Four homers, Emerson’s pitching pace Boynton

12B
THE PALM BEACH POST
•
SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2003
LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES
Coach: ‘I don’t know
how to get him out’
> GEORGE from 1B
Travis who showed the way by poking an immediate hole in the starting pitcher for Saugus.
A few minutes later he was loping home on a hit by DeJesus, turning the scoreboard on early for East
Boynton, just as he ignites the lineup every night.
“I went out to talk to my pitcher
on one of Travis’ at-bats,” said Saugus manager Rob Rochinski, “And I
looked at my pitcher and I looked at
my catcher and said, ‘I don’t know
how to get him out.’ ”
Saugus never did.
In the two games East Boynton
split with the New England champions at Williamsport, Travis went 6for-6 with two home runs and three
RBI. Overall, he’s hitting .667 at the
World Series. And all he wants now
is a shot at Japan. While Emerson,
Saturday night’s winning pitcher,
loves to watch cartoons, Travis is
locked in on ESPN SportsCenter.
He’s done enough homework to
know that just three of the last 10
World Series titles have gone to an
American team. And sufficiently
stoked to cherish the first crack at
Japan ace Yuutaro Tanaka tonight.
“I just want to play Japan, ” said
Travis, who has pitched and caught
at Williamsport in addition to playing his usual second base. “They’ve
always been a good team. I think it
will be fun to play them.”
And a kick for us to watch this
crackerjack of a Palm Beach County
product do his thing again for Brent
Musberger and his ABC prime time
audience. This may be Devon’s debut on national television and his
first starting role before an announced crowd of 36,500, but it
doesn’t take much of an imagination
to see that it won’t be his last.
“If you throw a football to Devon, he’s like Jerry Rice,” said East
Boynton manager Kenny Emerson,
understandably smitten. “If you put
skates on him, he’s like Wayne
Gretzky. He’s just one of those special kids, but boy, can he hit a baseball.”
It’s not just the camera that
loves him. The word is that some
major-league scouts already are
commenting on Travis’ soft hands in
the field. Of course, of course, it’s
time to stop making such a monster
out of one middle schooler. Broad is
well ahead of his baseball class, too,
and East Boynton’s batters generally pound quality pitching as a whole,
as Saturday night’s 10-hit total
against Saugus clearly states.
There’s just something about
Travis, though, that tells East Boynton’s opponents with one first-inning
swing, that they had best consider
ducking.
“That kid might go places, yeah,
“ said Rochinski, the Saugus manag-
World championship
game
‘If you throw a
football to
Devon, he’s
like Jerry
Rice. If you
put skates on
him, he’s like
Wayne
Gretzky. He’s
just one of
those special
kids.’
KENNY EMERSON
East Boynton manager
PATHS TO GLORY:
Devon Travis hit one
of East Boynton
Beach’s four home
runs in Saturday’s
victory over Saugus,
Mass.
ALLEN EYESTONE
Staff Photographer
er.
Round and round the bases and
all the way home, that’s the usual
pattern. It’s the victory parade Devon Travis has been leading for
weeks of tournament play. One
more night of it and he’ll direct East
Boynton to the first World Series title for a Florida team after seven
runner-up finishes.
“It feels great to be the best
team out of I don’t know how many
in the U.S.,” Travis said. “It feels
good to be No. 1.”
Get used to it, kid. You’re as
golden as the moment, an ESPN
highlight and a cartoon all in one.
A dave_george@pbpost.com
In control
East Boynton Beach (21-2)
vs. Japan (17-0)
The Japanese have blasted their
way to the championship game,
going 5-0 and outscoring their
opponents 49-8. Japan has been
the best hitting team in the
tournament, batting .364 with 14
home runs. . . . Five starters are
hitting better than .357, led by first
baseman Shigeki Umeda, who is
batting .615 with a team-leading
four home runs. . . . Starting
pitcher Yuutaro “Tank” Tanaka is
1-0 with a 0.75 ERA in eight
innings. He has a fastball around
70 mph and a good curve. He also
is one of the team’s best hitters
with a .562 average, two home
runs and a team-leading 11 RBI.
Tanaka hit a mammoth home run
in the international championship
game that almost carried to the
top of the first hill at Lamade
Stadium.
Probable starting lineups
East Boynton
No.
Name
Pos.
__________________________
2
Devon Travis
C
.667, 2 HR, 9 runs, 3 RBI
__________________________
14
Jordan Irene
SS
.333,
1
HR,
4
runs,
4
RBI
__________________________
15
Michael Broad
P
2-0, 0.00 ERA, 11 IP, 19 K
.267, 3 HR, 5 runs, 4 RBI
__________________________
22
Richie DeJesus
3B
.600, 2 HR, 4 runs, 8 RBI
__________________________
5
R.J. Neal
RF
.385,
1
HR,
3
runs,
3
RBI
__________________________
16
Cody Emerson
1B
.077,
1
run
__________________________
13
Benny Townend
CF
.182,
double,
2
runs,
2
RBI
__________________________
7
Matt Overton
LF
.091,
1
run
__________________________
1
Ricky Sabatino
2B
0-for-3, 2 runs
__________________________
Japan
No.
Name
Pos.
