In front of nearly 1,400 screaming fans, Adam Reifer struck out Justin Bass to secure the Batavia Muckdog's first league title since 1963 with a 9-3 victory over the Jamestown Jammers.
With the third strike of the third out in the top of the ninth, fans and players alike went wild as young men in red jerseys swarmed the field and piled on top of each other in front of home plate. In the stands, fans screamed, hugged and high-fived.
Within minutes, league president Ben Hayes presented the championship trophy to manager Mark DeJohn.
The Muckdogs won game one of the three-game series in Jamestown on Friday night. Saturday's game was rained out.
The game was close up until the bottom of the eighth inning when the Muckdogs blew the game open by scoring five runs.
Jamestown had scored two runs in the top of the inning to make it 4-3.
Frederick Parejo went 4-4 and Shane Peterson picked up three hits.
The starter and winner was Hector Cardenas who went six innings and gave up only 1 run.
If it all turned out, we'll post some video from tonight later.
UPDATE: I shot video with two cameras. One was a little Flip so I could post something quickly. That hasn't quite worked out. For some reason, YouTube keeps throwing an error when I try to upload it. Google Video took it just fine, and you can view it here. We'll see how it goes with the other video, which includes some interviews.
UPDATE II: Still having trouble with getting a video to upload to YouTube. The quality of this on Google just isn't very good, but here's the longer video with interviews and such.
UPDATE III: Wow, I kept getting these upload errors, but all this time -- the first video did upload and process just fine. Here's video #1 -- shot with the Flip just to get a quick video of the final out. The second video finally did upload and is processing now. I'll embed either when it's ready or later in the morning (late tonight now, so I might sleep in a bit).
UPDATE IV: Ok, here it is ... the longer video with interviews (Ben Hayes, Dan Mason, Brian Paris and Bill Kauffman):
UPADATE V: Nice summary of the Muckdog's post season on Scout.com. Also, long story on MLB.com, with some nice quotes from Shane Peterson.
This is so
This is so awesome!!!
Congrats to the whole team.
Patrick, it looks like your
Patrick, it looks like your getting some Kovburgers.
WOW! Congratulations to
WOW!
Congratulations to the Muckdogs and to the City of Batavia! I was invited to go today, but my brother was visiting from Ga.
What an incredible season! So glad that I made it to a couple games this summer.
Daniel, I forgot about that
Daniel,
I forgot about that until now. I get my Kovburgers. My Swedish great-grandfather would be proud.
Patrick, I want to try one.
Patrick,
I want to try one. You should hook me up.
BTW, go Batavia Youth Football!!
Yeah they won' that's
Yeah they won' that's great.Thanks for the video howard.They had the muckdogs on the news too.Wow it's getting just a bit windy.
The City of Batavia, should
The City of Batavia, should have a parade in celebration of this HUGE accomplishment. Also an open dinner to the public would be great too. This type of celebration would hopefully lift spirits for Batavians to take part in future events and learn more about the sport too.
Woof Woof
Woof Woof woof!
Congratulations Muckdogs! Congrats Batavia! Wish I could have been there to see it. Instead I had to be content listening into WBTA over the internet.
45 years is a long time for the Pirates/Trojans/Clippers/Muckdogs to wait. Thank you RedWings, and all the folks who worked so hard in the off season to keep Baseball in Batavia. Let's pray it never leaves.
Thanks Batavian, Muckdog staff (Mollie) and WBTA for making it possible for a fellow Batavian in fa away Minnesota to follow the team during this dream season.
It was so great to be there
It was so great to be there for the win. Even the few stray raindrops couldn't keep people away.
Congrats to the Muckdog team; the Redwing organization; and the fans who stood by the team for the entire season.
Who would have thought that a team on its way to extinction could come out on top?
Congratulations to the
Congratulations to the Batavia Muckdogs!!!! It was the most awesome time in the world. I sure wish we could have the enthusiasm and the #'s we had at the Stadium during the playoffs all season long. Maybe the people of this area will think about in our off season and come to the Stadium more often next year. Let's think repeat ... it has been fun.
Words can't describe how I
Words can't describe how I feel about this past baseball season! You couldn't even write a movie this good! There are so many people that I want to thank, the list is long and you know who you are! It's now time to celebrate, reflect on this past season and start working for next year! It was a great first step in saving this franchise! LET'S GO MUCKDOGS! 2008 NEW YORK - PENN LEAGUE CHAMPIONS!!!