Bits and Pieces
It was a certifiable big game and we weren't missing it. So what if it was in Manchester and we were stranded at White's Park? We could make it.

So we started out. On foot. Hitch hiking our way to Manchester as young teens to see a high school baseball game.

Not just any high school baseball game, mind you. This was The Game.

St. John' High (Concord) versus St. Anthony's High (Manchester).

Andy Ansaldo versus Rosie Paquette.

And that was the main attraction.

We didn't get far out of town when Billy Morrill, then a Pembroke Academy athlete and older brother of Ricky, an old friend from the YMCA, stopped and offered us a ride. Morrill had just recently moved to Pembroke from Hall Street and knew us from his brother.

He'd drop us off along Route 3 in Pembroke and we could hitch the rest of the way, he said.

Fat chance of that. We knew we could convince him differently. We told him of the importance of this game and suggested he should attend the game with us. Which he did, of course.

If my memory serves me correctly, the Andy-Rosie match up of the state's two premier pitchers was all it was cracked up to be. I don't recall who won, but do recall the score was either 1-0 or 2-1 and the two aces were, well, aces.

I bring this up because the Concord Monitor brought the news on Feb. 7 of the passing of Andy Ansaldo, one of Our Town's premier athletes, at the age of 59 in Tennessee.

There have been wonderful sports times in these parts: The Bonner Years, Drapeau & Alosa/Merrimack Valley & Pembroke Academy, Joey Lefebvre and his baseball gang, the basketball years known as The S-Line (1948 CHS champions - Simpson, Slattery, Saltmarsh) and The H-Line (1956 CHS champions - Hanson, Hargen and Hurst), and I'm sure many more.

But it's hard to imagine any collection of sports teams that would not include the marvelous assortment of athletes and teams put out by the Fightin' Irish of St. John's from 1960-63. Goodness gracious those teams - football, basketball and baseball - were loaded with talent: Edgar Amrol, Dick Gagne, Bill Grady, Dennis and Donnie Pope, Tommy Cassidy.

And perhaps the most talented of them all: Andy Ansaldo.

He was in the backfield for what perhaps could be the most talented offensive team St. John's ever had with Gagne at QB, and the Pope Twins at the running back slots.

When the pads were put away and the high tops came out, Ansaldo transformed into a high scoring guard on Tom Hardiman's championship caliber teams. The 1962 team won a state championship - the year after Ansaldo graduated - but many in town will tell you that the 1961 team was more talented. Dell Magazine, the precursor to Street and Smith ran a feature each year on the best high school basketball players in the United State, and Andy Ansaldo was right there in 1961 listed with only a handful of New Hampshire hoopsters.

When the snow melted and the mud at Rollins Park dried up, it was Andy Ansaldo who was the lynchpin for the St. John's baseball team.

A shade under 6' - okay, maybe two shades under - Ansaldo had the rounded, chunky body of an outside linebacker more than an elite athlete. But don't let that fool you. He had a vicious fastball and a hard breaking curve that jolted your knees when you least expected it. No slouch at the plate Ansaldo played shortstop or third when not pitching and hit out of the third or fourth spot. When high school was over Ansaldo turned his talents to American Legion ball as the Post 21 team competed for the top spot in Legion ball with Ansaldo leading the way.

As a batboy for some of Ansaldo's Post 21 teams I had the opportunity to travel around the state with Ansaldo and his cohorts. My fondest memory? A home run to win a game? A low-hit, high strike out game he pitched? Nope.

It was the after game meals that brings back the memories as Ansaldo and his buddies would stop at a restaurant along the way home and devour huge plates of food, usually including an extra large portion of spaghetti.

Like many of the athletes of his day, Ansaldo was always a friend to the younger kids who watched the games in town. My friend, Scott Taylor, who grew up watching the same games, the same teams, and the same players as the rest of us put it best: "Andy was one of those older guys who never felt the need to be a jerk to the young kids like us. He remembered our names. That was a big thing for a 12-year old kid who looked up to those guys so much. That's how I remember him as one of the really good guys."

Ansaldo went on to pitching fame in college as he was a big star at Providence College in the mid-60s when the Friars were one of the strongest teams in the East. He is also a member of the St. John's/Bishop Brady Hall of Fame joining his father, Andrew, Sr., as the only father-son combination in the Hall.

Rest in peace, Andy.

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Small World: Local attorney and tax expert Bill Ardinger played varsity basketball at Stevens High School in Claremont. During his senior year, a local Concord guy was the jayvee coach. None other than current Concord High coach Bill Haubrich.

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This one's been stuck in my craw for a while. Back in the day, we didn't have too many cardinal sins on the basketball court, but one of them was not to take the ball out of bounds underneath the basket under any circumstances. Doing so cuts down on the ability to throw an inbounds pass because of the backboard being in the way. Next time you watch local high school basketball, check out the number of times the ball is inbounded from directly behind the backboard. Makes me shiver.

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Class L boys basketball now has 21 teams with the addition of Pembroke Academy and Goffstown. That we all know. I'm told that the tournament format has increased to a 16-team tournament from the 12-team format that existed for many, many years. Get past the fact that 16 out of the 21 teams make the tournament (76%) and get a load of this: coaches are predicting that five wins - that would be a 5-13 record! - will get you into the tournament. At the half way point in the season the 12th place team was 2-7. Double that and you have 4-14. Tournament Timber? More like Tournament Fodder for the number 1 ranked team.

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Here's a second to Union Leader hoop writer Kevin Gray's suggestion that the high school basketball schedule be increased to 20 games. The reduction to 18 games happened so long ago that many basketball folks and administrators around the state probably forgot - or didn't even know - that the reduction came about because of the energy crisis in the 70s. Me thinks the crisis may be over and an increase to 20 would be manageable.

The Scout Master
Soooo.... you're sitting in your warm living room contemplating what you might do this week - other than play 18 holes of golf every other day and keep track of the local college and high school basketball scene.

You've in your second year of retirement and the weather is just fine, thank you very much. But there's something missing, one of those intangibles that other folks just don't understand. You miss the bouncing basketball, the squeaky sneakers on the polished floor. You miss the smell of the basketball court (and locker room) and you miss the competition.

So when the telephone rang last week in Southport, North Carolina, Jim Watson (CHS '64, former Souhegan HS coach) answered the call. His former Massachusetts high school assistant coach, Steve Culp, was calling wanting to know if Watson would be interested in scouting a North Carolina high school team for him.

Interested? Jeez, Watson almost hyperventilated right on the spot.

Culp, you see, is an assistant coach at St. Vincent-St. Mary's High School in Akron, Ohio, which under normal circumstances would be no big deal.

But St. Vincent-St. Mary's is a big deal.....LeBron James, the Next Coming in the mad, mad world of hoopology, has made it a big deal.

James, you see, is the 6'-8", 240 pound child prodigy high school basketball player who's odds on favorite to be the first choice in this year's NBA draft in June, right out of high school.

He's the one who ESPN salivates over, Bill Walton and Dick Vitale follow around like white on rice, and has become Michael Jordan's cell phone mate.

His team, ranked number one in the nation, plays before sold out arenas and coliseums, not high school gyms.

And, as Culp explains it to Watson, St. Vincent-St. Mary's was looking for a scouting report on an opponent in Watson's state.

Scouting report? Of course, he could do it. I mean, come on, he's scouted teams before. Heck he knows how to get to Kingswood (Wolfeboro), has scouted Oyster River (Durham) and can tell you all the streets surrounding Bishop Brady (Concord). He can describe an offense, pick apart the mechanics of a zone, and diagram Xs and Os with anyone. What would be so tough scouting a team in North Carolina? The game's the same.

Well you're right....sort of.

His assignment was to travel to Winston-Salem, NC, close to a 4-hour car ride from his home a few blocks from the Atlantic Ocean in the southeast corner of North Carolina. The team he was to scout - R. J. Reynolds High School - is the three time defending 4A (largest division) North Carolina champs.

