Baseball Coming Easy for West Deptford Majors

Today’s kids are much too young to have seen Hall of Famer Willie Mays play baseball. And with technology limited during Mays’ playing days, it’s likely many of today’s young players have never even seen a Willie Mays highlight–except maybe his famous catch and throw in center field during the 1954 World Series.

Mays had a way of making the game look simple. He made hitting a 90-mph fastball look routine, and chasing down a ball that belonged in the gap, commonplace.

Mays also had a way of breaking things down in its simplest form when talking about the game.

“They throw the ball, I hit it,” Mays once said after a game. “They hit the ball, I catch it.”

Of course, the game of baseball is not as easy as Mays made it look.

And a case could certainly be made that the game is not as easy as the West Deptford Major Division Little League team is making it look, either.

West Deptford continued to excel, defeating Glassboro, 16-0, in three-and-a-half innings in the District 15 Major Division semifinals Tuesday. It will compete in the finals tonight against Woodbury in Clayton at 7 p.m.

The team is undefeated thanks to a powerful lineup, great pitching and a defense that seems to make every play.

Right now, the game seems to be coming to them as simply as it came to Mays.

“That’s what we do,” West Deptford coach Mark Ainsley said, referring to the production from his entire offense. “We have the power hitters and then we have the guys who hit the ball hard, singles, gappers. It’s consistent 1-through-12, all these boys are putting the ball in play. Once we got past their first pitcher, it seemed to deflate them early. They are a real good team, we just kept plugging away.”

West Deptford wasted no time showing they were eager to get to the finals.

Derek Wakeley led off the bottom of the first with a double, and touched home without worry when Brian Bernetich followed with a towering two-run home run to right.

“Derek’s been doing that the whole tournament, even last year, that’s why I have him leading off,” Ainsley said. “He hit a gapper and then Brian just absolutely destroyed it. That’s the farthest Little League home run I think I have ever seen. It was a bomb.”

“Their pitcher was throwing pretty fast and I knew he would be coming in with a fastball,” Bernetich said. “I just swung hard. If he throws you a fastball you have to be ready.”

Wakeley, who earned the win, got around a hit and a walk to keep Glassboro off the board in the top of the second. In the bottom half of the frame, West Deptford went to work.

The boys in green and white sent 15 batters to the plate, scoring 10 runs on 10 hits. Wakeley hit his third home run in two days with one out in the inning, and two batters later, Eric Ainsley delivered a two-run homer that opened the floodgates.

“I swung early on the ball,” Eric Ainsley said. “I wasn’t used to (the speed) after the first pitcher, and it just went out.

Nine of the next 10 batters reached base (six singles, a double, a walk and an error) as West Deptford put the game out of reach. The team added four runs in the third for good measure.

“Everyone just kept hitting the ball,” Eric Ainsley said.

All nine starters either had an RBI or scored a run as Wednesday’s performance was truly a team victory.

All that is left now is to finish this run off with a championship tonight.

And in keeping with the mantra of Mays, Bernetich said the team just has to keep doing exactly what it has done to this point.

Said Bernetich, “We have to stay confident.”