by Francis Ferry, NLN baseball beat writer

October 23, 2019: Bridgeport, CT – The year was 2009 and Juan Toro led a Borealis team driven by the likes of John Roach, George Thompson, Chris Weaver, Jim White, Steve McDonald and Augusto Quiñones. In the PEBA’s third year of existence, Aurora won the Planetary Extreme Championship and the Trophy that would soon bear the name of the team – and league’s, founder.

Shortly thereafter, cries of foul play reached congress and the fledgling league was looking to rapidly follow in the footsteps of the old Federal League – folding shortly after it’s founding. But the combination of selflessness and the fickle hand of death landed the team known in many circles as one arm of the ‘Evil Empire’ in the hands of Michael Topham and his Golden Entertainment empire shortly before the 2011 season.

Aurora had a second title in hand that 2011 season, only to cough up a 3 games to 2 lead to Florida – losing in Game 7 with the winning runs on base in the 9^th  – (eventual) Royal Raker, ‘Ice Cold’ with his chance to win the game in the 8th. Three years later, the Borealis were once more in position, only to be ceremoniously swept away by the Statesmen. This team looked to have numerous chances on the horizon, but after five 1^st place and one 2^nd place finishes in the Desert Hills, all leaving Aurora tasting early playoff defeat, the team finished 3^rd two seasons straight (2017–18) with a missed post-season appearance and an embarrassing loss to Reno in the first round (of the 2018 playoffs).

The mystique was gone. The dominance was gone. The Evil had left the Empire and for all it looked, Aurora was heading south – not north, in the standings.

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Cory Pierce came to the plate in the bottom of the 12^th inning of a 3-3 game in Game 4. Aurora held a commanding 3-0 lead in the series, and after Talley led off, (mysteriously) hitting for Scott Vinson, with a single on a 1-1 pitch, John Foster coaxed a tough walk out of former Aurora farm hand, Connecticut set-up man Alberto Flores. Ligonier attempted to bunt, but, with two strikes, a slow grounder to third still managed to move the batters up.

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The crowd was quiet from the start when, just 3 hitters into the game, Miguel Salinas – former-Aurora foe, now pending-Aurora hero, laced one of the more impressive line drive HRs of the year, just right of dead center – giving Aurora a 2-0 lead in the first. Sensing the pending doom, the crowd was further silenced.

Starting pitcher Junior Cook would surrender a solo HR to Arthur Collins (who had 5 HR and 15 RBI during the post-season) in the second, giving the home crowd an ounce of hope. He would then escape a bases-loaded jam in the 4^th, created more by his vexing control than anything Connecticut could concoct. But then ‘Boy Scout’ would continue a pattern that has haunted him his entire big league career – coughing up the gopher ball. In three full seasons Gusmán has allowed 84 HR and when Pierce strode to the plate in the 5^th, after Rivera walked, he hit one in the deep left-center gap for Aurora’s second, 2-run, HR of the game, opening up a 4-1 lead that the fans back on the Front Range must have felt good about – considering how the bullpen fared all year.

To their credit, though, the Nutmeggers showed heart, and in the 7^th, with the heart of the order up, Lowry – known to never dislike a strikeout, fouled off four tough, full count pitches to coax a walk from ‘Sleepy’ Kuhn and, after Harmon and Collins singled, Jimmy Lord doubled them home to tie the game at three. Constitution Field seemed to come alive.

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Both teams had chances as the game progressed to the 12^th, with Pierce strolling to the plate. Pierce, holder of two Royal Raker awards of his own, stood by the plate just outside the left-handed batters box as he watched Connecticut closer Conrad Shelton intently as he threw his warm-up pitches. Shelton had pitched a perfect inning the previous day and that was all the Borealis had ever seen of the lanky lefty. Despite tying a career high 37 saves on the year, Shelton struggled with the long ball – and with both left-handed Pierce and Salinas already having gone yard on the night, Connecticut Manager Javier Castro elected to have his closer take on the Aurora Legend.

Pierce showed the patience Aurora fans wished he always had had – and that Mark Richardson had not those many years ago – working Shelton to a full-count, before fouling off a possible ball four. Shelton’s next pitch left Pierce’s bat with a crack heard throughout the Front Range. It rocketed over Collin’s head like a laser that landed deep into the centerfield bleachers. Aurora’s dugout exploded. Players bouncing up and down, slapping high-fives while awaiting Pierce outside the dugout – greeting him with a beating fitting of a walk-off homer. The noise throughout Downtown Aurora and the rest of the Front Range – from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins, was deafening.

And yet… There still was the bottom of the 12^th.

The fans – all 49,588 of them, rose to their feet as Jimmy Lord came to the plate. Part trying to urge their team on and part showing their appreciation for what the Nutmeggers accomplished this year, they cheered the ‘Meggers on as the ‘Stork’ induced Lord to quietly pop up to Ligonier at second. When García walked on a 3-1 pitch and then Jacobs looked at ball three – and a 3-0 count, the crescendo of noise rose to a feverish pitch. But Holbrook was to have none of it. Coming off arguably his best season, ball three was followed by a quick strike one-strike two-strike three, Yer Out!

With that, the air seemed to leave Constitution Field. John Martin ambled to the plate and rolled a ball to first. In an odd sight that really summed up Aurora’s season – a year in which contributions came from the entire squad, River Pope – outfielder by trade, scoped it up, and took it to the bag as the stocky ‘Stork’ leaped into his arms and the dog pile began just off first base.

It took the Topham regime 9 years, 975 wins and three trips to the PEC before they finally return the Rodriguez Cup to it’s namesakes home. The locker room was a mixture of load voices, load music, off-key singing, sprays of champagne and Coors Light, and hugely smiling, beaming players talking to the press for the first time this year with nothing to worry about tomorrow. Nor the next day. Nor the next – save a parade that will culminate as unexpected a season a perennial winner could ever have.

In one corner of the Aurora locker room, drenched in champagne, bottles in hand, Father and Son, Owner and GM, embraced as they spoke to Mark Gunter for the post-game radio show. The son had grown on the job and, after his father’s patience had been worn by failure – and more than one immature act, it was no surprise there were whispers that Will Topham’s job was on the line this year. When questioned about this fact, the Younger looked up to the Elder and was heard clearly over the raucous celebration, “Time to renegotiate that contract, Dad!”