And the starting lineup goes 6'8, 6'8, 6'8, 6'8 (and I'm not stuttering) with a 5'8 freshman point guard. One has a full ride to UNC, another to East Carolina (where former Drexel and Frank Monahan player Billy Herrion coaches) and one has accepted a scholarship to James Madison. The fourth 6'8 starter is waiting on UNC for its final scholarship.

Oh, the first guy off the bench goes 6'10"!

Watson plans it all out and drives the four hours to watch R. J. Reynolds play North Davidson, a high school just north of Charlotte near Lake Norman, in Reynolds's school gymnasium, a perfectly quaint gym that only hoop junkies can appreciate.

And unlike what happens in most New Hampshire high school gyms, where you simply go unnoticed save the customary clip board in hand, Watson gets treated like royalty from the high school principal and athletic director.

As expected Reynolds dismantles North Davidson, winning by 26 points. Watson is impressed, but finds some flaws - despite their size, Reynolds doesn't run much or well and they play man-to-man which Watson predicts will be a poor tactic against the highly athletic and skilled St. Vincent-St. Mary crowd.

In typical Watson fashion, he writes up a 10-page report and faxes it off the Culp and St. Vincent-St. Mary's head coach Dru Joyce. A couple days later, Joyce calls Watson at home and the two hoop junkies talk shop. Joyce feels well prepared for the North Carolina opponent and the game scheduled for January 20.

As game day approaches, Watson prepares for another four-hour trip across North Carolina - only the hardiest of hoop junkies can understand this mission, I suspect. He is to be the guest of St. Vincent-St. Mary's at the game against R. J. Reynolds, but this time the game isn't at the Reynolds gym in Winston-Salem. Nope. Gotta move this one. The game is played at the Greensboro Coliseum in nearby Greensboro, NC.

Along the way, Watson picks up Aaron Holt (Souhegan '98, Elon College `02), a former player of his in New Hampshire who is a stockbroker in Burlington, NC and the two head off to watch the game.

Watson is like a proud father watching St. Vincent-St. Mary's use his blue print for success to clobber R. J. Reynolds 85-56 before a North Carolina record-breaking high school basketball game crowd in excess of 15,000. James, as usual, is high scorer with 32 points including four spectacular dunks off high lobs. Watson says he was so unselfish that by games end he thought James had about 10 points when in fact it was three times that.

After the game Watson was the guest in the St. Vincent-St. Mary's locker room, speaking briefly with James (after James got done high-fiving with Julius Peppers, the NFL Carolina Panthers defensive end and former UNC basketball player) and Watson received a round of applause from the St. Vincent-St. Mary's team when coach Joyce introduced him as the architect of that night's scouting report.

Watson was just amazed with all the hoopla that follows James. The locker room was jammed pack with cameras and reporters all of whom were trying to get the edge for the next interview. But the thing that amazed him the most is how well James handles the carnival-like atmosphere. This boy-in-a-man's body thanked Watson, someone who he had never met, for coming and providing his team with the scouting report. He was friendly, polite and displayed uncanny confidence for a 17 year old.

Watson says James has a 3.5 GPA and the college coaches, recognizing the futility of the task before them, have stopped recruiting him. The game against R. J. Reynolds was originally scheduled to be played at UNC but UNC decided that for liability reasons they didn't need the game at their school (read: they aren't going to get James so why bother).

Watson returned home Monday night (it was a 3:15 afternoon start) having enjoyed this basketball opportunity, but knowing that tomorrow would bring another day - likely filled with golf.

As a footnote, despite being a big weary from his long day on Monday, Watson did play golf on Tuesday with one of his buddies from the area. His buddy teased him into playing 27 holes - Watson really only wanted to play 18. After completing 18 holes, the course was so full that the starter sent them back out on the back nine. A couple of holes later, using a 6-iron on a 150-yard par 3, Watson drained his first career hole in one.

Been a good couple of weeks for Mr. Watson, I'd say.

Jeff Smith