The real wild card in the field hockey tourney will be the Ravens

I would have walked to Philly from Lewes for the parade if they had come back from a 3-1 deficit, but with the pitching staff unraveling like a dry-rotted baseball there were just too many numbers you couldn’t call. Pedro will go from the show to the patio and in all due respect to him, if that is the best you can throw out in an elimination game, you are in serious trouble.

Did you know that the Philadelphia Athletics won the World Series five times before leaving town in 1954, and that manager Connie Mack coached the team for 50 years? And he lived in my North Philadelphia neighborhood.

“You know who else lived on our block?” my brother Tom just asked me. “Tonto! You know, Jay Silverheels, the Mohawk who played the Lone Ranger’s sidekick.”

I think Tom is wrong, that Tonto actually retired in Buffalo - it’s an Mohawk thing - and the guy in our neighborhood was a “Tonto Juggalo” 50 years ahead of his time.

TOURNAMENT TALK - Fans don’t have to play them one at a time and neither do I. One of the many pleasures of not coaching a team is the luxury of looking back and second-guessing or speculating on the big picture and final destination and overlooking whoever you feel like. Trust me, I know lower seeds beat higher ones in field hockey every year because hot goalies rule the day come tournament time.

The brackets are to be released Monday, Nov. 9, and most certainly unless the state games committee really loses its collective mind, Cape will be opposite Tower Hill. The real wild card in my opinion is Sussex Tech and what side of the bracket it inhabits. If you’re Cape you want to see a Ravens versus Hillers semifinal and hope to pick up the winner in the final game. That is not to say that Cape walks over its own bracket, being as it hasn’t won a tournament game in three years.

Here’s the thing about stepping up: Not everyone does and not everyone can. I would like to put on an Eagles uniform and step up and play middle linebacker against the Cowboys Sunday night. Mentally I know how to prepare and how to step up, but I would be bowled over and killed on the first series.

TALKING TEMPLE - Ten years ago I took Tommy Sheehan of Cape to visit Temple as a recruited walk-on. Tommy at 6-foot-5, and 215 pounds, quickly learned that the salad bar was closed, went to multiple beef repeats for lunch and earned a full scholarship two years later as a 6-foot-5, 255-pound blocking tight end who could catch the football if they ever threw it to him.

When I brought Tommy into the football office I also pulled my 1965 letter sweater out of a Food Lion bag and asked the secretaries, “Have you ever seen one of these?” One woman stood up with tears in her eyes and came over and gave me a hug, saying, “Welcome home.”
Now that Temple is 6-2, bowl eligible and on its way to more wins, all the former Owls are hooting during the daytime.

BEAST I EVER SAW - The 1967 Ambridge High School basketball team from western Pennsylvania is the best I ever saw in person.

It won the PIAA state tournament with a 27-0 record winning tournament games by an average of 20 points, including blowing out Chester High - “everybody dunks, even the manager” - in the finals. Dick DeVenzio (Duke), Dennis Wuycik (North Carolina) and Frank Kaufman (Purdue) played major-college basketball. The team was coached by Dick DeVenzio, the point guard’s father. When the talent graduated, so did the coach. Dick Dougherty, sports editor of the Bucks County Courier and my mentor in the business, wrote, ”When last spotted, coach DeVenzio was heading north on the Alaskan Highway.”

Delmarva Christian coach Mark Engel was last seen heading south on the Coastal Highway having taken the head job at Stephen Decatur High School. And, of course, he took his point guard son and namesake with him because Mark may be the guy of Christian core values, but that doesn’t help you break the press.

Derrick Elzey, a 6-foot-4 leaping forward from Delmarva, transferred to Sussex Central in August before coach Engel’s exit. Derrick lost his 22-year-old brother Terry to heart disease over the summer, the contributing factor to his returning to his home school. Derrick is awaiting word on a waiver request (financial hardship) from DIAA to see if he is eligible.

Mike LaPointe, the 6-foot-8 mountain man from Massachusetts who transferred into Delmarva Christian last season, is reported to be out of eligibility. The Royals have made the state basketball tournament on two occasions.

SNIPPETS - One of my coaching heroes is Ed McCluskey, who coached Farrell basketball in western Pennsylvanian 1949-77 and holds the record for most WPIAL championships (11) and most PIAA titles (7). McCluskey had a record of 698-185. His battles with Chester High in the state finals are legendary.

The Cape blue bleachers have a gold Cape engineered into the motif, and I wonder how long before kids figure a seating pattern that changes the four letters of Cape to something hysterically inappropriate.

Maryland lost to North Carolina 3-0 in the semifinals of the ACC women’s soccer tournament, and now the 20th-ranked Terps await word to see if they made the NCAA tournament. Lydia Hastings of Rehoboth is a midfielder at Maryland.

Will Geppert won the 9-10-year-old division of the home run derby last Saturday at Dover Little League Park.

Amanda Deloy, a midfielder on the defending National Champions Division II field hockey team, was recently selected to the first team of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference.