It is 30 years to the day on this Easter Sunday, and they still talk about the chilly, damp, misty day Al Leiter of Central Regional high school of Bayville, N.J., struck out 32 batters and a bulldog named John Spinapont of Wall Township High School struck out 18 and matched the future major-league star goose egg for goose egg for 13 refuse-to-lose innings before the game was called because of a drenching downpour from a solitary angry dark cloud.
As long as Leiter wasn’t coming out of the game, Spinapont wasn’t coming out of the game, and 30 years to the day later, in an era when pitchers are coddled and saddled with pitch counts, each of them guesstimates he must have thrown no fewer than 200 pitches, and in Jersey folklore, it is forever remembered as an epic mano-a-mano duel between two of the legends of the schoolboy game.
A year earlier as a sophomore, Spinapont had pitched Wall to the Group 3 state title. But now Leiter, in the midst of a 13-0-1 senior season during which he pitched four no-hitters, was on his way to pitching Central Regional to the championship.
“If I didn’t throw like a really great game or I didn’t strike out a lot of guys,” Leiter recalled this week, “I was pissed off.”
A dozen years later, with the Marlins, Leiter would pitch a no-hitter against the Rockies, but it wasn’t until 1999 when he two-hit the Reds in Cincinnati to get the Mets into the playoffs that Leiter felt what he felt the day he struck out 32.
“That was probably as close to the dominant feeling that I had 15 years earlier,” Leiter said.
It was a game for the ages between two rival schools, and two pitchers with 90 mph-plus fastballs who would combine for the state strikeout record. Leiter’s 32-strikeout day fell five short of a national record set over 17 innings.
Dan Manson was Spinapont’s catcher. Tim Morris was Leiter’s catcher. Manson recalls striking out three times that day against Leiter.
“It was hard enough that he threw as hard as he did,” Manson said. “But his ball just moved. It wasn’t even warm out yet. It was a crummy day, and every time you got in the box, Al would throw one up by your ear, and then he would just paint the corner with a 92 mile-an-hour breaking ball, and you’re like, ‘Oh s–t, I’m done.’
“Anywhere Timmy Morris put his glove that day, Al Leiter would hit. Tim Morris and I had the easiest job in the world on that April day, OK? We had the most fun of anyone in the universe, because we just sat back there and you just called pitches. And those two guys? [They] did whatever they wanted to do on that day.”
Leiter was a 205-pound southpaw scouted feverishly by the major-league scouts who flooded the area behind the backstop in lawn chairs. Spinapont was a stocky, 220-pound right-hander, a ferocious fullback in football, armed with a Leatherneck mentality.
“When I stepped on the field,” Spinapont said, “it was a different person than outside the field. I was there to win every time I stepped in whichever field or sport I was in.”
And everyone knew it.
“Stud,” Leiter said.
“Johnny Spinapont was a big-game guy,” Manson said. “The bigger the game, the bigger he performs.”
It was supposed to be a 1 p.m. start at Central Regional on Good Friday. It started 45 minutes late.
“Our bus driver got lost,” Manson said.
The way Manson remembers it, Spinapont surrendered two hits in the first inning — and just one the rest of the way.
“Johnny Spinapont never warmed up enough in the bullpen before the game,” Manson said.
Somewhat early in the game, Dave Kennett, who hit Spinapont well, nearly broke the ice.
“I hit a ball to left and the kid ended up bringing it back in,” Kennett said. “He robbed me of a home run.”
Central Regional had one more golden opportunity.
“In the seventh inning, I hit a double in the gap,” Kennett said, “we had a kid on first [Jeff Roessler] who was our fastest player and we sent him. And Wall had two perfect relays from left field and hosed him out at the plate or the game would have ended in seven.”
Then Wall thought it had scored the run which almost certainly would have given it an eventual 1-0 victory on a double steal.
“There was first and second, and basically I was sacrificing the guys over,” Manson said. “I was in the batter’s box. I just turned, offered to bunt, pulled it back because I couldn’t see the ball, it went right by me. And the catcher, Timmy Morris, plowed into me, and I was in the batter’s box. And he threw it in the outfield and we thought we scored.
“And the Central Regional umpire — as us Wall guys like to remember — the Central Regional umpire called me out (for interference) and sent the runners back.”
Central Regional shortstop Dave Kennett: “Did he tell you about the scuffle that came about after that?”
Uh, no.
“Our right fielder came in, and Danny was still at the plate, he was kind of arguing with the umpire, and I think our right fielder made like a wisecrack to him. Danny gave him a forearm shiver and the next thing you know, there was like bench-clearing coming on, and [late Central Regional coach] Al Kunzman tackled the right fielder and pulled him off the field.”
