Chapter 1: Loaded

Spring training 1976: Dave Beatty hitting, Tony Izzo catching

     "Last call for you assholes," grins Frank Sylvester depositing a second pitcher on our round wooden table. "How's it looking this season?"

"They're loaded, Frankie," exclaims outspoken Stan Redwood, the only eighteen-year-old in our group of four baseball players and his red-headed, bespectacled self. 

"The Courier has you guys fourth in the conference," scoffs our dapper bartender who also happens to own the South Brook Inn. "Hard to overcome no returning starting pitchers."

"Jeskie and Sean had time up last year," bays brawny catcher Matt Vischetti in his third season as a starter. 

"Yeah, and we've got ten players from the '71 state finals team," yawps designated hitter Mike Sepesi sloshing Budweiser all over the already beer-stained table top.

"Hope your swing is more on target than your pour," Frank laughs tossing a dishrag from his spandex belt line onto the spill. "Varsity baseball in Somerset County ain't Little League, believe you me."

     He would know because the Sylvester brothers had been baseball stars for Bound Brook High School. Both were excellent center fielders on very good teams, Frankie in the early sixties and Johnny the early seventies, but they were still unable to consistently beat the larger schools in central New Jersey. Small town teams just didn't have the population draw of the burgeoning townships with their regional schools. 

     The South Brook Inn greeted travelers across the Queen’s Bridge over the Raritan River that separated the twin boroughs of Bound Brook and South Bound Brook. The building was squeezed onto a triangular lot at a split in the road, and it’s glass door at the front corner beckoned cars as they crossed a smaller second bridge over the Delaware and Raritan Canal.

     The New Jersey drinking age was eighteen in that spring of 1976, but most of the tenders in a town with more bars than churches were family friends of us teenagers out on the town. They'd usually want one kid in a group to be legal, and they'd sometimes call in a big brother or father if someone got sloppy. For our part, we knew enough to stay off the highways on the way home, and we'd never get caught drinking on the night before a game. Bound Brook took its three big sports seriously and any number of older barhops would drag you out by the ear when getting trashed on the night before a football, basketball, or baseball game.

     "His brother John blew out his arm before making it up to the Giants," I whisper after Frank Sylvester returns to his station behind the L-shaped bar. 

"Not many high schoolers make it to the big leagues," Seps apprises topping off his stange and refilling mine. 

"The Ridge coach played for the Yankees," proclaims lefty first baseman Mark Geisslinger raising his thick-bottomed flute before adding "but that won't help them on our muddy field tomorrow." 

"Yeah, here's to the season!" toasts Stan as we all down a last chug before heading home.