Just in time for the start of baseball season, Good Shepherd parish, Marine Park, held its annual “Baseball Bash” to celebrate the start of a new campaign. Pastor Emeritus Father Jim Devlin moderated a spirited discussion among 37 avid baseball fans – the most ever in the nearly 30 years of the event’s existence.
Among the topics discussed and debated were the early start of the 2018 season, the new role of analytics in the sport, the way the utilization of starter pitchers and bullpens has changed and the slow pace of free agency this offseason.
As for predictions on the fate of the local teams, the consensus said the New York Yankees would win the A.L. East and face their toughest competition in the playoffs from the Cleveland Indians and Houston Astros. The Mets, the group said, would finish second in the N.L. East to the Nationals but would compete for one of the two wild card spots in the National League.
The Catholic Youth Organization crowned its girls’ swimming champions March 24 at the Eisenhower Park Aquatics Center, East Meadow, L.I. The following teams won their respective diocesan titles:
‘A’ Division: St. Sebastian, Woodside, 339 pts.
‘B’ Division: Holy Name, Park Slope, 292.5 pts.
‘C’ Division: LIAM (Our Lady of Lourdes, Queens Village/Incarnation, Queens Village/American Martyrs, Bayside), 306 pts.
