Andre Chiefs

By Bruce Tillman
www.andrechiefs.com

It’s become a ritual of late August.

For the third year in a row, and the fourth time in the last five years, the Lexington Blue Sox and the Andre Chiefs will meet to decide the Intercity League Championship.

The Blue Sox earned a spot in the finals with a 6-0 win over the Watertown Reds on Sunday at Bentley College to win their semi-final series three games to one. The Chiefs completed their three game sweep of the Reading Bulldogs with 9-3 win on Friday night.

The Best of Five Championship Series will begin on Monday night at 8:00 PM at Maplewood Park, located on the campus of Malden Catholic. Game Two will be played at Lexington High on Tuesday at 8:00 PM. The teams will take Wednesday off so that players, coaches and fans can attend and participate in Steve Buckley’s Annual Old Time Baseball Game at St. Peter’s Field in Cambridge. Game Three will be back at Maplewood on Thursday at 8:00 PM and Game Four, if necessary, will be in Lexington on Friday night. If a Game Five is required, it will be contested at Maplewood on Sunday, with the starting time to be determined.

The Chiefs enter the series with an overall record of 27-6-0 while the Blue Sox come in at 21-11-2. As history has shown in the championship series over the years, regular season records can be tossed aside.

The Blue Sox and Chiefs are back on familiar turf in the finals. The Blue Sox are making their seventh straight appearance in the ICL’s late summer showcase. For the franchise, it will be their eleventh appearance in the championship series since 1998. Over that stretch they have won nine ICL titles under Manager Rick DeAngelis.

The Chiefs organization will be in search of their nineteenth league championship and the sixth since they became the Andre Chiefs in 1990. The Andre/Hosmer Chiefs have won thirteen ICL crowns since 1968 and as well as five championships in the Suburban Twilight League from 1960-1967. It will be appearance number twenty-two for the Chiefs in the ICL finals, and ironically, just like his counterpart DeAngelis, the eleventh championship series for Manager Chuck Andre.

The franchises, with a combined 33 appearances in the finals, 27 league titles, and two managers with 22 championship series between them, all add up to a wealth of experience in both dugouts.

The Chiefs ended a run of five straight Lexington championships last summer when they took the crown in five games. In 2011, the Blue Sox also won the title in five games.

Adding some flavor to the series and the success of both clubs is the fact that DeAngelis and Andre are very close friends. “Ricky and I are very tight”, said Andre last night. “We talk almost everyday year round and he is one of my best friends. There is no question that he wants to beat me as much as I’d like to beat him, but the nice thing about us is that no matter the outcome, it doesn’t change our friendship that goes far beyond baseball. I know that if we win Rick is happy for me and I feel the same way for him.”

Let the games begin.