T-bird baseball wins: 600th for Tony Cirelli
Jeff Moses
For 18 years the Mesa Community College Thunderbird baseball team has been taking the field with the same stalwart skipper signing the lineup card.
Head coach Tony Cirelli has been guiding the T-birds to victory for nearly two decades and on Jan. 31 he did it for the 600th time.
“I take responisbility for the losses and the kids they got the 600 wins, like I said I haven’t hit a ball here (at MCC) since 1981.” said the ever humble coach Cirelli
Thunderbird baseball shellacked the Arizona State University club team 10-0 to secure their coaches milestone win.
“It’s a big day for Thunderbird baseball” said MCC athletic director John Mulhern he added that coach Cirelli “is the winningest (baseball) coach in Mesa’s history.”
Not only does coach Cirelli have the most wins in the history of MCC baseball he surpasses his closest competition by 217 wins and counting.
All-American Third basemen Michael Wesolowski put his stamp on his coaches big game for the T-birds with a two rbi double in the third inning, giving the Thunderbirds a commanding lead , and second baseman T.J. Bennet came up huge for the men of Mesa as well bringing three runs home on a bases clearing triple in the fourth inning.
Big bats along with shut out pitching by starter Kevin Behnke, relievers John Seaver and Lou Sergiacami, and the closer Spencer Long carried the t-birds to the milestone win.
This season will not only see coach Cirelli collect win 600 as the skipper for MCC, but he will also manage his 1000th game coming up in just four games.
Even with nearly 1000 games under his belt Cirelli has no plans of retiring saying “I got nothing else to do, I can’t sing or dance what else am I going to do?”