Central Regional right fielder Bob Medolla: “I think I yelled something at him coming across, and he took a swing at me. I turned and went after him, and actually my coach tackled me. I didn’t know who was holding me down, and he wore glasses, and out of the corner of my eye I could see the glasses, and I realized it was him. He’s yelling at me, ‘We can’t lose you in the game,’ something like that.”
Manson: “Who’d you talk to, Dave Kennett? Only Dave Kennett would remember a fight.”
This all unfolded in the 10th inning.
“If you knew Bobby, he was a noisy guy,” Manson said. “He was fired up, little sparkplug-like guy. He came running in, their dugout was on the third base side. He was like, ‘Yeah, go sit down, yeah!’ He was being a 17-year-old kid taunting the guy who just got called out when we felt we won the game. And I just threw a forearm shiver. He was like taunting me right in front of my face, and I was just like, ‘No, you’re not going to do this.’ ”
Order was quickly restored by both highly respected coaches, Kunzman and Wall’s Harry Madsen.
“Somebody wanted to win that goddamn game,” Manson said, “so tensions were pretty high.”
Soon it was the 11th. And the 12th. And the 13th.
“There was definitely no way you were going to remove me,” Spinapont said. “I think at one point I had said, ‘If Al comes out, I’ll come out, otherwise I’m here.’ I remember being on the mound and watching Coach Madsen have a guy starting to warm up. And, that just…that set the tone — I wasn’t coming out [chuckle].”
Neither, of course was Leiter.
“I would say it feels like there’s nothing that can stop you,” Leiter said. “It was confident, controlled, aggressive behavior.”
The will to win fueled the fire inside both of them. This was Bird versus Magic with baseballs.
“He and Spinapont, they were getting stronger as the game went on,” Manson said. “And I just believe that they both fed off of each other. It was like, ‘I’ll show you.’”
Spinapont went on to pitch at Brookdale Community College, in Middletown, N.J., where Kennett became a teammate.
Kennett: “John had that [Mad Hungarian] Al Hrabosky kind of thing going on. He’d hide behind his glove, and he would stare you down, and then he’d just throw cheddar at you, he’d throw 91, 92 miles an hour. He wasn’t trying to fool you.”
Medolla: “He was intimidating. … a different intimidating than Al. Al threw the ball hard, he was a lot of arms and legs coming at you. … He’d strike kids out just by throwing balls over their heads, you know? But Spinapont, he grunted at ya, he stared you down. … He was like an animal — a big bruiser.”
Leiter was destined for the big leagues, a second-round pick of the Yankees.
Kennett: “He was the same kind of guy. He stared people down, throwing 94 at the high school level — pretty tough to hit.”
Wall left fielder Rob Shimko: “The speed wasn’t the problem, it was his curveball, actually. We would go to our batting cages, and we’d have an Iron Mike machine back then throwing the upper 80s also, so the fastball really wasn’t the problem.”
Manson: “Al’s curveball was ridiculous that day. Imagine a guy throwing as hard as he does, and then, you got to deal with a breaking ball that just drops off the table.”
At least three Wall batters whiffed five times against Leiter.
“You were on the bench and saying, ‘OK, let’s just try to put the ball in play,’” Manson said.
Suddenly, the skies opened, and the game was called. A few weeks later, the two teams started over, and Leiter would no-hit Wall in a 1-0, seven-inning victory over Spinapont.
“We wanted to keep playing,” Kennett said. “We were mad that we couldn’t keep playing.”
When it ended, Leiter was stunned to learn he had struck out 32.
“The girl who kept score came up and she said, ‘You know Al, you struck out 32 guys,’ ” Leiter said.
Leiter, who was asked to throw 163 pitches one cold, April night in 1989 by Dallas Green, might have thrown 250 pitches that day. He made his next start anyway. He chuckles now and says of his marathon: “It’s pretty amazing that my coach thought that that was a good idea.”
When Kennett returned to his Bayville home two miles from the school, the sun was out.
“It was almost like someone was saying, ‘This game needs to end now,’ ” he said, and laughed.
The crowd, probably fewer than 200, has swelled over the years.
“And there’s probably 3,000 people that would tell you they were there,” Manson said.
Leiter once whiffed 15 Cubs. His old adversaries from Wall cheered him every step of the major league way. They reminisced together at a 25-year reunion charity softball game on the Bayville field Leiter built with his money.
“We were his biggest fans,” Manson said. “We were all rooting for Al Leiter.”
Thirty years to the day later, Leiter is a fixture in the YES booth, and the feeling is mutual.
Leiter: “You know what? It just relives a great memory.”
Spinapont: “I was born in Wall, work for the town, and still people talk, they’ll text you — ‘hey, are you?… You played against Al?’ It’s good memories.”