By Ricardo Kaulessar
Many readers of this newspaper can relate to the sentiment that this especially brutal winter cannot end soon enough – and that baseball season cannot come fast enough.
Major league baseball players are already in the midst of spring training in warmer places while locally, boys and girls, young and old, are indoors (or even outdoors as the snow starts to clear away) with bat, ball and glove in hand getting in shape for games to come.
Meanwhile, fans are preparing to watch their favorite teams over the next few months, whether it’s from the bleacher seats at Yankee Stadium or in the living room staring at a plasma screen.
And for some, it is an opportunity to remember the landmarks and individuals from the Hudson/Bergen County area that have a significant place in baseball history.
Hoboken as the site of the first recorded baseball game in 1846 and Jersey City as the location of the legendary Jackie Robinson’s debut in a professional baseball game in 1946, and as the birthplace of those who got to the “big show†including Joe Borowski (Bayonne), Willie Banks (Jersey City) and Johnny Kucks (Hoboken). Several aficionados of America’s pastime shared recently about how they await the start of another year where the worries are more about box scores than snowplows.
Continue reading Baseball -Going from Snowballs to Baseballs
A native of New Jersey and former Major League pitcher of Saint Louis Cardinals and Chicago White Sox, Ralph Citarella joins the new Newark Bears Professional Team as their pitching coach for the 2012 season. Mr. Citarella has already begun to train and assist the Bears with player development and is preparing for spring tryouts in April.
