JOHNSTOWN — The AAABA Tournament always seems to stir up nostalgia for former players.

On Wednesday, it was a current major league player reminiscing at Roxbury Park.

“It’s enjoyable to come out and watch kids play,” said Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer, who watched his son’s Philadelphia Bandits team beat Buffalo 8-3. “It brings back a lot of memories of my youthful years of playing baseball. It’s great to come. The other week we were in Altoona (for the AAABA regional). Coming up here today and seeing a bunch of people out here sitting on the hill watching the games, thats how it used to be when I was a kid playing, too. It brings back a lot of memories.”

The 47-year-old left-hander is on the disabled list with a sprained ulnar collateral ligament and strained tendon in his left elbow. The AAABA Tournament has given Moyer a silver lining in the injury.

“I guess if I had to be injured, if I had to pick a time, this would be the time to have it,” Moyer said. “I was able to see those guys qualify last week in Altoona. We drove up here today and we’re going to stay here, hopefully for the remainder of the week to see them in the finals. But, as we all know, you take it a game at a time, a pitch at a time, an out at a time and see where it takes you.”

Dillon Moyer, a 19-year-old infielder with the Bandits, is enjoying the extra time with his major league dad.

“It’s cool for me,” he said after going 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs on Wednesday. “I know he loves it. The DL sucks, but the one good thing about it is he can watch all of us. Not even just me – my brother had a tournament last week, my sister is playing basketball. He loves it, just being a dad.”

The Bandits are off to a 3-0 start, which means the Moyers might have some more father-son time in Johnstown if they can reach Sunday’s championship.

“They have a good team,” Jamie Moyer said. “They really do. A bunch of good kids, young men that are still learning how to play the game, but they have some talent. I don’t know what the rest of the talent is like that they’re going to be facing, but I’m sure it’s going to be very good.”

Jamie Moyer, who has won 264 games in 24 major league seasons, is expected to miss the rest of the season, but he’s not ready to call it a career just yet.

“I’m just sitting and waiting right now,” he said. “I’ve got three weeks of rest that I have to still do. Then we’re going to try some rehab after that, a couple of weeks of rehab, and I’ll try to throw again in September.”

His son, who was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 22nd round but has committed to play at the University of California-Irvine, wouldn’t mind his dad sticking around for a few more years for a potential father-son showdown.

“I hope so,” Dillon said with a laugh. “I hope I can face him one day.”

Jamie Moyer wasn’t ready to commit to that just yet.

“We’ll see,” he said. “I’ve been asked that a few times. We’ll see how he does in college, and hopefully he gets that opportunity.”



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New Orleans blues: Martella’s Pharmacy gave New Orleans Boosters a fight in Wednesday’s afternoon game at Point Stadium.

New Orleans needed a clutch relief effort to work out of potential jams in the late innings and then scored one with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to beat Johnstown’s second representative 3-2.

Had Martella’s won, manager Chris Pfeil’s team would have ended what now is a 40-year stretch since a Johnstown team last beat New Orleans in the AAABA Tournament.

New Orleans is 13-1 against Johnstown in the AAABA Tournament, with the lone Johnstown win coming in 1970. In that game, Monte Carlo beat NORD Boosters 8-6.

The two franchises met in the 1995 championship round, with New Orleans beating Sani-Dairy 12-2 in seven innings.



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Another tough series: Johnstown had fared only slightly better against perennial power Baltimore in their AAABA Tournament series.

Since the teams’ first meeting during the 1946 tournament in Washington, D.C., Baltimore led the series 16-4 prior to Wednesday’s game between Delweld and Youse’s Maryland Orioles at the Point.

Johnstown wins came in 1958 (Lower Cambria won 14-2), 1971 (Monte Carlo won 3-1), 1986 (Coca-Cola won 8-6) and 2001 (Galliker’s Dairy won 2-1).

Johnstown’s Delweld and Youse’s met in the 2003 title game, with Baltimore posting a 19-0 rout to begin a string of six consecutive title runs.



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Brooklyn Legend: New York franchise representative Jim McElroy was featured in the 2010 summer issue of Baseball Player magazine, a Long Island publication which covers the New York amateur baseball community.

McElroy is a AAABA Hall of Famer and part of the national committee as well as the manager of the Brooklyn Cadets.

The article, entitled “Brooklyn Legend” chronicles McElroy’s baseball legacy in the New York area and beyond.



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Time management: Delweld’s Chris DelSignore is managing in his fourth tournament, and Delweld has been in six tournaments overall since 1999.

DelSignore took a 13-6 record into Wednesday’s game against Baltimore. Including a 3-2 record by manager Ross Kott’s first Delweld team in 1999 and Rick Robert’s 2-2 squad in 2008, Delweld was 18-10 overall prioru to Wednesday.

Martella’s Pharmacy manager Chris Pfeil is 14-10 in five tournaments.

Pfeil’s team finished 1-2 this year after a heartbreaking 3-2 loss to New Orleans at the Point. Martella’s was 2-2 in 2009, also as Johnstown’s second representative.

The Johnstown Grays appeared in tournaments in 2002 (3-2), 2004 (4-2) and 2005 (4-2) under Pfeil.

Other Johnstown managers with eight or more wins are Hahn’s Packing’s Ken Keiper (11-12, six tournaments), Galliker’s Dairy/Principle Development’s Butch Odenthal (11-6, three tournaments) and Monte Carlo’s Dick Burgo (8-8, four tournaments).



Cory Isenberg contributed to this report.