Necessity is the mother of invention.
I’m not talking about Taconic winning, but invention is why Monday’s state championship baseball game was so successful.
“This is going to be one to remember,” Taconic catcher Leo Arace told me after Taconic’s win over Medfield in the MIAA’s Division III title game. “The place was packed. The most people I’ve ever seen at Wahconah Park and it was for a high school game. That’s insane.”
PITTSFIELD — As the Taconic baseball players exchanged postgame hugs with each other, their …
Pittsfield is a baseball city and has always been a baseball city. I can’t imagine nearly 6,000 folks coming out to a ballpark to watch a high school state championship game in most places here in Massachusetts.
“It was awesome,” Taconic coach Kevin Stannard said when we talked about the big crowd. “We had heard, and social media did such a good job of getting it out there. To see, even Dave [Worthley] the head coach of Medfield said ‘Wow, what a nice atmosphere.’ We had heard there were going to be quite a few people.
“Boy, did they show up and support us.”
It was not the best baseball game I have ever seen. In a good season, a state championship baseball game should not end with a state championship football score. It was, however, one of the best events I have covered in years.
I’m not certain too many other folks could have been crowded into Wahconah Park. There were a good number of folks from Medfield in the park. It was noisy. It was exciting. It was, and this is the best part, respectful.
So if you seen Stannard, Abel, McGrath and Stotland any time soon, thank them for this event.
In a normal season, that would not have happened.
Historically, the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association has played sectional semifinals and finals, along with the state semis and finals at neutral sites. That’s why in winning three Western Mass. titles, Taconic had claimed sectional crowns on the turf at Earl Lorden Field on the campus of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. That is why Taconic won two state semifinals at Tivnan Field in Worcester and one at Westfield State University.
That is also why Taconic went 1-1 in state championship games at Hanover Insurance Park at Fitton Field in Worcester and won the 2019 state title at LeLacheur Park in Lowell.
This year was unlike those others. When the MIAA approved sectional tournaments and eventually state championship play, the Tournament Management Committee and then the Board of Directors both voted that games would be played at the home fields of the higher seeds.
So, when Taconic advanced to the state championship game, that game could have been played at Taconic or at Wahconah Park.
Thanks to the cooperation of Pittsfield Public Schools athletic director Jim Abel, Pittsfield’s Park, Open Space and Natural Resource Program Manager Jim McGrath and his staff, and to Pittsfield Suns general manager Sander Stotland, the game was moved to the historic ballpark on Wahconah Street.
It reminded me of when high school basketball moved to Curry Hicks Cage on the UMass campus. That too was a case of necessity being the mother of invention.
For years, the Western Mass. basketball semifinals were held in the Springfield Civic Center, which we all know now as the MassMutual Center. It was an okay place for basketball, and a number of Berkshire County teams won Western Mass. titles.
After the opening of the Mullins Center on the UMass campus, it was determined that the House that Calipari Built might be a more exciting place for the high school tournament than downtown Springfield, so the Western Mass. semis and finals were moved to 200 Commonwealth Ave.
The year escapes me, but one season, the Mullins Center was booked when the Western Mass. semifinals were due to be played. Tournament officials, led by the late Tom Ford, happened upon the Cage. And for some two decades, the Cage has been the electric home of high school basketball in Western Massachusetts.
With statewide tournament brackets due in the fall and for the next several sports seasons, there won’t be sectional championships.
So, what will the next necessity be that becomes the mother of invention? Tune in this fall.
