Local Sports

Babe Ruth World Series is about making memories

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following story first saw the light of day in 2015. With the Babe Ruth 13-year-old World Series scheduled to begin this week at Diethrick Park in Jamestown, it was deemed appropriate to run the story again.

Nearly 25 years ago, Frank Stefanelli of Jamestown had the good fortune of watching a Major League Baseball game from one of the fancy suites at the old Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. As he did so, a member of the wait staff came by with a bowl of peanuts.

What's a ballgame without peanuts, right?

"But I'm sitting there and I'm thinking, 'Where do I put these shells?'” Stefanelli recalled as he scanned the thick, navy blue carpet in the iconic ballpark. "The (waiter) finally comes over and says,' Just throw the darn things on the floor.'''

A quarter century later, Stefanelli tells that story as if it happened yesterday. As to who pitched, had a good day at the plate or who won the game that day, well, that's not quite as clear.

One thing is certain, though. It was because of America's pastime that Stefanelli made a memory -- a peanut-on-the-floor memory, if you will -- that has stood the test of time all these years later.

And, if you want to know the truth, Stefanelli's experience on the corner of East 161st Street and River Avenue in the Bronx isn't unlike what the players, coaches and their families will leave Jamestown with upon the completion of the Babe Ruth 13-year-old World Series.

"The hits, runs and errors are the least important thing about the World Series,'' said host president Russell E. Diethrick Jr., "unless you're the one involved in the hits, runs and errors.''

In other words, it's about the relationships -- forged in less than two weeks, but somehow last a lifetime -- that endure.

"It's sort of a Jamestown and Chautauqua County thing,'' Diethrick said. "When Babe Ruth Baseball looks for a place that is a meaningful experience, they have found that in Jamestown. They have found it year after year after year."

Beginning Thursday with the team arrivals, Jamestown will roll out the figurative red carpet for the (21st) Babe Ruth World Series since 1980, a figurative batting average that far surpasses any other community in the program's history.

"Somebody from the (Babe Ruth League headquarters) in New Jersey made a statement one time,'' Stefanelli recalled, "that Jamestown doesn't have committees for the World Series, because no matter who you talk to they (seem to be) part of it."

And while the city has embraced players that have gone on to the Major Leagues, including Richie Sexson, Derek Lilliquist, Ben McDonald, David Howard and Kris Benson, it's the story within the story that keeps Stefanelli and Diethrick as fired up today as they were when their committee agreed to bring the first World Series to Jamestown decades ago.

Diethrick admits to not remembering "any of the plays on the field," during that 1980 tournament, but he does recall meeting Babe Ruth's daughter, Dorothy Pirone and her husband, Dominick, and having a chance to see a car once belonging to the Babe himself tooling through downtown, driven by owner and area native Les Ostrander. Diethrick also remembers Jamestown resident Bob Benson dressing up as the Bambino for that first series, while Stefanelli recalls the Pirones being chauffeured around the county in his car in the couple's quest to acquire an Arabian horse.

But Diethrick's fondest memory from that first series wasn't a home run by Kirk Dulom of tournament champion Miami, or the huge crowds that filled the former College Stadium. Rather, it came courtesy of George Mathews, another local committee member.

"Like so many people, Dominick Pirone was suffering with a heart problem during that time and he was concerned about what was next for him,'' Diethrick said. "In conversation, he discovered that George Mathews had gone through the same thing. George had been to Cleveland and Erie and he shared that with Dominick and then took him by the hand and led him (figuratively) to Cleveland. Through that ... George Mathews saved Dominick's life.

"Where else can that happen? There are things that do not happen on a baseball field, but they happen because of a baseball field."

And they're about to happen again, beginning this weekend.

"It's going to go on forever, as far as I'm concerned,'' Stefanelli said.