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Ray Curren - Elm City Newspapers
May 26, 2008 - By the time the top of the seventh inning rolled around in last Saturday‘s SCC title game, Notre Dame‘s Conor Keniry was already the story of the day. Just a sophomore, Keniry pulled off the almost unheard of feat of starting on the Orange American Legion team after his freshman season last summer. He grew up with many of the players in the Amity dugout on the other side of the field, and after hammering a Jason Esposito fastball to the center field wall for a triple in the seventh inning, Keniry was 5-for-5, and with his team leading 10-8, apparently well on his way to an MVP award.
But after pinch runner Dan Mercado was picked off, Keniry -with two outs - figured he would take a shot to score, only to get caught in a rundown. Eventually, he broke for home, and - with the throw easily beating him - Keniry took a half-step to try to avoid Amity catcher Anthony Aprile, but made contact with him anyway. And controversy ensued.
You see, in high school (and almost everything below), it’s a no-no to make contact with a fielder in possession of the ball, even if it is the catcher. And even if it was rather apparent that Keniry did make a small attempt to avoid Aprile (check out the picture in last Sunday’s New Haven Register if you want proof), he did make contact.
Esposito immediately jumped into Keniry’s face to tell him that he wasn’t happy. “Jason had some interesting things to say,“ Keniry would say later. Of course, Esposito probably wasn’t too happy either that Keniry hit a ball off him 410 feet away, the second such ball in as many innings hit by the Knights off Esposito (Matt Tarducci’s long triple was the other). The umpires did a good job of quickly calming the situation down, and that was the end of it. Or, more appropriately, it should have been the end of it.
But when Keniry did not appear at shortstop in the bottom of the seventh, the press box at Yale Field immediately buzzed with questions. He didn’t look hurt, and it wouldn’t make sense to take your shortstop out of the championship game with three outs left to play. Tournament Director Jon Capone made his way down to field level and was told that Keniry was ejected because he made contact with the catcher. Under Federation rules, “malicious contact” was recently made a point of emphasis and was defined as: “intentional excessive force for the purpose of punishing opponent or dislodging ball.”
It seemed like a very harsh ruling, especially because under CIAC rules, Keniry would be forced to sit the next game, which in this case was the Class LL first round game with Shelton. Also, if you’re going to toss Keniry, it appeared that Esposito would have been clearly guilty of taunting, another recent point of emphasis.
But a call is a call, and after some mild protest by Notre Dame coach Lou Kessler, the game went on with Keniry on the bench. After a leadoff hit, ND ace Anthony Diana retired three straight batters for the save, and the celebration was on. Keniry led the way out of the dugout, and was the first one to reach and tackle Diana (see the front page of Sunday’s Register, where the guy to the left of Diana is Keniry).
At this point, as Shelton coach Scott Gura handed Keniry a well-deserved MVP award (named in honor of recently deceased Shelton coach Ed Marocco), I found it extremely ironic that Gura wouldn’t have to face Keniry in the first round because of his ejection. I talked to Keniry first after the game, and he was completely apologetic about the incident in the seventh inning, “Honestly, I wasn’t trying to knock him (Aprile) down, I was trying to get around him,” Keniry said, and the picture appears to back him up. “I was ready to go back to shortstop, but Coach (Kessler) told me I was done,” Keniry went on. “If you run into the catcher, I guess you’re done.”
I wanted to ask Kessler about the impact of not having Keniry against Shelton, but he said he was the one that removed Kinary from the game because of a strained shoulder. “I’m not going to take a chance with the state tournament coming up,” he said. After taking a minute to process the contradiction, there was only one person to clear it up: the umpires. But the umpires backed Kessler’s story: there was no ejection, no discipline from them.
So after a tremendous day of baseball on the SCC’s biggest stage, with a great story (underdog Notre Dame taking down Amity led by an MVP from Orange), I left Yale Field an angry man. Why? Not because I believe Kinary should have sat Tuesday against Shelton (and, by the way, if he didn’t play Tuesday because of his shoulder “injury“, I’ll personally apologize to everyone and never write this column again), I thought the ejection was dubious and it would have been a tremendous injustice to have him miss the biggest game of the season. I was mad because someone was lying to me. Again.
If you were with me during football season, you may remember the case of Amity football coach Mike Devito, who was apparently ejected against Guilford at halftime before reappearing the next week against Shelton because ejection paperwork was never filed (Amity called it a “personnel decision” why Devito left at halftime and did not return).
Since then, I’ve had more than one veteran football official call that incident a “disgrace”, and other incidents like them have occurred where players or coaches have been apparently removed from the game, but not officially ejected.
