The Seton Hall-Rutgers rivalry

When Seton Hall University's baseball team scored four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie Rutgers en route to a 7-6 win in 10 innings on Tuesday, my college friend Dave and I were ecstatic. We cheered and high-fived each other like some of the undergraduates in the stands. After all, it wasn't just another team our Pirates were playing that day. It was Rutgers, our intra-state rival. Yeah, the Rutgers we always get extra pleasure in beating.

A win against Rutgers, in any sport, on any day, has been extra special to me since I was a student at Seton Hall in 1976. That was the year Rutgers' mens basketball team finished its schedule undefeated, posting an NBA-like 119-93 win over the Pirates early in the season.  Seton Hall finished a very respectable 18-9 thanks to some outstanding play by Glenn Mosely, Greg Tynes and Tom Flaherty. But no, the headlines and talk were all about the great Rutgers team featuring Phil Sellers, Mike Dabney, Ed Jordan, Hollis Copeland, James Bailey and, off the bench, Abdel Anderson. Yeah, you could say I took some pleasure in seeing the Scarlet Knights getting beat (twice) in the Final Four round of the NCAA tournament at the end of March.

It was payback for the Pirates 13 years later, when Seton Hall trounced Rutgers at the Meadowlands, 96-70, en route to the NCAA championship game. That Seton Hall team, featuring John Morton, Andrew Gaze, Ramon Ramos, Daryll Walker and Gerald Greene, beat Indiana, UNLV and Duke in the NCAA tournament before being edged by Michigan in overtime of the final.  To some Seton Hall fans, however, the early-season win against a Rutgers team that would finish 18-13 was among the sweetest.

The Seton Hall-Rutgers basketball rivalry dates back 100 years. I'm happy to say the Pirates have more often gotten the better of the Scarlet Knights during that time, winning 38 of the 67 games they've played. Some of Seton Hall's wins against Rutgers occurred during seasons when the Pirates had mediocre teams. But, as long as the year included a win against the Scarlet Knights, it was not a lost season.

Many of the Seton Hall-Rutgers basketball games have been nail biters -- 20 of the last 24 matchups were decided by six points or less or went into overtime -- but not since the rivalry began contesting the Garden State Hardwood Classic two seasons again. The Pirates trounced the Scarlet Knights, 81-54, in Newark two winters ago, and humiliated Rutgers in Piscataway, 84-55, last December. Yeah, I like that!

The two New Jersey universities have also played 110 baseball games against each other during the last 70 years. Seton Hall holds a 56-53 (with one tie) advantage in the series. Few of the wins, however, could have been as sweet as Tuesday's. Down to its last out of the game with a runner on first base, Seton Hall batters drew three consecutive walks and then came through with a pair of hits to tie it. In the bottom of the 10th, the Pirates again drew three walks and then used an infield hit to bring in the winning run.

Seton Hall nearly did it again today at Rutgers, scoring with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth to pull within a run, but it was not to be as the Scarlet Knights held on to a 3-2 win. So, the Pirates tossed them a bone. Yeah, we'll remember the next time we beat them on the basketball court, baseball field or any other competition.

 

Newark Penn Station, Saturday, 8 p.m.

The game up the hill behind them, but the next train more than 30 minutes ahead of them, the basketball fans settled inside the bar in the lobby of Newark Penn Station. A couple wearing blue strode in quietly and found stools in the back of the bar, across from a group of loud men wearing red. In the corner, a man wearing blue punched his jacket, out of frustration or anger.

The bartender did her best to take care of her patrons, quickly drafting beers into frosty glasses and occasionally mixing drinks. The blue-clad couple ordered glasses of wine.

“The bartender reminds me of Sharmila,” the man sipping wine said. “Look at her and listen to her accent. I bet you she’s from Trinidad.”

“I thought she was Hispanic,” his lady companion replied.

More people entered the bar. Most were dressed in red and seemed happy at their team’s improbable win, a victory that was insignificant to them from a practical perspective. The loss by their in-state rival, however, was potentially damaging to the team’s post-season prospects. Three 60ish-year old men in blue, one of whom looked tall enough to have played college basketball in the late 1960s, talked softly among themselves.

The lone African-American man at the bar stepped out, probably to use the bathroom across the hall. He returned a few minutes later and reclaimed his seat among the red-clad white men. As improbable as it could be for a black man in Newark, New Jersey, he stood out inside the bar with his black leather jacket and black leather hat in a sea of red, blue and white.

A few minutes later a thin man with sandy-colored hair and stubby growth on his ruddy face shuffled into the bar. Seeing him, the bartender drafted a glass of beer.

“Jimmy, sit here, not there,” she said, pointing to a corner of the bar with a few empty stools. He didn’t seem to hear her as he slowly made his way to a nearby spot.

“Sit here, not there,” she repeated, holding the frosty beer of glass. He sat where she didn’t want him to anyway. She sighed, and put the beer in front of him.

Within a few more moments, the bar was full. A group of young women, not dressed in red or blue but looking as if they could have just graduated from one of the rival colleges, made their way to the back and stood by patiently.

“In a few minutes the train is going to come and this bar will be nearly empty,” the woman sipping wine said. “She’s finally going to get a chance to slow down and catch her breath.”

As most people around the bar began finishing their drinks, the couple in blue took their last sips of wine and quietly made their way past the men in red and out the door.