October 1, 1998
Homecoming this year brought out a number of football alums to celebrate the 75th year of the sport at East Hampton High School, including five octogenarians who played on the mythical county championship team of 1934 coached by the late Frank (Sprig) Gardner — Dave Baker, Dave Gilmartin, Dick Mott, Carroll Fithian, and Willie Jasunas.
“We were the first team ever to beat Southampton,” said Dr. Baker, who, until he had a stroke two years ago, had practiced dentistry here for 50 years.
The Maroon Marauders’ center, Dr. Baker said the ’34 team, which, besides Southampton, had victories over such far-flung opponents as Lynbrook and Patchogue, “used the Pop Warner double wing formation, with an unbalanced line. Four linemen were to the right of the center, two to the left. One of our favorite plays was the Spinner 54, with the quarterback spinning over left tackle following a fake reverse.”
“We ran spinners, reverses, double reverses, passed long and short, but it was mostly a running game. The snap from center was always a toss. I never tossed it with one hand — always two. I didn’t dare move the ball.”
Sprig Gardner, the father of New York State wrestling, “got interested in wrestling because of a boy here who had polio, Murray Hantz, I think it was. He was an awfully good athlete, but he couldn’t use his legs. That’s when Sprig began to coach wrestling, when he began to build up Murray Hantz. After that, he went to Bellmore and Mepham, and the rest is history. I think I’m right about that. . . .”
October 8, 1998
Convinced that it is long past time that racism in this country be erased, Denis Craine has picked Columbus Day, Monday, as an appropriate date for a “Race Against Racism.”
“I hope that on Columbus Day we can rediscover America,” Craine said during a recent gathering at the start-finish line near the entrance to the Southampton Cultural Center.
The first girls soccer game to be played here was contested by the East Hampton and Southampton Junior High teams Monday at the John Marshall Elementary School field. East Hampton, whose center-forward, Allie Lien, proved to be a powerhouse, shut out the young Mariners 8-0. Lien wound up with two goals, Emma Beudert three, and Laura Burns, Tahlia Miller, and Morgan Falborn one each. Jeff Tupper is the young Bonackers’ coach.
October 15, 1998
Scoring practically at will, the East Hampton High School football team enjoyed a breakthrough at Deer Park Saturday, trimming the Fighting Falcons 39-19.
It was a heady day for Bonac football, the first such in what seems to have been a long time — a game that left the giddy players exulting in the afterglow. Presumably, the 72 miles that separate East Hampton from the mid-Island school flew by on the bus trip home.
For the first time in the 12 years he’s been coaching, Claude Beudert can boast of a league-championship golf team.
. . . A perennial bridesmaid to Southampton, the Bonackers, who were loaded with talent this fall, knocked off the Mariners 6-3 on their home Southampton Golf Club course last Thursday as Matt Scott, East Hampton’s number-one, Eric Schultzel, a fellow senior who plays number-two, and Courtney Darenberg, at four, won matches. Scott thus finished the season undefeated, and Schultzel and Darenberg with only one loss each.
Rowdy Hall was the scene Saturday of a Nathan’s regional hot dog-eating qualifier that saw the former world-champion Ed (the Maspeth Monster) Krachie, billed as weighing 367 pounds, but later admitting to 380, blow away the competition.
Krachie, who reportedly is unbeatable in the middle-distance six-minute contest, ingested 17 and a half dogs and buns that morning in a three-minute “sprint.” The runner-up, 200-pound Mike (the Scholar) DeVito of Manalapan, N.J. — whose sobriquet alludes to his analytic approach to the sport of competitive eating — downed seven.
The local hero, Joe Gonzalez of Springs, Rowdy Hall’s hefty bar manager, with six, placed third.
October 29, 1998
Congratulations are in order for the four local athletes — Kyle Cashin, Brian Monahan, Jeremy Barber, and Steve McMahon — who traveled to Florida last week to compete in the Ironman-length Great Floridian Triathlon. All four finished the grueling 140-mile race in good health and high spirits.
Kyle Cashin, of Amagansett and New York City, placed first in his age group and 12th over all in a field of more than 1,000 competitors from around the world. Cashin, 28, finished the course in 10 hours, 1 minute, and 33 seconds, beating his personal record by about 19 minutes.