By:Jennifer Marino
The pristine infield dirt, grass a golf course would envy and those seemingly huge stands. That is what Tim Jansen remembers most about going to the Little League World Series in 1978.
"The way the field looks, it's pretty amazing," said Tim, whose father, Charles, managed the Rockville Centre team. The field seemed so professional to the then 12-year-old.
Rockville Centre was the first and only team from Long Island to make it to the final eight teams that play in the series in Williamsport, PA. This year marks the 25th anniversary of their feat. They won the Eastern Region Championships in single-elimination games, beating Connellsville, PA 3-0 in the finals. They won two games in the series and were knocked out by California 4-3 and ended up fourth in the world.
Bob Klein, current president of the Rockville Centre Little League, put the situation into perspective estimating that 15,000 to 20,000 teams from the United States alone compete to get to the World Series. Plus there are teams from all over the world. The 1978 team even played ping-pong with the team from Taiwan, and beat them.
Charles Jansen said he wanted the team to have fun in Williamsport, so they swam and played basketball and table hockey. They only practiced about an hour a day. "Getting there" was the big thing, he said.
Manager Jansen and coach Bob Glover also had to deal with some homesickness among the 10-to-12-year-old players. The 14 boys, plus Glover and Jansen, were away for three-to-four weeks between the playoffs, the series and a trip to Washington D.C. to meet President Jimmy Carter.
Upon returning to the village, the team had a police and fire escort with sirens blaring and a celebration at Village Hall. In 1998, to mark the 20th anniversary, a plaque was put up at Hickey Field.
Jansen made sure that every player got a chance to play at least two innings in every game and that helped them get to the series. Everyone could rely on each other, he said. Steven Murphy, who was 10-years-old at the time, got to pitch in the game, and may be the youngest player to pitch in the World Series. "We went, we all went. We lose, we all lose," said Jansen.
Klein echoes that sentiment. Today, every kid still gets to play in every game in the Rockville Centre Little League and they play even more than the minimum required by the rules. The theory still works. The girls softball team for 9-and-10-year-olds from RVC Little League just won the District 30 Championships in the Williamsport All Star League.
Tim Jansen, who has a son Michael, 9, who plays in Little League in Riverhead, sees that times have changed. "It was a little bit more fun [back then]," he said. Now he sees that the really good players play on travel teams and parents push kids a little harder. But "every kid still wants to win."
Tim and his dad still get together and watch the series on television. Michael is impressed by his dad's accomplishment. "Dad, you played there?" he has said to Tim.
"I would love it to happen again," said Klein, but, he added, the odds are stacked against it.