__________________________
14
Hokuto Nakahara
RF
.375,
double,
7
runs
__________________________
16
Takeru Ohmae
2B
.333, 2 doubles, 5 runs
__________________________
24
Yuutaro Tanaka
P
1-0, 0.75 ERA, 8 IP, 12 K
.562, 2 HR, 8 runs, 11 RBI
__________________________
21
Shigeki Umeda
1B
.615,
4
HR,
7
runs,
8
RBI
__________________________
9
Jun Onozawa
C
.357,
2
doubles,
5
runs,
0
RBI
__________________________
20
Hirofumi Yamazaki 3B
.357, 2 HR, 5 runs, 8 RBI
__________________________
18
Ippei Endoh
CF
.200, HR, 2 runs, 2 RBI
__________________________
19
Toshiki Maebashi
LF
.125, HR
__________________________
8 Kazumasa Sakamoto SS
.182, double, 4 runs
__________________________
Road to the
championship
East Boynton Beach’s
summer-long odyssey began
June 15, when coaches
selected an all-star squad from
six league teams. More than
two months later, it concludes
with tonight’s Little League
World Series championship
game against Japan.
ALLEN EYESTONE/Staff Photographer
SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Cody Emerson struck out nine, walked
two and allowed four hits in a complete-game victory, his second of the
World Series. Emerson had similar success – eight strikeouts and two
walks – in his first start, a 7-2 victory against Tallmadge, Ohio.
District 7 tournament
June 28-July 7: East Boynton goes
4-0 in pool play, then beats rival
West Boynton 1-0 and 8-0 in the
best-of-three championship series.
Section 2 tournament
Four homers, Emerson’s pitching pace Boynton
> EAST
BOYNTON from 1B
you see them hit in practice and you
know they can,” manager Kenny
Emerson said. “They are well-versed,
well-trained. Tony (Travis) and Joe
(Irene) do a lot of great and long hitting practice.
“They’re coached what to do.
Sometimes they don’t do it. Sometimes they do. Tonight they had the
eye.”
Travis and third baseman Richie
DeJesus led the way for East Boynton, each going 3-for-3 with a home
run. DeJesus had four RBI.
DeJesus carried the team early,
knocking in the first three runs as
East Boynton raced to a 5-1 lead after
three innings.
“I hit the ball good,” DeJesus said
in his usual short sound-bite, “because (the pitches) were right down
the middle.”
Starting pitcher Cody Emerson
overcame some early trouble to do
what he has since tournament play
began in late June: win. Emerson,
who hasn’t lost, pitched a four-hitter,
giving up one earned run and striking
out nine.
“He’s sneakier than he looks, with
the hat on crooked,” Saugus manager
SHANNON O’BRIEN/Staff Photographer
Gail and Ed Mullen, parents of East Boynton’s Patrick Mullen, cheer their team to victory
in the U.S. championship game.
Rob Rochenski said. “He just looks
like just a regular 12-year-old kid, but
he’s a pretty good pitcher.”
After East Boynton took the lead
in the first inning on DeJesus’ tworun single, Saugus cut the lead in half
in the third inning
But East Boynton put the game
almost out of reach with three runs in
the bottom half of the inning. Travis
led off with a single. With one out,
Michael Broad walked and stole sec-
ond. But Travis was picked off third
base on a controversial call, which
seemed to ignite East Boynton.
DeJesus singled in Broad, and
R.J. Neal followed with a two-run
home run to center field to make it
5-1.
Travis added a two-run homer in
the fourth, and Broad and DeJesus
went back-to-back in the fifth to put
the East Boynton fans in full party
mode — and the team in its fantasy
game.
“I thought it was just a dream to
get here, but it’s an even bigger
dream to be the No. 1 team in the
whole U.S.,” Neal said.
Now Broad, who has given up
four hits and no earned runs in his
two wins at the World Series, will try
to make East Boynton the first Florida team to win the Little League
World Series championship.
“It feels incredible because there
are like thousands of Little League
teams in the U.S. and to be the best
one is incredible,” Broad said.
“I just can’t wait to see when I go
up there and I see a Japanese kid I’m
pitching against. I’m going to start
cracking up because it will be so unbelievable. This is all pretty
unbelievable.”
A greg_bedard@pbpost.com
July 18-20: East Boynton defeats
Port Salerno 8-0 and Palm Beach
East 13-0 to win its third sectional
title in a row.
State tournament
July 25-31: East Boynton suffers
its first defeat, a 5-2 extra-inning
decision against North Naples, but
bounces back to win the next three
games. In the title game, East
Boynton wins a rematch with North
Naples 9-1 to become Palm Beach
County’s second state champion.
(Delray National won in 1993.)
Southeast Regional
Aug. 2-9: East Boynton wins all
three games in pool play, then
beats North Carolina 5-0 in the
semifinals. In the championship
game, Michael Broad pitches a
no-hitter and hits a grand slam to
highlight a 4-0 victory against
Georgia, making East Boynton the
first South Florida team to qualify
for the Little League World Series.
Little League World Series
Aug. 15-24: East Boynton beats
Richland, Wash. 8-1 and
Tallmadge, Ohio 7-2 to qualify for
the U.S. semifinals. After a 4-3 loss
to Saugus, Mass., to conclude pool
play, East Boynton defeats
Chandler, Ariz. 4-1, then wins a
rematch against Saugus 9-2 to
capture the U.S. championship.