In a series which may have set offensie baseball back 50 years, the West Orange Panthers advanced to the TBBL World Series for the second time in 4 years, beating the Newark Eagles 4 games to 3.

How bad was the offense? The teams combined to hit .199 in the 7 games, .134 with RISP (2 HR - both by Newark - and 25 RBI) and scored a total of 38 runs. Only one player with more than 20 PAs hit better than .300: Newark's Jody Gerut at .350. The top RBI men in the series - Lyle Overbay of the Eagles and West Orange's Vernon Wells - each had 4.

Hitting that bad means the pitching was great, which it was. West Orange allowed 17 ER to Newark's 18 and each team's starters averaged nearly 7 IP per appearance. It's no surprise, then, that a pitcher was named NLCS MVP. The honor went to James Shields of the Eagles who was 1-0, 0.00 ERA over 15.2 IP in his 2 starts, both of which Newark won.

The tone was set in game 1: a 19-inning affair in West Orange which was won by the road team, 2-1. The clubs combined for just 17 hits.

Game 2 began a stretch of 18 consecutive scoreless innings for Panthers' pitchers as Jeremy Guthrie and 3 relievers combined for a 4-0, 2-hit shutout in game 2 then Jair Jurrjens tossed a 1-hitter in the Panthers' 4-0 game 3 win when the series moved to Newark/Wrigley. The game also saw Jurrjens hit his first HR of the season, much to the chagrin of the Eagles' faithful.

Game 4 the home squad got on the board first with 2 runs in the bottom of the 1st and 1 more in the second but West Orange chipped away and eventually tied the game in the 9th before a double by David Ross in the 11th plated the winning run in a 5-4 Panthers' victory, leaving West Orange a win away from the pennant.

But...the Eagles kept scratching. Shields threw his second gem in game 5, allowing only an unearned run in a 2-1 Newark win, beating Rich Harden (0-1, 1.93 ERA, 20 K in 14 IP).

Game 6 brought the series back to West Orange and this time it was the Eagles' Chad Billingsley keeping the home team's bats silent, allowing just an unearned run in 6 IP as Newark evened the series with a 5-1 win.

The Eagles carried the momentum early in game 7, picking up 3 runs in their first at-bat but it was West Orange's turn to fight back. In the 2nd, Mark Teixiera homered off Mike Mussina then a walk, single, double steal off a botched hit and run, a single, a double (by Jurrjens) and another single left the Panthers in front, 4-3. A bases-loaded walk in the 5th gave the Pnthers another run which it turned out they needed when Newark scored on a 2-out, bases-loaded walk in the 8th. But with a chance to bring the lead run home, Edwin Encarnacíon sent a deep drive to center which was caught by Vernon Wells and that ended what turned out to be Newark's last gasp.

Congratulations to Mike W. for a great series. It was fun, aggravating, nerve-wracking...and emotion you could come up with.