By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
On the hour-plus drive from Linwood to Alcyon Park in Pitman last week for the championship game of the 51st Annual Joe Hartmann Diamond Classic, it was hard for Geoff Haines not to shed a tear anytime he caught a glimpse of himself in the review mirror, wearing that Kelly green hat with the Mainland Mustangs logo on its white front.
It’s a hat that honors 60 years of Mainland as a school, and it once belonged to Raymond Michael Haines.
The man who introduced his son, Geoff — and in large part his grandsons, Jack and Finnegan — to the game of baseball is gone now, having passed away on May 2 at age 83 after a year-long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
“We knew it was coming, but we didn’t think it would happen that fast,” said Geoff, former athletic director at Ocean City and Vineland high schools. “Finn got to stop by and see him the Sunday before he passed, on his way home from practice. He lived about five blocks from us, and with both my boys growing up, if my dad wasn’t coaching them he was in the dugout keeping the scorebook.”
One of the greatest things about the game of baseball is the way it binds together generations of mothers and fathers to daughters and sons, grandparents to grandchildren. What starts as a simple catch in the backyard oftentimes blossoms into a lifelong bond.
That’s certainly the case for Finn, a senior pitcher and first baseman at Mainland who said he revered his grandfather growing up.
“He was one of baseball’s biggest fans, so I knew he’d want me to be out here playing every day,” Finn said after Mainland defeated Haddonfield, 4-0, to win the Diamond Classic for the first time in program history. “The day he passed we had a practice, and (my team) was telling me to be with my family, but I knew he’d want me to be out on the field and doing what I love.”
Perhaps Mr. Haines is providing a little divine intervention, as the Mustangs have not lost a game since the day he passed away. They have won eight straight, and will take on St. Augustine Prep today at 4 p.m. in the Cape-Atlantic League Tournament championship. A team that got outscored 23-9 in its first two games of the season — both against St. Augustine — has vaulted into the Top 10 in the nj.com statewide rankings and improved to 16-8 overall.
“This means the world to me,” Finn said after winning the Diamond Classic last week. “We’ve won seven in a row since he passed away. He was really my mentor and role model growing up, he introduced me to baseball. Just playing for him has been great for me. He got my first baseball mitt for me, we’d have a catch in the front yard every day after school. I was really playing for him.”
While this all may sound storybook in the moment, there is still a lot of heartache to go around. Geoff lost his father. His mom, Beverly, lost her husband. And it’s never easy for a high school athlete to deal with the death of a loved one in the midst of their senior season. Finn is committed to continue his baseball and educational career at Army-West Point, so he has his next few years planned out, and he’s having a great season as a pitcher, with 62 strikeouts in 34 innings while posting a 3.47 ERA. It’s a cruel part of life when seemingly everything is going right in a young man’s life — until it isn’t.
“I told Finn that I lost my grandfather at around the same age, and it’s tough. Finn has handled it tremendously. You wouldn’t even know. He just goes about his business. Maybe when he leaves the field he’s down, but you would never know between the lines, in practice or at a game,” said longtime coach Joe Smith, who is in his first year as head coach of the Mustangs. “I talked to him really quickly and said, ‘it happened to me around the same age. I haven’t cried too many times in my life, but that was one time when I did. It’s OK. You can leave practice early — you handle it the way you want to handle it, and I’m good with whatever you choose.’”
“I said to coach Smith, baseball helped him overcome some of those sad emotions because he knew he had to channel it some place else,” Geoff said. “It was a good release for him, to get away from everything that we had to do for the last couple of weeks. Going to visit (my dad) and not knowing what the future was going to hold. So, it was good for him. It was a good release for him. It’s been tough.”
To his credit, Finn has been there every day with his teammates — exactly the way his grandfather would have wanted it to be.
“It was rough. I’m so proud of him because it’s been rough — and they got off to a rough start as a team, but they have really gelled. All these guys have played so long together, and as a dad I’m so proud of him. And all these guys, I’ve coached them since they have been 5 or 6 years old, in basketball, baseball, football. I think that’s why they are so good, because they are multi-talented. And they hang out all the time together,” Geoff said. “This has helped me be distracted a little bit, too, because things have been so down, it’s been a roller coaster (of emotions). And my mom has gone through so much. She’s so happy for Finn.
WHAT’S NEXT: No. 2 Mainland at No. 1 St. Augustine Prep, Cape-Atlantic League Tournament championship, today, 4 p.m.
