Warmkessel strong in playoff debut
Recent Salisbury High grad turned in 5 and a third solid innings in a 4-2 win over Keystone Precision Orioles
Brian Polaha knew it wasn’t going to last.
After his Northern Yankees scored 39 runs in sweeping the Easton Falcons in the Blue Mountain League quarterfinals, he knew the runs would be much harder to come by the semifinals against the Keystone Precision Orioles. He was right.
The Yankees managed four runs and needed some defensive misplays by the O’s to get that many.
But thanks to a gutty pitching performance by recent Salisbury High graduate Quinn Warmkessel, the Yankees, were able to make the much smaller offensive night work for a 4-2 win in Game 1 of the best-of-five series.
Game 2 in the all-Egypt Memorial Park series is set for 5:45 p.m. Thursday when the Yankees will be the home team.
In the other best-of-five semifinal series, the defending champion Limeport Bulls took the opening game, 6-2, over the Hellertown Royals Tuesday night at Limeport Stadium.
“As much fun as it was to score so many runs in that series, we know moving forward that we’re going to be in tight games like this and we’re going to have to find a way to win them,” Polaha said. “We know that the Orioles can hit and score runs and they have a deep pitching staff. But we feel we might have an advantage with our defense and we want to put the ball in play against them and force them to make plays. A couple of misplays helped us score four runs and that was enough even though we missed on some chances to break the game open.”
The misplays led to two runs in the first for the Yankees and then Justin Kratz tripled and scored from third in the fourth when an error was made on a throw to first, An error also opened the
The Florida native had the last laugh. He played for nine major league teams in 17 seasons, won two World Series titles with the Blue Jays and was the 1992 World Series MVP.
Borders is one of four players (Doug Mientkiewicz, Orlando Hernandez and Jose Contreras) to win a World Series ring and an Olympic gold medal.
The right-handed-hitting Borders retired while with Las Vegas, the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate, during the 2006 All-Star break and went back to Florida to help raise his nine children.
He returned to pro baseball five years later to coach the Braves’ Gulf Coast League affiliate in 2011. After spending the next four years coaching high school ball in Florida, Borders came to the Phillies organization to manage short-season Williamsport from 2015-19.
After COVID-19 wiped out the 2020 season, Borders came to Triple-A Lehigh Valley this season as a coach for manager Gary Jones’ IronPigs.
“My wife said that I needed to get back into baseball pretty soon or I was going to be too old,” Borders recalled. “Several of my nine children made it through high school or college at that point. A couple were close to spring training, playing at [the University of South Florida].
“Teaching, the coaching part of it has been fun. Coming up to Lehigh Valley for five, six months is a lot easier after having been around [my] kids.”
Borders reached the majors in 1988, two years after first appearing in a game as a catcher. He caught Dave Stieb’s 1990 no-hitter, the only in Toronto’s history. He teamed with suburban Pennsylvania native Jamie Moyer to form the MLB’s oldest battery (both were 42 when working with the Mariners in 2005).
The 58-year-old Borders formed working relationships with many pitchers in his long career, none stronger than with pitcher Todd Stottlemyre. The two came through the Blue Jays system at the same time and roomed together in the majors.
Borders recalled a game that highlighted their similar personalities. After Stottlemyer failed to bounce a slider on consecutive pitches, Borders stomped to the mound and thumped Stottlemyer hard in the chest with his glove.
“He bounced the next one off my shoulder and it looked like it hurt,” Borders said, “He liked that. He said, ‘How do you like that ...?’
“I said, ‘That’s perfect. Do it again.’ We had the same mindset. I don’t know if that was a positive.”
Borders caught 1,014 major league games after never playing the position until four years after being a sixth-round pick of the Blue Jays in 1982.
It was during that same spring training when Borders fibbed about prior catching experience when he was expecting to be released. Instead, he was the third catcher for Dennis Holmberg, who won more than 1,500 minor league games and was the Blue Jays bullpen coach in 1994, Borders’ last with the club (minus a brief return in 1999)
Borders credits Holmberg and former Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston for molding him as a player and preparing him to coach and manage.
“I had Holmberg for three years in a row at the same level,” Borders. “I didn’t progress very well, apparently. He impacted me in a lot of different ways on the field.
“Gaston was constantly critiquing my pitch calling from a different perspective, from a hitter’s perspective, from inning to inning sometimes.”