Christmas Eve will always have an extra-special meaning to the Falcons' Bruce Landon.
If you want to pony up a little dough, you can grab a chance to say goodbye to this "Good Guy."
There was a time when college legends stood in the third-base coaching boxes around Western Massachusetts.
Archie Allen at Springfield College. Paul Eckley at Amherst. Henry Butova at American International. Bobby Coombs at Williams. And, lest we forget, Earl Lorden at the University of Massachusetts.
In their time, the college game was very big in New England. Holy Cross won the College World Series in 1952 with Paul Brissette and Frank Matrango of Springfield in its infield. Springfield College twice went to Omaha, Neb., as a small school competing against national powers.
In early June, the top four of New England would come to Springfield’s Pynchon Park to settle the region’s allotted berth in the Series.
In that high-stakes setting, nobody pitched better than Phil Tarpey, a UMass right-hander from Gardner.
As a junior in 1954, Tarpey sent UMass to Omaha with a 2-0 victory over Boston University. He spaced seven hits and walked just two.
In 1955, Tarpey pitched the playoff opener, throwing a 1-0 gem to beat a Holy Cross team that had Brissette at second base and Ware’s Don Prohovich at short.
UMass lost to Springfield in the final, but Tarpey wasn’t quite through with his college career. He capped it four days later by pitching the distance and hitting a grand slam to beat Amherst 6-2. For his three years as a workhorse starter, he went 18-9.
Tarpey went on to pitch Triple-A ball, then came back to the area for more years of blue-chip pitching for the Buick Aces in the Tri-County League.
He also found time to earn a law degree at Western New England, and settled into a 48-year career as a Springfield attorney.
In 2000, he was inducted into the UMass Hall of Fame.
Phil Tarpey passed away Dec. 20, surrounded by his loving family. He was 79.
CHRISTMAS PACKAGE: Some years ago, Springfield hockey executive Bruce Landon and his wife Marcia found the true meaning of “Good things come in small packages.”
It happened on a Christmas Eve, when they brought home their daughter Tammy, who had been in a hospital incubator for a month after weighing only 3 pounds, 5 ounces at birth.
“This Christmas Eve, Tammy joined me with Peter, 11, and Anna, 8, children of our daughter Tracey. We played ball hockey for an hour and had a blast,” Landon said.
GOOD CODY: Outfielder Cody Ross, who recently signed with Arizona as a free agent, will be honored with the “Good Guy Award” at the 74th dinner of the Boston Chapter, Baseball Writers Association of America, Jan. 24 at the Westin Copley Hotel in Boston.
Dinner tickets, at $175 each, are available through The Sports Museum.
BEST BET for the weekend: Fiddler’s Afleet, in the Dave’s Friend Stakes at Laurel.
Garry Brown can be reached at geeman1918@yahoo.com