By Michael Letendre
The 80th season of the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League saw the Bristol Merchants regain its postseason title in 2009.
Bristol brought back its usual core group and returned an imposing pitching staff that got even tougher with the addition of New Britain’s Ryan Pacyna.
Pacyna joined Kevin Rival, Eric Butkiewicz, and Jarrett Stawarz as, possibly, the best starting pitching staff in the league.
Rick Hewey was still throwing the ball well and anytime manager Bunty Ray put Brian Archibald on the mound in a Bristol uniform, a win would usually follow.
Even Dave Swanson was pressed into duty later in the summer in an emergency call-up.
The Bristol offense was led by veterans Nick Macellaro, Adam Peters, Drew Sgro, Ray, Joe Parlante, Matt Hackney, Chris Klepps and Rick Barrett – a seasoned group that was the staple of the Bristol Merchants’ successful program.
And once this team started to gel, everything clicked for the Merchants in 2009.
Overall, Bristol went 26-6 and, for the final time, the program won both the GHTBL regular season and postseason championships.
On June 1, Bristol sank the Hartford Rising Stars 10-1 as Sgro had one heck of a day at the plate as he rambled up four hits and three RBI to help the Merchants move to 2-0.
Three days later, Pacyna threw a two-hitter and took a perfect game into the sixth frame as Bristol had its first of 12 shutouts on the year, winning a 1-0 contest over Foss Insurance on the road in Manchester from Mt. Nebo.
Sgro doubled home Macellaro in the top of the seventh for the game-winning hit to help seal the win.
The weather played havoc with the schedule in mid-June but the locals won a doubleheader on June 24, sinking Avon 5-3 and in game two, Stawarz no-hit Hartford during an 8-0 shutout from Muzzy Field.
Stawarz roped up 12 strikeouts, did not allow a walk and only two errors erased a perfect game for Bristol’s star chucker.
“He must have been throwing 92 mph,” said Ray of Stawarz to the Bristol Observer. “He was throwing real hard.”
Versus Avon, Peters led the offense with two hits and three RBI, netting all the runs early in the contest while Ray added two hits as well.
“Year in and year out, Adam does his job picking up runners,” said Ray of Peters. “That’s why we put him in the [clean-up] position. He’s done it for so long now and when you get base-runners ahead of him, he’s going to produce.”
Butkiewicz allowed just one earned run, walked one while fanning five of the first eight batters he faced.
“Eric’s [just] a solid pitcher,” said Ray.
After the usual GHTBL summer break, the Merchants downed both Foss (4-0) and RMR Construction (3-0) on July 8 from Muzzy Field to move to 11-3 on the campaign.
Bristol started a stretch of six straight games via shutouts, outscoring opponents 24-0 over that group of contests.
Pacyna earned the win over Foss, throwing seven innings of four-hit ball – striking out six.
Parlante tallied two hits and two RBI for the Merchants.
Against RMR, Hewey threw a two-hitter over six innings of work.
Then on July 17, Swanson was pressed into duty and showed why he had one of the best arms in the league.
Swanson allowed just five hits over six innings – along with four K’s and one walk – to help shutout New Britain in game one, 6-0.
And then in the nightcap, Stawarz chucked a two-hitter, posting 10 strikeouts, as Bristol earned the sweep of the Stingers – the final by a 1-0 push.
Scoreless going into the final stanza, Ray slapped out a two-out single to help topple the Stingers.
Ray tallied two of Bristol’s four total hits over that final challenge as the Merchants were 15-3 to that point of the season.
“I’m just feeling relaxed at the plate,” said Ray. “Lately, I’ve just been driving the ball [and] today more than ever, I was pretty comfortable against [New Britain pitcher Matt Bernacki]. I knew what I needed to do [and] when you face a guy enough, you can make an adjustment and I knew where he was going to throw the ball.”
Flip to July 22 and in the ‘final’ home games of the season, Bristol swept Meriden by a 14-1 push over a combined two games.
The Bristol Merchants defeated the Meriden Merchants by 5-0 and 9-1 finals.
And Meriden had to deal with Rival and Stawarz which wasn’t exactly a picnic.
The duo allowed just one run and five hits over two games as the Rival/Stawarz combination was a certifiable nightmare.
Rival chucked a two-hitter as the righty collected nine strikeouts to beat Meriden in game one over the five-run shutout.
He walked just one over that sterling effort.
“Our pitching staff has been phenomenal all year,” said Ray. “When you hand Rival or Stawarz the ball, you know what you’re going to get. You throw in some offense and the way we’ve been playing defense, there’s probably not a lot of teams that can contend with that.”
And Bristol seized the regular season title in the GHTBL on August 3 as the Merchants earned their 12th shutout of the year in a 10-0 drubbing of the Hartford Rising Stars from Muzzy Field.
Pacyna was on top of his game, throwing six innings and allowing three hits and tallying seven strikeouts over another shutout effort.
“Ryan’s ERA is going to fall under 1.00 and I think our team ERA was about 0.82,” said Ray after the win. “He’s undefeated as well. He’s kind of the unsung hero of this pitching staff. I think he has the most innings pitched. He goes out and does his job [and] he doesn’t get any credit. He deserves a lot more.“
The Merchants went 22-5 in the regular season and then posted a 4-1 postseason ledger to seize its final title.
On August 7, from McKenna Field in East Hartford, Bristol defeated the East Hartford Jets 11-1 and two days later, the Merchants were 4-3 winners against RMR.
August 10 saw Bristol scoop up a 3-0 victory over Avon as the Merchants were undefeated in postseason play to stay in the winner’s bracket.
Pacyna fanned nine and allowed just seven hits as the Merchants turned back Avon over a pesky effort.
“You’ve got hard-throwing right-handed pitchers like [Jarrett] Stawarz, [Kevin] Rival, [Eric] Butkiewicz – and Pacyna is every bit the pitcher those other guys are,” said Ray. “Right now, I can’t remember any time that we’ve stayed with a four-man rotation throughout a tournament.”
Bristol advanced to the GHTBL championship round against People’s Bank.
And then on August 12, an epic event came to pass as People’s and Bristol went 19 innings.
That’s 19 innings, folks.
People’s won 3-2 (we will break down that game next week) – forcing a winner-take-all event on August 14.
But this time around, the Merchants were 8-4 winners, winning it all once again.
It was Bristol’s fourth title over the past six seasons – and its last in the GHTBL.
In the second inning in the rematch versus Peoples, Hackney earned a walk with two outs, eventually stole second and scored on a Rival single to give the Merchants a 1-0 lead.
And then in the third stanza, Jay Maule snared a triple and scored on Ray’s zinger to right – making it 2-0.
Ray later stole second and when Peters dropped in a base hit, the lead runner tagged the plate and it was quickly a 3-0 game.
People’s scored four straight runs in the fifth frame to make it a 4-3 contest but Bristol struck back.
Parlante, after Macellaro reached base via an error and Peters walked, had a big one-out, RBI single to knot things up at 4-4.
The winning run came home as Rival drove in Chris Klepps for the go-ahead run on a single to left field, propelling Bristol to a 5-4 lead.
From there, Hewey had a bases-loaded walk and Maule added a sacrifice fly and suddenly, it was a 7-4 game and the Bankers were reeling.
“We had the balance and the experience to know that we could come back and do it [after Wednesday’s 3-2 defeat],” said Ray.
Bristol won both the regular and postseason titles. It was the Merchants’ fourth title since 2003.
“There’s always pressure as the higher seed but we don’t see it like that,” said Ray. “Losing last year in the championship game motivated us. It was the first time in six years we didn’t win anything. We knew we were better.”
