Books & Baseball -- Independent Bookstore Sponsored Team Makes It to U.S. Championship Game

August 27, 2002

While grown men playing a child's game threaten to strike again, a group of children showed a Massachusetts community what baseball's really all about -- fun.

Worcester, Massachusetts's Jesse Burkett Little League All-Stars took a remarkable ride all the way to the Little League World Series (LLWS) U.S. Championship before falling to the eventual LLWS champs. "You can't be anything but thrilled -- especially when major league players making millions are going to strike," said Larry Abramoff, whose bookstore, Tatnuck Bookseller & Sons, sponsors the Tatnuck Bookseller Jesse Burkett Little League Team. "The whole time, they really just played for the fun."

Abramoff's Bookseller team fielded two players on the Worcester LLWS team: left fielder Teddy Daly and left-handed pitcher Keith Landers. Abramoff has been sponsoring the Tatnuck Bookseller team for approximately 15 years, he told BTW. He even managed the team, though, now, Teddy's father, Tom Daly, is the team's manager. Daly was also Worcester's pitching coach.

The Jesse Burkett All-Stars went farther in the LLWS than any prior Worcester team, Abramoff said, winding up the tournament in fourth place. Without question, because of the sheer number of games played, advancing to the championship is a daunting task for any team. All told, since mid-June, Worcester played 25 games, 20 of which they won, as reported by the Boston Globe. The team suffered a 4-0 loss to Louisville, Kentucky, in the LLWS U.S. Championship on Saturday, August 24. The next day, Louisville beat Sendai, Japan, to win the title.

The day after the championship, Worcester played in the LLWS Consolation Game -- playing their reserve players (who saw no action in the tournament), and even letting their third-baseman and catcher realize their dreams of pitching -- losing to Curacao's first-stringers, 9-1. For Abramoff, the consolation game exemplified Worcester's baseball spirit. "You play for the fun," he said. "For the kids on the bench, it was their chance to play in a game."

Continued Abramoff, "It was just a fun, fun, run. And, as you can imagine, it’s the talk of the town." The team is also the talk of Massachusetts. The Boston Globe remarked that the Worcester team is a much a part of the baseball consciousness in Massachusetts as the Red Sox.

On Tuesday, August 27, the team will be honored at Worcester City Hall, and then again on Wednesday, August 28, at the Red Sox/Yankee game.

Of course, the team is already honored at Tatnuck Bookseller & Sons. Abramoff has created a display of the countless newspaper articles on Worcester, along with his Tatnuck Bookseller team sponsor's plaque, situated right next to the store's coffee bar.

"I'm really thrilled for this team, the city, my bookstore, and the league," Abramoff said. "This has been a big part of our lives." --David Grogan

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