Community Update

Livingston Post 201, guided by second-year head
coach Sam Politan, captured the Essex County Senior American Legion
championship with Wednesday's 11-1 win over Vailsburg Post 395 at the
Livingston HS Oval. (Photo by Glenn Kross- www.glennkrossphotography.com)

Consistent Livingston
Post 201 Shines Again

While Capturing Essex Legion Championship

By Steve Tober

For sidelinechatter.com

LIVINGSTON- Sam Politan has watched his Livingston Post 201
ball club go about doing what all Livingston Senior American Legion teams seem
to do on an annual basis.

“Our guys take care of business, and they’ve been doing that all season,”
said the Post 201 second-year head coach who has maintained the family lineage
which seems to be such a big part of Essex Legion, following both his dad Chris
and older brother Louis as diamond boss for the Livingston Senior Legion squad,
which went out on Wednesday night and broke open a tightly played game for the
first three-and-a-half innings by scoring four runs in the bottom of the fourth
and then seven more in the fifth to defeat Vailsburg Post 395 by an 11-1 score
in a game that ended with two outs in the bottom of the fifth due to the 10-run
mercy rule.

“We’ve consistently found a way to get to the Essex Legion championship
game, and we usually do pretty well once we get there. This is what we play 18
or 19 games to get to and to be 18-1 right now, back as county champs after
losing a tough game to the Knights last year, and to now be headed to the
Districts is a real nice accomplishment for this group.”

“We get timely hitting, 1 through 9 in our lineup, and our pitching, despite
being limited in terms of numbers of kids, has been solid.”

Livingston will be appearing in the Legion District state tournament for the
13th straight year and Post 201 has now won 15 Essex Legion championships,
including three of the last five years (2009, 2010 and '13). Vailsburg, another
stalwart in Essex Legion history, has won 12 county titles and will be
appearing in the states for the 10th time in the past 14 seasons.

Both Livingston and Vailsburg are headed to District 1 of the Legion state
tournament at Jannarone Park in Parsippany with first-round action slated for
this Sunday, July 21, with Vailsburg taking on a representative from
Hunterdon/Warren/Somerset counties at 10 a.m. and Livingston facing Parsippany
Post 249 at 7 p.m.

“Livingston played a clean game, and we usually play better defense than we
did tonight, but that’s baseball and this weekend will bring another game for
us, which is great for the kids, who have worked hard this season in going
14-5-1 so far,” said Danny Fornaro, the Vailsburg head coach. “We have a young
team of all rising sophomores from our freshmen spring high school team (at
Seton Hall Prep) and they’ve been a great group to work with.

“We just made a couple of key errors and they had some timely hits as well
so now we’ll both move on to the Districts, but it’s been a good Essex Legion
season.”

For the first three and a half innings on
Wednesday night, Livingston’s rising senior righty Stephen Fung
(5-0) and Vailsburg’s ace sophomore righty Gerard DePhillips (5-2) were locked
in a fast-moving pitcher’s duel as Post 201’s Fung did a nice job keeping Post 395
a bit off balance with his curve ball, while DePhillips was effectively mixing
four pitches, including a nifty knuckleball as he retired the first eight Livingston batters
he faced before the No. 9 hitter, Shane McLaughlin, managed a bloop single for
his team’s first hit, with two outs in the third.

Vailsburg had taken a 1-0 lead in the top of the
second inning on a lead-off single by Nick Denicola, a walk to DePhillips and a
1-out RBI single by the No. 8 batter, John Savino.

After the run-scoring hit by Savino, Livingston’s
Fung proceeded to retire 10 of the last 11 batters he faced, while his own team
was taking advantage of opportunities presented combined with timely hitting.

Kyle Desmond led off the fourth with a single and
two Vailsburg infield errors, sandwiched around two more DePhillips’
strikeouts, allowed Livingston to tie the contest, 1-1. Then,
boosted by Jarrett
Birnbaum’s two-out, two-run triple which was in turn followed by Pete
Webster’s RBI single, Post 201 had four unearned runs on the board
in the frame.

The bottom truly came out in the bottom of the
decisive fifth inning as Joe Fuentes’ lead-off single and Mark Silvestri’s RBI
triple chased DePhillips; however, the Vailsburg relievers who followed
accounted for three walks, in addition to three more Livingston hits
and another Vailsburg error as seven runs crossed the plate to end the contest.

“Our guys have continued to be able to tack on
runs all season, and get it done no matter what,” said Politan, who played at
both
Livingston (Class of 2008) and for Norm “Moose” Schoenig at Montclair State.
“We’ve never had to ride the back of just one guy in the lineup, and that’s
been huge for us.

“We take a lot of pride in what we do in Essex
County Legion, and our kids take winning the Essex championship game very
seriously.”

Birnbaum, whose fifth inning walk forced in a run,
finished with 3 RBI for Post 201, and certainly recognizes his team’s
ability to be both patient and persistent.

“Their starter (DePhillips) did a nice job mixing
in his knuckleball with the fast ball, but once we were able to time it the
second time around against him, we did a pretty good job of hitting,” said the Livingston junior
right fielder, whose older brother, Brett Birnbaum, was a standout senior
outfielder on this past spring’s Livingston High School squad. “We’ve got a
solid lineup from top to bottom and that’s been a key for us this summer.”

Fung, who walked one batter and did not have a
strikeout, was simply very efficient against Vailsburg in limiting the Post 395
ball club to four hits and one run in his five solid innings of mound work.

“I felt that I was able to mix my fast ball and
curve fairly well to keep them off balance for the most part,” he said. “Plus,
my team really backed me up with key hits.

“It’s been a great summer so far and I can’t wait
to see what we can do in the Districts. This is an exciting way to follow up
the Essex Legion season.”