea Unicorns three-peat?
It was a great thrill seeing the Norwich Sea Unicorns win their second consecutive Futures Collegiate Baseball League championship last Sunday at Dodd Stadium . The Sea Unicorns capped a two-game series sweep with a 5-4 walk-off win over the Westfield Starfires.
Former Killingly High star Bo Yaworski (Central Connecticut State University) tied the game with a memorable double in the bottom of the eighth inning and Nick Tomasetto, a native of Mantua, New Jersey, who plays at Rutgers, lined a double along the right field line that scored Amity’s AJ Soldra (Seton Hall) from first base with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth.
Kudos to Sea Unicorns general manager Lee Walter Jr., manager Kevin Murphy, and the entire staff for another incredible season. With so much roster turnover, pitchers on innings limits, and a taxing schedule of 60-plus games, it’s not easy winning games in the Futures League.
Walter Jr. and Murphy have done an exceptional job assembling quality rosters the past two summers. During the inevitable late-season roster turnover that challenges every team, the Sea Unicorns have benefitted from the league’s Riser Rule, which began in 2023 and states that “there is no limit to the number of recent high school graduates who may be on a team roster.”
“More often than not the college coaches want to send kids to different parts of the country or to different leagues to challenge themselves in different ways,” Walter Jr. said. “We see a lot more turnover here and we’ve really benefitted a lot from the Riser Rule where guys like Connor Lane, a high school graduate this year going to UConn, have come here and really helped us.”
Lane, a catcher from Old Saybrook High School, was selected the Connecticut Gatorade High School Player of the Year this past season.
Walter Jr. is hoping Murphy, a terrific young coach who is also the pitching coach at Amherst College, returns next summer. Murphy’s duties with Amherst, traditionally one of the top teams in the NESCAC, will include recruiting during the summer months.
“Murph has done such a great job. We hope to have him back next year,” Walter Jr. said.
A member of the Sea Unicorns front office staff who won’t be back next season is Mike Neville. The Lisbon native and Norwich Free Academy graduate had the title Group Sales Consultant and Media Relations Manager. But if you’ve seen Neville in action on game days, he was an invaluable jack-of-all-trades for the Sea Unicorns during these two championship seasons.
We’re wishing Neville, who graduated from Southern Connecticut State University in 2021, the best of luck as he embarks on a career in law enforcement.
Just minutes after the Sea Unicorns won their second straight title, I asked Walter Jr. about his thoughts on a three-peat.
“I won’t proclaim a three-peat, by any means, but we’ll be back to try and hope for the best,” he said.
More Clark mania
So Caitlin Clark attends a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium and leaves the Yankees players " star struck?" That is the definition of a GOAT.
A few days later, the WNBA announced that next year's All-Star game festivities will take place in Indianapolis. And to think, there are some folks out there who are still defending the US Olympic women’s basketball committee’s decision to keep Clark off this year’s team.
Besides some timely 3-point shooting from Stephen Curry, the basketball played in Paris by both the US men and women’s teams was hardly riveting. I’d rather watch highlights of Sarunas Marciulionis, Arvydas Sabonis and the 1992 Lithuanian basketball team, the other Dream Team that wore Grateful Dead tie-dyes and proved that winning the Bronze can be better than the gold.
Basketball needed Clark in Paris. The sport was denied by the US Olympic women’s committee.
Aerosmith bids farewell
It’s the spring of 1985. I just returned home from college and was working at Jackson Chairs in Somerville (Mass.). It was a low-paying, fun summer job. Boston University needs 3,000 chairs for their graduation exercises? We filled up trucks with 3,000 chairs and delivered them to Nickerson Field. A fundraiser at a mansion in Newport needs some fancy chairs? We filled up a truck with 50 gold ballroom chairs and drove to Newport.
During lunch break on my first day on the job, I took my brown paper bag and sat against a concrete wall of another warehouse that was located across from our loading docks. While eating my sandwich, I heard a band practicing inside the warehouse. All blistering guitars and rollicking drums.
I asked my coworker if he knew who the band was. He said, “It’s Aerosmith. They’re making a comeback.”
Done With Mirrors was released that fall. The album, which marked the return of guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford, featured the single “Let The Music Do The Talking.”
Last week, Aerosmith announced their retirement as a touring band due to Steven Tyler’s vocal cord injury. And it feels like a part of my youth is gone.
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Jimmy Fund tourney
The 2024 Annual Jimmy Fund One Pitch Softball Tournament is still looking for teams. The event, for both men and women, takes place on Sept. 7-8 at Washington Park in Groton. The cost is $125 per team.
The Jimmy Fund was established in Boston in 1948. It is composed of community-based fundraising events that benefit the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The generosity of millions of people in Boston and around the world has helped the Jimmy Fund save countless lives and reduce the burden of cancer for patients and families worldwide.
To register a team for the tournament please contact Glen Graham by email at ggraham@groton.k12.ct.us or phone (860) 445-7926.
Duran for MVP
Here’s another good one from my friends on X at bostonsportsinfo:
Jarren Duran
There are only 6 players, since 1900, in an entire season, with …
2B > 36
3B > 13
HR > 14
SB > 28
OPS > .850
Jarren has done it in 114 team games, which nobody has ever done.
More: College football preseason power rankings: Dawgs on top, Badgers at the bottom
Wild card race
Here’s a quick peek at the American League Wild Card Standings (as of Friday afternoon). The top three teams earn playoff spots.
- New York Yankees 72-50 –
- Minnesota Twins 68-53 –
- Kansas City Royals 66-55 –
- Boston Red Sox 63-57 2.5
- Seattle Mariners 63-59 3.5
Great to see Trinity College alum Derek Falvey’s Minnesota Twins finally getting healthy. Now, if the Red Sox can plug some holes in a leaky bullpen, Alex Cora’s overachieving Sox could be playing some meaningful games in September, something no baseball prognosticator in the country predicted during the preseason.
Stuck in the '70s
On August 18, 1978, the first-place Boston Red Sox defeated the Oakland A’s, 6-3, in front of only 12,730 fans at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Jim Rice powered the Red Sox offense by going 4-for-5 with a home run, a double and two RBIs. Rick Burleson and Carlton Fisk also blasted homers for the Red Sox, who improved to 77-44 and had a seven-and-a-half game lead in the American League East over the defending champion New York Yankees.
Rice, who went on to win the American League MVP award, was in the midst of one of the greatest offensive seasons in AL history. He led the league in hits (213), triples (15), home runs (46), RBIs (139), slugging percentage (.600), OPS (.970), and total bases (406).
Rice’s 406 total bases was the most in the AL since Joe DiMaggio had 418 in 1937.
Jimmy Zanor is a sportswriter for the Norwich Bulletin and can be reached at jzanor@norwichbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @jzanorNB .
This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Zanor column: Could a Sea Unicorns three-peat be in the works?
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