Sports 07-25-2018

Revere ingredients flavor Yawkey League’s McKay Beacons success

 

Four Revere residents are prime reasons that the McKay Club Beacons have surged to second place in the Ted Williams Division of the Yawkey Baseball League.

Players Matt Costanza, Rich DeMartino, and Zach Moore, and coach John Moore are prime reasons that the young Beacons stood 16-8 at the beginning of the week after a dominant 10-1 win over the Yastrzemski Division-leading Revere Rockies on Saturday.

Moore (the coach) showered praise on his players and proudly pointed out the Revere connection.

“I coached these guys in Little League and AAU and they’ve played together for a long time,” he said.  “I’m lucky that I’ve got the Revere guys—even though we aren’t the Revere team.”

Costanza’s exploits on the baseball diamond are starting to attract the attention of big league scouts. The 5’10” 175-pound second baseman leads the Yawkey League in batting with a whopping .541 average, almost 90 percentage points ahead of the league’s second best hitter. Last year’s Yawkey League Rookie of the Year, Costanza just completed his sophomore year at American International College where he earned first team spots on the All East Region First team selected by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association, and on the Division 2 Conference Commissioners Association All-East Region Team. He also earned New England 10 All Conference first team honors as a utility-pitcher.

Beyond his baseball accomplishments, Costanza, who is majoring in physical therapy, his classroom achievement earned him AIC Athletic Department’s Second Year Student-Athlete of the Year honors.

“Matt has been recruited to play for the Vermont Mountaineers in the New England Collegiate Baseball League, which is a very big deal,” said Coach Moore.  “That league is ranked right up there with the Cape Cod League when scouts are looking for talent.”

While Costanza is making a name for himself in the Yawkey League, he’s just another Revere star on the Beacons.

Rich DiMartino, who lives about five houses down from Costanza in the Point of Pines neighborhood, has found a niche for himself as first baseman on the Beacons.

“Rich comes from good baseball stock,” said Moore.  “His father played minor league baseball, and Rich played a couple of years in the Dominican Republic.  At 6 feet, 4 inches, he is a monster on the field for us.”

DiMartino played a year as a scholarship recruit at Franklin Pierce, but decided it wasn’t the right fit.  He still has two years of NCAA eligibility left and is considering his options while honing his baseball skills. He’s batting .356 and has been charged with only one error through 18 games for a .990 fielding percentage.

When outfielder Zach Moore takes his spot in the outfield, Coach Moore, his Dad, is more grateful than proud.

“My God, we almost lost him,” Coach Moore says.

After a very successful high school career at Malden Catholic, Zach spurned several collegiate scholarship offers and focused on his education, earning a bachelor’s degree in finance from Bryant College this past spring.

“Zach had dealt with a painful back injury for several years but played in the Yawkey League in 2016 and batted .343,” said Moore.  “But last year he suffered a ruptured stomach on Memorial Day weekend, probably due to medication he had been taking for his back injury.  It was really touch-and-go for a while. He underwent emergency surgery and, thank God, everything is OK, but it was a scary moment for us.”

After missing all of the 2017 season, Zach is back, batting at a .318 clip. And he is putting his bachelor’s degree to good use, working in financial management.

“It’s very rewarding to still be involved with these guys,” said Coach Moore.  “They not only are good baseball players, but also they are just all-around great young men, respectful, hard-working, and focused on their team’s success.  They bring that same attitude to what they do off the field; I see it in Matt’s success in college, in my son’s work in business, and in Richie’s careful determination to clearly take his next steps, whether it’s college or some other opportunity.”

The Coach added one more point:  “And we love it that we’re still playing baseball together.”

Youth Baseball and Softball: championship time

 

The Major Leaguers of Revere Youth Baseball have battled all summer for what’s ahead this week: the championship round. The Cardinals and the Red Sox will begin their three-game series at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at the Griswold Baseball Field.

Having posted the second-best record during the regular season, the Red Sox (9-5-1) expected to find themselves at this stage. With a 10-0 blowout against the Cubs on Friday, Red Sox solidified their position. For the Cardinals, however, this was anything but expected.

“They stormed their way up there,” said Jason Smith, the league vice president. “It’s a Cinderella story.”

Despite being last year’s runners-up, the Cardinals (4-8-3) struggled this season, finishing second-to-last in the standings. By their most recent appearance, however, they looked like a completely different team, dominating the Indians, who had lost just one game all season for a first-place finish, 8-1.

“It should be excellent,” Smith said of this upcoming series. “Both teams have excellent pitchers.”

The Cardinals have J.P. Nowicki, “arguably the best pitcher in the Majors this year,” Smith said. The Red Sox will counter with their pitching staff of Patrick Keefe, Donis Rodriguez and Matthew Lewis.

As for Revere Youth Softball, the championship series between the Titans and Lightning began last week. Titans (11-2-1), having lost just two games in the regular season, entered as the favorites, but the Lightning (8-5-1) proved their fight with a game-two win on Sunday.

There are concerns of potentially poor weather for both series, but games will happen as long as the field is dry, Smith said.

Registration for the 2018 Fall season is now available. For more information, visit RYBS.org.

Note: The result of softball’s game three was unavailable at the time of print.

Shark Week is back!

 

Ocean animals don’t always draw national attention, but once every year, they become a media sensation. That time of the year is back. First aired on July 17, 1988, Shark Week returned to Discovery Channel this week to celebrate its 30-year anniversary.

The 10-show lineup launched with a bang on Sunday, starring the week’s host Shaquille O’Neal and UFC Hall of Famer Ronda Rousey, among others. O’Neal made headlines, when a small shark entered the former NBA star’s protective cage, forcing him to get pulled out of the water.

Shark Week will have featured 26 shows in all, when the two-hour special of Naked and Afraid of Sharks run on Sunday, July 29.

But as visibility of white sharks have seemingly increased in recent years, one must wonder if sharks are as great a threat as Shark Week makes them out to be.

“Shark Week has gotten much better in terms of their science content around [sharks], but as is common to most media and TV, their promotions of it often still promotes the idea of sharks as being dangerous or a threat,” said Tony LaCasse, of the New England Aquarium. “We play on the fear aspect that most people have of large predators.”

People should still be careful around sharks, but the likelihood of a fatal shark attack is fairly uncommon, LaCasse said. In fact, the last fatal shark attack in Massachusetts happened in 1936; the last non-fatal shark attack was in 2014, when two kayakers safely escaped a great white shark that bit their boats.

His biggest tip on cautionary measures against sharks? “If you’re swimming in the outer Cape, and you see a seal in the water, get out of the water,” LaCasse said. “That’s going to minimize the chance that you have an accident.”

LaCasse said New England has always been home to a small population of white sharks, but with seals under the protection of the U.S. federal law, population of seals, the preferred prey of white sharks, have increased drastically in areas including Chatham and Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge.

“Over time, all those white sharks [Massachusetts has] that were dispersed throughout New England are concentrating around the elbow of Cape Cod because that’s where their food is,” LaCasse said of the increased visibility of the white sharks.

“If you’re going to the outer Cape, the thing that hurts most people are other people,” LaCasse said.

This won’t be the only time this summer will feature sharks on air, as “The Meg” will be released in theaters on Aug. 10. The film is based on Steve Alten’s 1997 science-fiction novel, “Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror.”

The film features Jason Statham, Rainn Wilson and Ruby Rose. Despite the name’s similarity, “The Meg” is unrelated to the 2004 horror “Megalodon” or the Megashark franchise.

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