Baseball Season Ends in Disappointment For Brookline Players

There weren't many bad days for Brookline's Under-16 Lou Tompkins All-Star team this summer, but last Saturday was one of them.

The Bandits' season came to an end as they fell to Waltham, 11-3, in the first round of the single-elimination portion of The Tournament of Champions.

"You have off days and we just picked a bad time to have an off day," said manager John Bucci.

Brookline was close early on in the game. Eric Dumas was on the mound, and due to the seven-inning performance he spun earlier in the week, he was limited to three innings of work. The teams were deadlocked at 2-2 after three innings, but the middle of the Waltham order came alive and pounded out nine more runs to Brookline's one.

The Bandits handed Waltham — who ended up taking the championship on Sunday with a 10-0 win over Sudbury — a 8-0 loss on July 15, but Waltham boasted some new faces up and down the lineup.

"You could tell that Waltham could hit the ball," said Bucci. "They were real aggressive at the plate. They had some players in the middle of their lineup who weren't there the first time we played them. They were batting in the middle of the order and you could tell these guys were hitters."

Bucci said his offense only went down in order one time during the game, but his lineup — whose bats were hot heading into the weekend — just couldn't come up with the big hit to get back in the game.

While the championship aspirations were not reached with this team, Bucci said the season was a big success overall and that good things should happen on the field when most of these players get back together to play for the Brookline High School baseball team in the spring.

"Championships are nice," said Bucci. "To me it's more about the experience of being on the field and coaching these guys and watching them improve.

"If you win a championship, that's gravy."