Chiefs Face Blue Sox for ICL Championship Title
The Chiefs and Blue Sox will open their best of five Championship Series at Lexington High School on Wednesday night at 8:00 PM. The Blue Sox earned their ticket to the finals by coming from behind to beat the upstart Reading Bulldogs 4-3 on Monday night in Game Five of the their semifinal series. The Chiefs won their Game Five against the Wakefield Merchants on Sunday afternoon, 5-3.
The second game of the series will also be in Lexington on Thursday at 8:00 PM. On Friday, the Chiefs will use the turf field at Pine Banks Park on the Malden/Melrose line as their home field and play Game Three under the lights at 7:45 PM. Due to the late starting date of the Championship Series and early sunsets in the later part of August, the Chiefs are unable to play any weeknight games at their longtime home of Huskins Field at Tufts University because there are no lights.
The Blue Sox and Chiefs are back in familiar territory as championships have been synonymous with both franchises. For the Chiefs, it will be their twenty-fourth trip to a championship series since 1960. The Hosmer-Andre Chiefs franchise has won seventeen previous crowns. Five were won by Manager Lenny Dempsey, eight by Joe O’Donnell, and four by present manager Chuck Andre. Both Dempsey and O’Donnell were inducted as charter members of the ICL’s Hall of Fame last November. The Chiefs were named the ICL’s “Team of Decade” for the 1970’s and 1990’s. They also received special recognition for the 1960’s, when they won five titles when participating primarily in the then rival Suburban Twi-League.
The Blue Sox have been the dominant team in the Intercity League since 1998, when they succeeded the Chiefs to the title after the Medford based club won their fourth crown of the decade in 1997. Their initial 1998 championship started a run that has seen Rick DeAngelis’ club ring up eight titles in the last thirteen seasons, including the last four in a row, and six of the last seven beginning in 2004. The only interruption of the Blue Sox streak was in 2006, when they were upset by the Watertown Reds in the semifinals. Last season the Blue Sox defeated the Reds in the Intercity League’s Championship Series. The Blue Sox were named as the ICL’s “Team of the Decade” for 2000-2009.
Surprisingly, the Chiefs and Blue Sox have met only one previous time in the Championship Series. In 2009, the Blue Sox overcame a 1-0 Chiefs lead in the series, to win the title three games to one.
– Information from www.intercityleaguebaseball.com