Homeruns For Heroes

The Lakewood BlueClaws open their 11th season tonight at FirstEnergy Park against Kannapolis in the first of 140 games the team will play during the South Atlantic League’s regular season. The two-time defending league champions will start 22-year old Californian Mario Hollands, a 10th round pick in last June’s draft after graduating from the University of California-Santa Barbara. Meanwhile the opposing pitcher will be better known to many of those in attendance as Ryan Buch is a former Monmouth University standout who was an 8th round pick of the White Sox in 2009. The 23-year old right-hander was 7-4 last season in the minors and lost in Lakewood on the final day of the regular season.

I always attend the home opener and tonight will also represent WOBM as part of the “Home Run for Heroes” program we are involved in along with the OceanFirst
Foundation and the BlueClaws. The program awards money to nine local military-based charities every time the BlueClaws hit a home run during one of their 70 home games and in 2010 the OceanFirst Foundation awarded $30,000.

Tonight the charities will be introduced and will randomly be given an inning which will determine just how much money they receive…each time a player homers in that inning it will go to the designated charity.

During the 2010 High School Baseball season Toms River South beat Jackson Memorial in three of the four meetings between the teams with the last two coming in the finals of the Ocean County and Shore Conference Tournaments. It capped a tremendous season for the Indians who also claimed the Class A South title and went 26-4 under legendary coach Ken Frank. The Jaguars meanwhile were 25-7 and did win a state sectional title but it was those losses to the Indians and their graduated ace pitcher Andrew Magee that really hurt. Yesterday they alleviated some of that pain with a 10-4 win over South in what will probably be the first of several meetings again this spring. Senior outfielder Matt Meleo led the Jags with three hits and three RBI’s while Andy Lopez added a two-run homer. Jackson is off to a 2-0 start as is Toms River North and Manchester who both won Wednesday as well.