By Eddie Baker
Sports Editor
4/2/09
You have just one month now if you want to nominate someone for this year’s Milton High Hall of Fame class, which will be its third one. All nominations for this year must be in by May 1. They are good for five years after being submitted. You must also have graduated at least five years ago.
The Hall of Fame is now using a new form, although the old ones are still good. You can get a new form, which is a lot simpler, at any of Milton’s public schools or by going to the Milton Public Schools Web site and clicking on “Hall of Fame.” This year’s banquet will once again be held in October at Lantana.
This time you are asked for the nominee’s address and phone number, and you can nominate a student who is a graduate, a team, a friend, a supporter or a coach. Also, for athletes nominated, include any awards they received at Milton High (varsity letters, all-star teams, etc.) and memorable performances they achieved. Then, down at the bottom, include any college scholarships they received, college teams they played on, etc. You must give your name, phone number and address. It is a lot simpler than the previous form.
Mail all forms to Mike Goodless at Milton High School. If you have any questions, give him a call at the school.
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Many Milton stars and athletes will be glad to know that the new, beautiful library on Canton Avenue is set to open up. A lot of Milton stars really did a lot to get this off the ground. Among them were Boston Red Sox fans Gene Boylan and his wife, Connie Spiros. Great work!
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Popular Milton pitcher Rich Hill, now with the Baltimore Orioles, will open the season on the disabled list because he needs time to build up his pitch count after elbow soreness.
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We hear that the high school has quite a few applications for the football coach’s job. After four years, Steve Traister is giving up the job but will continue to be the athletic director. If interested in applying, call the high school.
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A double winner: Milton High’s basketball coach, Sean LoPresti, won the state basketball championship with Milton High and was the assistant football coach at Boston College High School, which won the Division 1 Super Bowl.
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If you’re a female star and are free Thursday, April 2, there is a “Girl’s Night Out” sale at Cedar Grove Gardens, with proceeds going to the Milton High Boosters Club.
Also, on Saturday, April 11, the Boosters Club is running a dance at the Milton Legion Post. The cost is $20. Buy tickets at the door. The Classic Rock Band is playing and Talk of the Town is the caterer.
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On Friday, April 3, the Milton High baseball team will open up its season at home (Cunningham Park) with Cambridge High in a non-league game at 3:45 p.m. Next Monday, the team starts its league schedule at Wellesley. The Wildcats are home Wednesday with Brookline.
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Although University of New Hampshire hockey coach Dick Umile’s team does well most years in Hockey East, he may be in trouble if the team doesn’t do better this year in the NCAA tournament. Dick succeeded Milton’s Bob Kullen at UNH.
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A lot of corned beef: We hear that popular Notre Dame star John Stenson’s Erie Pub cooked over 700 pounds of it on St. Patrick’s Day and also got rid of 10 kegs of Guinness.
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Popular long-distance and marathon runner Kevin Kelley, who is superintendent of buildings and grounds at Milton Academy, says they are trying hard to get rid of all those Canada geese that have been grazing on the academy’s playing fields. Those droppings certainly make a mess. The coyotes worked for a while, but then the geese caught on to them. But now there are more geese than ever. If you are riding by on Brook Road, take a look over toward the football field and they are usually there.
Boston College is using an English setter to chase them off their fields, but of course this requires that the field be fenced in.
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All-around athlete Tim Knightly reports that as of now, the only way you can pick up Channel 25 is with cable. Using a converter box, you can get some of the local stations, but not Channel 7 or Channel 56. You can get those two if you don’t use the box. Without using the converter box, you can’t get Channel 10 or Channel 12. In June, you must have a converter box or cable to watch TV.
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Well-known Canton athlete Perry Marathas and his family are opening up the Suffolk Grille in the old Howard Johnson’s building on Route 138 in the Blue Hills. This family also owns Centerfields in Canton Center and, back in the 1960s, Perry played baseball for the Milton Athletic Club.
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A Canton developer is also going ahead with his plans to put up lighted tennis courts in Canton at the old Canton dump near the Town Club. He will use a bubble so they can be used all season. The courts should be open this fall.
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Congratulations to Milton athlete Brian Corcoran, of St. Sebastian’s School, for making the Independent School All-Star team.
