While some people were watching Alex Rodriguez close in on 3,000 hits, local Little League Baseball history was being made in the 11/12 TBO division. On Thursday evening, June 18, the best players from the 11/12 TBO division—nominated by their respective coaches during the recreational spring TBO season—took on a travel team from Teaneck Southern to play in an All-Star Game at Clubhouse Field.
Twelve players from TBO along with eight players from Teaneck Southern eagerly arrived to play. Just before the game began, six players from TBO were selected to join the TS team, while four TS players were chosen to join the TBO all-stars, in an inter-squad, inter-league, All-Star Game—the first of its kind in TBO history.
Ari Eckman, who coached this wonderful group of talented baseball players, commented, “It is great to see so much talent on a baseball field. These boys worked very hard to be chosen to represent TBO in this All-Star Game and they should be honored by this opportunity. The game plan tonight is for the kids to have fun, and let them play ball.”
The large crowd that came to Clubhouse to witness history was not disappointed, seeing some great baseball played by this exceptional group of talent. The TBO All-Stars represented themselves very well at the plate, in the field and of course on the pitcher’s mound.
The 11/12 TBO All -Stars playing in the game included Owen Caplan, Netanel Eckman, David Gellis, Azriel Goldberg, Yoseph Goldstein, Liam Levy, Zachary Levy, David Markovitz, Gavriel Pudell, David Siesser, Eli Zaretsky and Joey Zelig (Tuvia Levine, Tani Rosenfeld and Abie Schwartz were also nominated to play, however, were unable to be present at the game).
The TBO Board was instrumental in making this game possible, especially as the game had to be rescheduled due to a rain out. The game itself displayed strong, dominating pitching, stellar defense played by both teams and some timely hits. In the end, the final score was 9-5. The boys should be very proud of themselves, as they represented their TBO teams and league well. Hopefully, this is the beginning of many future All-Star Games for this group of young, talented superstars.
