Who's a Better Team This Year, Yankees or Mets?

Bronx Bombers seem to be losing some of their allure as its hometown rival has a great season start.

The New York Yankees are usually the favorites during baseball season and its hometown rival—the Mets—end up being the hopeful stepsister each spring. But this season, it seems the pinstriped champs have lost some of their lustre. With the New York Mets 4-2 record, the team started off with a powerful season after losing free agent National League batting average leader, Jose Reyes. The Yankees have a 4-3 record, but have not shown the pitching prowess that they've invested in. The Mets hit the road this weekend for a three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies and the Yankees are playing against Albert Pujols and the Angels at Yankee Stadium. Though the season has a long way to go, it isn't too soon to cast your vote on which will…

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Wood vs. Aluminum Bats - An Issue of Safety

Risk of injury to young players is at the heart of the debate.

Editor's Note: This is the second of a three-part series examining wood and aluminum bats. On Friday, the final installment of the series will examine how the switch to wood bats would affect New Jersey. In the summer of 2007, the heads of Essex County American Legion Baseball and the coaches decided to switch from aluminum bats to wood. The decision was a result of safety concerns. This came on the heels of a 2006 tragedy in Wayne, when a then 12-year-old pitcher was struck by a line drive in a little league baseball game. The incident made everyone's worst nightmare become all too real. Steven Domalewski was pitching for his team when a line-drive struck him in the chest and made his heart stop. He went into a coma for several weeks and …

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Wood Versus Aluminum—Which Baseball Bat Is Better?

The two types of bats make for very different games.

This is the first article in a three-part series. For over 30 years, New Jersey has used aluminum bats for all youth baseball and softball games, as has most of the country. The change from wood to aluminum has raised issues about the purity of the game, the risk of injuries, the impact on college scouting and the cost of replacing wood bats that break or shatter. Following a tragedy in youth baseball, the Essex County division of American Legion Baseball made the switch to wood in the summer of 2007. Since then, proponents and opponents of wood bats have had a back-and-forth debate. While the debate about the safety differences between wood and aluminum bats has raged on, there is no question and no argument that aluminum turns a game …

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In Appreciation of Joe Martinez

South Orange native and former CHS sub Martinez won his third career Major League start at Shea Stadium on Monday night.

A great pleasure of summer is listening to baseball games on the radio. No matter where I have lived, nothing has brought me back to New Jersey as quickly as the sound of a gravel-voiced announcer broadcasting from Shea. For me, New Jersey summers are marked by car rides in the warm darkness, windows open to catch a breeze and commentators mulling over the Mets’ bullpen. Listening in the back yard works too, staring up into the darkness imagining the “swing and a miss” across the river in Queens. This pleasure was doubled last night, as South Orange’s Joe Martinez took the mound for the San Francisco Giants. No matter the score—and I don’t care to discuss it, thank you very much—it was a thrill to hear South Orange mentioned. According to …

Ex-CHS Sub Batters Mets

South Orange native and former Columbia substitute teacher Joe Martinez led the SF Giants to victory against the Mets.

For SOMA Met fans, this past weekend must have been bittersweet. A pitcher with a strong connection to Columbia High School put in a strong performance at Citi Field. Unfortunately, the pitcher happened to be pitching against the Mets. Seton Hall Prep grad Joe Martinez pitched for the San Francisco Giants against the Mets on Sunday night. The New York Daily News reports that Martinez, who kept the Mets to a single run in five innings at the game, worked as a substitute teacher at Columbia High School during the last two off seasons. A South Orange native, Martinez is playing his first year in the majors. He got his first major league win in his debut for the Giants on April 7, pitching two innings and giving up two runs against the …

Legion Boys Edged in Extras

Baseball team loses 2-1 in Montclair.

The Cougar Legion team saw just about everything they needed to see from starting pitcher and probable spring ace, Joel Brown-Christensen. Unfortunately for him, the Cougars needed to see a bit more from their offense and defense on Friday at Woodman Field in Montclair. Two South Orange errors led to two runs on Wednesday, and provided enough offense for the host Montclair team to escape with a 2-1 win in nine innings. After the first two batters reached for Montclair in the bottom of the ninth on a walk and base hit off of Andrew Rigassio, a sacrifice bunt put runners at second and third with one out. The next Montclair batter slapped one to the right side of the infield, where Cougar second baseman Eli Weiss may have been a bit too …

Legion Team Drops Second in a Row

Local baseball boys have dropped to 10-9 overall.

Not even a week ago, the South Orange Legion boys had a shot at making the upcoming county playoffs as a third place team. They needed to be near perfect. While the pitching was there, the hitting, as it has been for much of this legion season, was practically non-existent. After scoring 10 against Newark Academy over the weekend, the Red and Black Legion boys have totaled just two runs in as many games, including a 4-1 home loss to Vailsburg on Wednesday, knocking them completely out of contention. Against the Seton Hall Prep Legion team (Vailsburg sponsors the Pirates), the locals had no answers for Sam Silvestri’s curveball, and though he pitched well, South Orange’s Nigel Hunter couldn’t keep the visiting boys completely at bay. South …

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Wood is Good: Do Metal Bats Hurt the Game?

Wooden bats in Legion provide a truer game

Hitters and pitchers in summer legion ball are getting a taste of what life might be like in North Dakota. Six days ago, the nation’s 39th state decided to stick with wood bats in high school baseball and softball, primarily for safety. North Dakota became the first state in the country to switch completely over to wood bats before the 2007 varsity season, and the state‘s coaches were to review the rule at the end of this season. An 18-1 decision in favor of wood shows that North Dakota’s coaches favor a faster, purer, cleaner and supposedly safer game. It’s no secret that balls hit by aluminum bats get more pop and speed going into play than wooden ones. The velocity generated by a batted ball has killed or severely injured several …

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