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Former Milton High three-sport star Dennis Lynch is playing on the men’s lacrosse team at the University of Massachusetts, where he is a senior. The team recently won a game at Loyola College, where he was cheered by his Milton friends Conor Sullivan, Kaylee Metz and Kate Stapleton.
His brother, Kevin Lynch, also a Milton High star, is the boys’ lacrosse coach at Milton High where well-known Milton athletes Brian Kennedy and Pat Collins are coaching baseball.
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Visiting Milton a short time ago was one of the town’s best all-around basketball players, one of the first masters of the jump shot, Frank “Buster” Kelley. Buster was here visiting his children, and he had dinner with his daughter, Sharon, along with Dick Gallery, of boxing fame, and his daughter, Jody. Old times were discussed with a lot of laughs.
Buster took in a game at St. Agatha’s that his grandson, Patrick O’Connor, was playing in and it brought back a lot of memories. Buster said he couldn’t tell you how many memories it brought back of St. Elizabeth’s, St. Mary’s and St. Agatha’s on Sunday afternoons.
Buster’s only granddaughter, Jillian Moses, is quite a great basketball player for Dedham High. An all-scholastic, she has scored over 1,000 points during her four years on the varsity team.
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With the weather getting better now, a lot of Milton stars are looking to get the fishing season under way. But probably no one is more enthusiastic than Milton fishermen Jim Fitzgerald, Honorable James W. Dolan, W. Craig Dolan, J.W. Dolan Jr., Dean Plouffe and Moore Dodge. They go after the big ones. Last summer, they did a lot of fishing off Stellwagen Bank near Provincetown. The boat is owned by Brad White, the son of Don White, who grew up on Windsor Road.
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Boston University had only one Massachusetts resident, Caroline Stewart, of Topsfield, on its women’s basketball team.
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If you enjoyed the NCAA basketball tournament this year, remember that the first two rounds next year will be played at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, R.I.
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At this point, BC, which only has one men’s basketball scholarship available, does not plan on giving it out.
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Well-known Boston Herald sportswriter Dan Ventura, who called Milton High the dark-horse team in Division 2 in boys’ basketball before the tournament started, ranked them No. 7 in the state at the end of the basketball season. This was the top Division 2 team on his list, but it was below Division 3’s Watertown, which was ranked No. 5.
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We think that the University of Massachusetts at Lowell players did have a legitimate gripe over why they did not get an invitation to the NCAA hockey tournament. They had finished fifth in Hockey East and beat the fourth-seeded University of Vermont (which did get invited) and Northeastern University before losing a heartbreaker to BU in the Hockey East final.
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In one stretch about a week ago, after coming back from a hand injury, University of Vermont shortstop and Milton resident Matt Duffy had eight hits in nine at-bats. He was hitting over .650 and was named American East Player of the Week.
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The first fish stocking of the year has taken place at Houghtons Pond. With the cool water, the fishing should be good.
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Bird watchers say that if you see robins around now, they are American robins. Those sighted in the winter are Canadian robins that migrate here for the winter and are fatter than their American counterparts.
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For the first time since 9/11, fans will be allowed to bring coolers into the infield at Churchill Downs this year on Saturday, May 2 (Kentucky Derby day).
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Congratulations to well-known Milton star Eleanor McKinnon for her prize-winning entry at Mass Hort’s Blooms Competition. Eleanor represented the Amateur Gardeners of Milton.
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There will be a doubleheader dance this Friday evening, April 3, at the Cunningham Park gym. The event is a fund-raiser for the American Little League. The fourth- and fifth-graders dance from 6 to 7:30 p.m. The sixth- and seventh-graders will follow from 8 to 10 p.m.
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We were sorry to hear of the death of Milton High and Hilltopper star Fred Forbes a week ago. Fred, who lived in Randolph, had not been feeling very well lately. Fred pitched and played softball for the Hillies for many years in the old Cunningham Softball League. An avid golfer, Fred was a legend at the Ponkapoag Golf Course where he won many tournaments.
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Former Milton Legion and BC High star John Sills had a good game at shortstop, making several good plays and getting a couple of key hits, as Holy Cross beat BC in baseball last week.
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Former Roxbury Latin and Milton Legion star John Spatola hit a home run as BC beat powerful Clemson in another game last week.
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The New England Revolution, with a win and a tie, have a home game this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro. Tickets, which can be purchased at game time, are $20. Parking is free.
(Ed Baker can be reached at miltonsports@hotmail.com.)