Wednesday, July 21, 2021
The Observer | www.theobserver.com
Sports & Recreation WITH
Jim Hague ogsmar@aol.com
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Nutley East wins District 8 championship Moves on to the Section 2 semifinals
Dominant undefeated Mid-Realty wins Kearny Little League World Series
Joe Chew has been coaching Little League baseball in Kearny for the last 22 years. Chew is also one of the driving forces for the highly respected Kearny Recreation wrestling program for two decades as well. He’s dedicated his life to helping the youngsters of Kearny become better citizens through sports. But in all those years coaching in the Kearny Little League, Chew never had the chance to head a champion. Chew has been the head coach of Mid-Realty in the Kearny Little League for the last five years. Chew also serves as the vice-president of the Kearny Little League. But Chew never won it all. Until two weeks ago, when Chew guided MidRealty to their first victory in the Kearny Little League World Series. Mid-Realty capped an incredible undefeated season, going 16-0. “I knew we had a couple of good pitchers,” Chew said. “I thought we had a chance to be pretty good. But I wasn’t expecting to go 16-0. I knew there were a few other teams in the league that were pretty
good.” But no team in the league had the pitching depth that Chew had with Mid-Realty. “I knew we had five pitchers,” Chew said. “I never had that much pitching depth. There were some years where we had three, maybe four pitchers. But this year, I had the pitching depth that could carry a team.” Incredibly, Mid-Realty had 11 players on their roster – and five of those players are pitchers. “Once I knew we were going to have a season, I knew we had a chance to be pretty good,” said Chew, who was concerned that the coronavirus COVID-19 would wipe out another Little League season. “I didn’t know how many teams we’d have.” So Kearny Little League had seven teams housed in one division. “The numbers were down because of the pandemic,” Chew said. “I knew that some parents were concerned.” But having a brand new field to play on had to be a lure. Gunnell Oval has been completely renovated and fitted with FieldTurf. It See VIEW, Page 11
Photo courtesy of Kim Huaranga
Nutley East won the District 8 championship last week and won their first round game in the Section 2 tourney against Elmora. The team is proudly displaying the District 8 championship banner that they earned by winning the title.
By Jim Hague ogsmar@aol.com Anthony Mielnicki knows just a little bit about building a champion. After all, the Nutley native and manager of the Nutley East Little League All-Star team that played in the District 8 12-year-old tournament last week is the uncle of Vito Mielnicki, Jr., the up and coming welterweight boxer whose next fight will be later this month at the Prudential Center in Newark. Top Rank Promotions considers the 19-year-old Mielnicki as one of their top boxers in the Top Rank stable, run by the legendary Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum. As the manager of a baseball team playing in the highly competitive Little League
district tourney, Anthony Mielnicki knew what his team needed entering the District 8 tourney – with a possible berth to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pa. next month. “We have a ton of pitching depth,” said the baseball manager Mielnicki, not the boxer. “We have a lot of power bats as well. That’s how you win in this tournament.” Well, Mielnicki served as a soothsayer, because Nutley East won the District 8 championship and moved on to the Section 2 tournament that ironically is being played in Nutley this year. It just happened to be that Nutley American Little League applied to host the sectional tournament before the pandemic hit last year. As
circumstance would have it, there is a Nutley team in the state sectional tourney, but it’s not the host team in Nutley American, rather neighboring rival Nutley East. And as fate would have it, Nutley East had to defeat Nutley American twice to win the District 8 title, with both games being 1-0 pitching duels. Nutley East scrapped out a run in each of the rivalry games and the pitching certainly held up. “For me, I would much rather go to different venues in the area than play a teama from our town,” Mielnicki said. “But that’s me. I enjoy that.” The manager had to enjoy the way his team responded See NUTLEY, Page 10
