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RailCats add ‘Champions’
to list of nicknames

Whenever teammates ask me where I'm headed at the end of the season, I always tell them I'm going to spend time at my vacation home in Sacramento, Calif., for a while before I return to paradise.

The most popular response I get is: "Why would anybody who lives in Hawaii need a vacation?" The second-most-common question is: "Why Sacramento?"

Well, Sacramento is the home of my good buddy Darryl Arata, who serves as the basketball information director for the NBA's Sacramento Kings.

Each of the past few seasons, I've made stops in Sacramento before spring training and on the way back home to hang out with my pal and former co-worker at the University of Hawaii sports media relations office so we can shoot some hoops and I can get my fill of In-and-Out animal-style double-double combos and fish tacos from Rubio's and catch up on all of the sleep I may have missed out on during the summer.

Most of all, we just hang out and watch a lot of movies and try to get to as many major league games as we can in Oakland and San Francisco.

Making the cross-country drive with our manager, Greg Tagert, to Darryl's from the Midwest didn't go any faster this year, but the trek seemed a little more tolerable.

After all, the Gary SouthShore RailCats had just come back from an 0-2 deficit in our best-of-five series against the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks in the Northern League championship series to surprise a lot of people and silence many critics.

Under the direction of a different coaching regime last year, the RailCats set Northern League records for futility, losing a record 65 games to finish at the bottom of the standings for the third time in as many years of existence.

This season, we did a lot of things right and had a few bounces go our way, as we claimed the South Division second-half championship to earn the franchise's first postseason appearance.

And we did it the hard way.

With an offense known much more for timely hits than large hit totals, we had more than our fair share of 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 type ballgames. By the time the playoffs opened, we were truly battle-tested, and our guys' confidence never wavered.

We even posted 31 come-from-behind wins and went 54-42 during the regular season to complete a 23-game turnaround.

As you can guess, the media bestowed us with a number of nicknames.

The Never Say Die 'Cats, the Underdogs, and my personal favorite, the Comeback 'Cats.

In the South Division championship series, we were on the brink of elimination twice against the league's defending champs, the St. Paul Saints. After splitting the first two games of the series on the road in Minnesota, we dropped the first game at home, and found ourselves a game from ending our season in the best-of-five series.

But we battled hard and won the next two games to advance to the NL Championship Series against the juggernaut that was the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks, who had set numerous Northern League marks en route to winning a record 68 games during the regular season.

But facing the RedHawks, who boasted the league's manager of the year, rookie of the year, pitcher of the year and five league postseason all-stars, apparently wasn't enough for the RailCats.

Our guys had to make it interesting and fall behind 0-2, to sit on the brink of elimination once again.

But as was the case all season, we found a way to get it done in Games 3 and 4, routing the Redhawks 7-3 and 12-4 to set up a winner-take-all fifth game.

Game 5 seemed to be a microcosm of the season in a number of ways. As usual, there would be no easy way, as we faced Fargo ace Brandon Culp, the league's pitcher of the year, who entered the championship game with an unblemished 15-0 mark for the season.

And, as had been the case many times during the year, we rode our pitching and defense, and got some well-timed hits to win by the slimmest of margins, 2-1.

As our closer, Derek Lopez, unleashed one 93-mph heater after another, the 3,000 or so fans in attendance went absolutely insane. By the time Clyde Williams stepped to the plate with two outs in the top of the ninth, the entire stadium was rocking, and I could barely hear myself think.

Our first-base coach, former Chicago White Sox infielder Joe Gates, was in tears. Born and raised in Gary, Joe was overcome with emotion as Derek quickly worked a two-strike count, and inched us closer to claiming the city's first professional championship.

Greg, who was on the verge of claiming his first championship, could hardly watch, having to look down after every pitch.

Derek channeled his full cup of adrenaline and broke off a nasty 12-6 curveball to get a swing and miss from Williams. The breaker bounced just in front of the plate and was blocked by catcher Jose Yepez, who seemed to move in slow motion as he collected the ball, and calmly flipped to first base for the final out.

We had won. After close calls in 1999, 2001 and 2002, I finally was able to charge the field and join a championship celebration. I had won my first championship ring as a professional.

After 106 games and what seemed to have been 105 close ones, we had won it all. The stadium erupted and all sorts of madness broke loose on the field.

There was a dog pile in front of the pitcher's mound, all kinds of hugging and laughing and shouting, and champagne flying everywhere.

Even our mascot, Rusty the RailCat, got into the act, following a leap into the dog pile by jumping onto the third-base dugout to shower our faithful followers with their own champagne rain.

The championship trophy was presented to Greg, our left fielder Anthony Iapoce was awarded the series MVP, we were given championship T-shirts to celebrate in, and there were pictures taken with the team holding the championship banner.

The next day, both of the daily newspapers that covered us this season had our celebration plastered on the front page.

We had climbed the mountain and shouted from the peak.

After a season full of close games, and close calls, we had earned yet another nickname.

The Never Say Die 'Cats. The Comeback 'Cats. The Worst to First 'Cats.

And now, "Champions."

I think I like that one the best.

When our radio guy Tom Nichols interviewed me on the field during the celebration, I only had one thing to say. "GM Roger Wexelberg, order those championship rings, baby!"

Mom, cook some rice, because I'll be coming home soon.