The NHS Alumni BB Game-2012
The annual Newburyport High School Baseball Alumni Association game takes on special meaning this year. Following the game, scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Aug. 4, the high school field will formally be dedicated as William Pettingell Park. Coach Pettingell coached baseball at NHS for 42 seasons, including 40 as head coach before retiring in 2011.
The Alumni Baseball game really began in 1972 with Steve Malenfant's & and Kevin Doyle's team playing a nice Lower Field alum game for all. All former NHS BB graduates were invited. A total of about 25 showed up and just played a nice, fun game. Two years later there was another attempt to have an Alumni game after our first CAL championship team with similar results but more interest was created.
Jerry Foley–father of NHS standout Michael Foley and grandfather of Clipper star Patrick Foley -- decided to have an alumni game between the first two CAL championship teams -- the 1974 team who ended up 21-4 and the 1975 squad led by Bruce Murphy and John Notargiacomo who ended up 17-5. The two teams played a nice, competitive seven-inning game with hats and Tee shirts for the first time, with both teams claiming victory.
From 1976 onward, the Alumni game was played every two or three years right up to 2003 when it became a real event with a real cause. Rejuvenated by the concept of playing a fundraiser as our specific cause for the Alumni Game we have done so ever since. Mike McCormack led the new wave of upgraded Alumni Games with much hard work with the NHS coaching staff to put on a real fine exhibition of baseball with all funds raised going the ALS, the dreaded Lou Gehrig's Disease. It was very successful, for it was being played for one of our own, Brett Paulhus, who has the disease. Forty-six former NHS players showed up to pay to play in the Alumni Game. We raised over $ 5,000 for Brett, securing a state of the art wheelchair for him. It was a sign of things to come.
Since that game in 2004, the game has averaged almost 50 participants each year, who paid to play, pay for hats and Tee shirts that read "Take a Swing at the Jimmy Fund" or "Save our Stadium". The Alumni Game represents all that we all aspire to and that is "giving back to the great game." The game's highlight each year is to select the Tim Powers NHS BB Person of the Year Award, which has become a tremendous success; and to present the Alumni BB scholarship to a recent NHS Baseball graduate. The Association also regularly recognizes special contributions to the game to NHS BB grads giving back; example awards for special recognition for coaching in summer leagues, coaching in the Bay State Games, winning a CAL or Sectional Championship a la Mark Rowe at Georgetown. The Association also recognizes the NHS Varsity Point System award winners by giving them a plaque each year.
Let us all set a new record of Alumni BB players participating in the game either as a player, a coach, a score keeper, base coaches, helpers in any other way. The record is 61 from 2011, who participated in some way or another; mostly as players in the game. This year's funds raised through a small admission fee, raffle tickets and Pay to Play receipts will go to upgrading Pettingell Park in some small way each year.
