Title helps ease pain for Hamburg players, coaches
The thoughts of what might have been were forgotten by Hamburg players and coaches, at least for a few hours.
The Hamburg Reds completed a perfect run through the Schuylkill-Berks Independent Baseball League playoffs Monday at Kutztown’s Breidegam Field, capping a season surrounded by uncertainty amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The 11-1 victory over Muhlenberg wasn’t just the culmination of a title quest that fell short the previous season. It was a testament to perseverance after the high school team had its season canceled in the spring and the American Legion announced it would not sponsor baseball this summer.
In a season that didn’t start until July, had teams scrambling to find a home field and was delayed a week during the playoffs while awaiting a COVID-19 test result that came back negative, Hamburg prevailed.
“I hated sitting there waiting not knowing what was happening,” said Owen Zimmerman, a 2020 Hamburg grad. “There were a million things going through my mind. What it came down to is I just wanted to get out there and play.”
Thanks to the efforts of league president Ed Lloyd and other Schuylkill-Berks officials, play they did. Kutztown stepped up and hosted doubleheaders, making Breidegam Field the home park for all five Berks County teams.
Hamburg coach Nick Evangelista and his players were just as grateful for everyone who helped make a season possible as they were to be posing for photos while holding the championship trophy.
“I think more than anything our boys were thankful and blessed with the opportunity just to be able to get out here and play and compete with everything going on,” Evangelista said. “We had a chance to compete every night. It meant a lot to these guys.”
Especially after the players saw their high school season, one filled with promise, canceled.
“It’s something that they’ll never get back,” said Evangelista, who’s also the high school head coach. “It wasn’t an easy thing but this definitely eases that pain a little bit.”
Hamburg returned most of its key players from a 2019 high school team that went 21-8 and advanced to the PIAA semifinals. The news hit hard when the PIAA announced the cancellation of high school sports in the spring.
“I was devastated, it was my last year,” Zimmerman said. “I wanted to go out and have fun. We probably could have made states again this year.”
No one will know what would have or could have happened. But at least Hamburg got a chance to prove how good the team could be this summer.
The Reds went 13-3 during the regular season, finishing one game behind Wyomissing. Wyomissing, which lost its first game in the double-elimination playoffs, was forced to drop out when it became short-handed due to the season running longer than expected.
But Zimmerman, who’s now headed to Penn State Harrisburg to start college, was glad he was able to stay until the end.
“It’s nice we got out here and got a full season in,” Zimmerman said. “It was getting down to the very end there. Thankfully we got it in.”
Thankfully for Zimmerman, his teammates and everyone else who got to play and watch baseball this summer, someone stepped up to provide the opportunity after so many others had closed the door.
“I think the league had the all right procedures, policies and protocols in place,” Evangelista said. “Everyone did what the league asked and at the end of the day we were able to wrap up a season. It’s very satisfying.”