If the coach does it to discipline a player or to have him “cool off”, fine. Even if a referee decides to tell a coach it might be a good idea to get a player out of the game before they get in trouble, fine. That’s good officiating, especially at the high school level. But, in the bottom of the seventh of the championship game, and with Keniry not visibly angry or an imminent threat to himself, that doesn’t really fly here.
The most important point here is that all this fabricating was patently unnecessary (as it usually is in other aspects of life, in which we’re supposedly training these student-athletes). CIAC rules clearly state that - although there is no appeal when it comes to an ejection and that a one-game suspension is mandatory - that “until the officials leave the game site, the game officials are in charge and may take any action they deem to be appropriate, even to the extent of reversing an earlier decision to eject a player or coach. Both schools must be made fully aware of any final decisions on game disqualifications. Once the officials leave the site of the contest, all decisions are final.”
So all that really had to happen here is that the umpires and the powers that be had to figure out what most of us already knew: the penalty of missing a state tournament game would have been excessive. Of course, that means that someone would have had to admit they made a mistake, and no one ever wants to do that, let alone publicly.
But sometimes, especially in athletics, where two of the big lessons to teach are that of honesty and integrity, it’s OK to make an error. If you can do something about it, fix it, and move on.
It was ironically one of my favorite people in high school athletics, Notre Dame basketball coach Gary Palladino, was once told me: “A mistake is only a mistake if you refuse to admit it.” A lesson I guess still needs be taught to a lot of people.
GAME OF THE WEEK
Class L quarterfinals, Saturday, TBA - This could get very interesting if it came down to a Branford-Jonathan Law contest. The two teams did not meet in the regular season, and the Lawmen have proven they can play with the elite of the SCC, they just need to get themselves a couple of runs to push themselves over the top and into the semifinals. They were close last season.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK
Conor Kinary, Notre Dame - You were expecting someone else? Kinary not only had the five hits in the final, but added three more in the semifinal upset of Branford as well. Kinary and third baseman Bill Meade (also from Orange) combined for seven hits in the final against Amity, and combined to be retired once in nine trips to the plate.
INSIDE THE NUMBERS 6 Number of consecutive years that Amity has reached the SCC final game, a rather impressive feat. They‘ve become such a regular that the SCC doesn‘t even bother giving two dates for the final anymore (Friday night and Saturday afternoon), they just assume the Spartans will be there and make the final game Saturday to stay away from the Amity prom on Friday night.
POWER RANKINGS
5) Notre Dame (16-7; Last Week 5) – Talk about getting hot at the right time of the campaign.
3) Amity (18-5; LW 2) – Had actually won four games last week until their untimely tough outing in final.
1) Guilford (18-3; LW 1) – It‘s somewhat concerning that Jolin was beaten up again, but Class L not LL.
2) Xavier (16-5; LW 4) – Mentioned last week that playing ND again could be scary, and it certainly was.
4) Branford (15-6; LW 3) – Limping to the finish line, not a good sign heading into the states.
6) Shelton (13-8; LW 7) – Got a win over Hamden after being eliminated from the SCC Tournament.
7) Career (14-6; LW 6) – As the No.3 seed, draw has opened up nicely for the Panthers in Class S.
8) Cheshire (9-11; LW 16) – Draw is a tough one, but didn‘t have to play in a play down game at least.
9) Lyman Hall (8-12; LW 18) – McCarthy has actually had quite a season for the Trojans.
10) Foran (12-8; LW 11) – Long ride to Winsted, but the draw is not a bad one in Class M for Lions.
11) Hand (11-9; LW 8) – Need a little consistency, but the Tigers could be a dangerous squad.
12) Sheehan (10-10; LW 9) – Don‘t think Guilford wants to see Titans as their first game in Class L.
13) Jonathan Law (9-11; LW 10) – Platt Tech is improved, but Lawmen probably still like their chances.
14) West Haven (12-8; LW 12) – Had to get by Bunnell‘s Lasko to advance in Class LL.
15) East Haven (10-10; LW 13) – Got a win over North Branford to finish regular season. Draw not bad.
16) Hamden (6-14; LW 14) – Inconsistency ended up doing in the Dragons, who failed to make states.
17) North Haven (5-15; LW 15) – Back to the drawing board for the Indians, pretty big drawing board.
18) Derby (7-13; LW 17) – Fought pretty hard against Cheshire, but it was too little, too late.
19) Wilbur Cross (4-16; LW 19) – Going back to the same drawing board as North Haven, I guess.
20) Fairfield Prep (2-18; LW 20) – Their drawing board might be bigger than anyone else‘s.
21) Hillhouse (2-18; LW 21) – At least they‘ll have the Cross win to look back on this season.
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