VIDEO: Canton Little League clinches Section 3 crown
Canton’s Sam Archibald gets a game-ending strikeout with the bases loaded to secure a 12-7 win over Parkway in the Section 3 final on July 23, 2023.
Eric McHugh, The Patriot Ledger
EASTON — Ebbets Field? … In Brooklyn? … The ancestral home of the Dodgers?
Any of this ringing a bell?
“Never heard of it,” George Papoutsis admitted with a laugh.
That’s OK. Papoutsis is 12 years old and the long-ago ballfield in Flatbush was torn down 63 years ago. Papoutsis never saw the real thing, but he will get to see a scaled-down re-creation of Ebbets Field starting next week when he and his teammates on the Easton Americans 12U All-Stars head to Branson, Missouri for the 2023 Cal Ripken Baseball World Series, which runs from Aug. 4-12.
Among the many perks of Easton winning the New England Regional crown is that manager Sean Smith’s boys will get to play their World Series games at the Ballparks of America facility which features kid-sized recreations of five Major League parks — Fenway (complete with a mini-Green Monster), Ebbets Field, Chicago’s Wrigley Field, St. Louis and Kansas City.
“All the kids have been looking it up (online) and checking it out,” Sean Smith said. “They’re all excited to play there. Pretty cool stuff.”
Temperatures in Branson next week are expected to hit 100-plus degrees. “It’s going to be very hot on that turf,” Sean’s son, Owen, said. “But it’s just exciting that I get to play with my teammates at that cool of a ballpark.”
This is the first time a team from Easton has advanced this far in Cal Ripken Baseball, which is a division of Babe Ruth Baseball and a competitor (sort of) of Little League.
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“We are the first team from Easton to ever do this,” Sean Smith noted. “It’s a nice accomplishment.”
Easton has blazed through the postseason, winning 12 of 13 games in the district, state and New England tournaments. Easton punched its ticket to Branson recently with a 9-1 win over West Hartford, Connecticut, in the regional final.
“For these kids it’s a dream come true,” Sean Smith said. “They all came to the field that night and you could see it in their eyes. They were all saying how badly they wanted that game. This is stuff little kids dream about.”
“I didn’t really believe it at first,” Papoutsis said of the World Series berth. “I’m definitely happy to be (going). To be able to have the opportunity to play in Branson, not a lot of kids get to do that. I’m definitely going to be happy to be there.”
All the world’s their stage
Organizers aren’t lying when they call this a World Series. Just like the more-famous Little League World Series that’s staged in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, every summer, the Cal Ripken get-together has an international flavor. There are four six-team U.S. groups and two five-team international groups with clubs from as far away as Australia, Japan, South Korea and the Netherlands.
Easton, which will be known as Team New England, is in U.S. Group C and will play five round-robin games against teams from Kennewick, Washington; West Fargo, North Dakota; Hot Springs, Arkansas; Cherry Hill, New Jersey; and Lexington, Kentucky. Easton opens play on Friday, Aug. 4 vs. Kennewick at 4:30 p.m. local time on the Kansas City field. They’ll square off against West Fargo the next morning at mini-Fenway.
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The top two teams in each of the four U.S. groups will join the top three teams from each of the two international groups in the World Series Bracket, which will also feature a Bronze Medal game. All the teams that don’t qualify for the main bracket advance to the Iron (consolation) Bracket, so every team is guaranteed at least six games.
Can Easton’s 12-player roster go on a deep run? Sean Smith isn’t betting against them. Easton is motivated by last year’s near-miss — they lost in the 11U state final — and they are talented in every aspect of the game. Sean Smith raves about their pitching staff (Papoutsis, Owen Smith, Peyton Chan, Tarren Lawless, Zane Prescott, Jack Williams) and points out that they’re a sound defensive club.
“Any ball hit within 20 feet of a kid, the play is made almost every single time,” said Sean Smith, whose assistant coaches are Rob Williams, Jay McManamon and Stan Chalvire. “We hit these kids more pop flies than any other town in New England, I’ll tell you that.”
Papoutsis is Easton’s main power hitter. “I’d say maybe beginning of club season this year I hit three or four home runs,” he said. “One of them was a grand slam. And it kept on going. I just stayed hot from there. I was always a good hitter for average; the power just kind of turned on this year.”
Going-away party
Easton hosted a send-off celebration for the team on Friday at Militia Park. “We’re hoping the whole town shows up,” Sean Smith said before the event.
The team will fly out to Branson on Wednesday, Aug. 2 with plenty of family members in tow. “We have parents and siblings and a lot of grandparents (going),” Sean Smith said. “It’s a big group of us. I think everybody realizes that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and they want to be there for it.”
Smith has been coaching this group of boys since they were 8 years old, so it’s rewarding for him to see them go so far.
“That’s the best part about this — watching these kids grow and seeing a kid evolve from 8 to 12,” he said. “To think of where they started and where they are now is amazing. It’s a great group of boys. It’s great to see their success.”
Easton’s roster
No. 2 Tarren Lawless, P/RF/3B
No. 5 Jack McManamon, LF
No. 9 Jack Williams, P/C
No. 10 Peyton Chan, P/3B
No. 11 Brennan O’Shaughnessy, C
No. 13 Zane Prescott, P/INF
No. 24 Owen Smith, P/SS
No. 26 Bennett McStowe, 2B
No. 34 Brady Shatas, 1B
No. 42 Cameron Chalvire, RF/2B
No. 50 George Papoutsis, P/CF
No. 88 Quinn Grothe, RF
