Teammates recall 2003 championship over Brooklyn

Time passes so quickly. It seems like only yesterday that two former Williamsport Crosscutters, Anthony Bocchino and Victor Ramos, were celebrating on the field of KeySpan Park after their team beat the Brooklyn Cyclones for the 2003 New York Penn League Championship that took place at Coney Island.

It was just 20 years ago that the Brooklyn Cyclones stood poised to finally win their first outright New York Penn League Championship, only to have the title snatched away by their then division rivals, the Crosscutters of the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.

The rivalry started during the Cyclones’ 2001 inaugural season when Brooklyn put up the league’s best record and faced Williamsport in the finals. After beating the Crosscutters in the first game of the three-game series, New York City suffered the attacks of 9/11, forcing both teams to be declared co-champions.

In 2002, the visiting Crosscutters knocked the Cyclones out of contention in late August as Bocchino made mincemeat of Cyclones pitching, going 10-for-22 over a five-game series.

Then in 2003, the rivalry continued when the Crosscutters chased the Cyclones for first place and ended up settling for a second place Wild Card playoff spot before meeting again in the finals.

After the Crosscutters won 7-2 in the first game of the 2003 finals in Williamsport, the pressure was on Brooklyn to win two in a row at home to claim the championship. After the Crosscutters tied it up 3-3 in the seventh inning of the second game, neither team could score until the 11th inning.

Bocchino then led off the inning and pushed a surprise drag bunt down first to reach base safely. The next batter hit into a fielder’s choice that sent Bocchino to second. Finally, a patient Milver Reyes waited for the right pitch and smacked a line drive over short to score Bocchino for what eventually became the winning run. In the bottom of the 11th, the Cyclones went down in order for the final score of 4-3 to give Williamsport their first Penn League Championship. 

“Once I saw that ball go out over short, I knew that I was going to score and that would be the championship for us,” said Bocchino in the hallway outside of the Cyclones clubhouse as he waited for his teammate Victor Ramos to come out and join him.

“We had a great team that year,” said Ramos. “We were wild and crazy guys back then and would do anything to win, especially against the Brooklyn Cyclones.”

This current 2023 Cyclones season brought the two former teammates together when Ramos was appointed as Brooklyn’s pitching coach and Bocchino called his friend to meet him at the park. This season Ramos is in his fourth year of coaching for the Mets. He has also participated in the past three World Baseball Classics for Puerto Rico.  

Although Bocchino is currently an executive director of product development at JP Morgan, he still keeps his hand in the game by coaching his son and daughter. Like her father, his Xaverian freshman daughter Sienna is also lefthanded and plays the outfield, and is nationally ranked as a freshman.

In addition to the two teammates reminiscing, Bocchino’s father Leo, who worked the Cyclones’ security detail back then, recalled a comment that Manager Tim Teufel would make to him before a game. Since Williamsport would do so well against the Cyclones, Teufel would say, “I hope your son does well against us, so long as we win the game.”