Little League Giants Put Town on Map, for Good

TOMS RIVER, N.J. —  Chris Cardone autographed a girl’s shoe, fielded at least one marriage proposal and rode through his hometown atop a fire engine while thousands of delirious people cheered along streets decorated with banners and balloons.

Chris Cardone is 12.

“We’re trying to keep this in perspective, because, after all, they are kids,” said an aunt, Kathy Curto.

Excuse this seaside city for a moment while it goes unashamedly crazy over its Little League team, which on Saturday beat Kashima, Japan, 12-9, to win the Little League World Series, then came home Sunday as larger-than-life little shavers.

Toms River East--”The Beast From the East,” with a full-size gorilla mascot to prove it--had the worst record of any team in the Series. Cardone, an unheralded reserve, came off the bench to clout two homers in the clincher at Williamsport, Pa.

“It’s a Hollywood story,” said Joe Curto, Chris’ uncle.

Rosie O’Donnell has the team booked for today’s show, and the New York Yankees are planning their own tribute to a bunch of kids who, for all their sudden celebrity, still don’t have agents, contracts, collective bargaining meltdowns or girlfriend problems. Well, scratch that last one.

“I got about 20 phone numbers and e-mail addresses,” said outfielder R.J. Johansen, who, like his friend Chris, even signed the shoe of a star-struck young fan.

On a muggy day, a good chunk of this working-class town on the Jersey shore pulled on their tank tops and shorts to greet a slow motorcade of boys perched on public safety equipment as it crept to the place where the championship run began, the local Little League ballpark. More than 2,000 people, three ultralight aircraft, the mobile broadcast unit of a rock radio station and a phalanx of media showed up at the park for what was simply an informal prelude to a big parade later this week.

“The last word we’ve got is that they’ve just cleared the toll plaza!” said the loudspeaker announcer, giving exit-number-by-exit-number updates on the progress of the boys as they tooled down the turnpike and made their way home.

The last time Toms River was in the national news was March 1996, and scientists were trying to figure out if the water was responsible for a high incidence of childhood cancer. State officials are conducting a study to see if the environment in Toms River and adjacent Dover Township, where most of the ballplayers are from, is playing a role.

Before that, the town was the scene of “Blind Faith,” the nonfiction book by Joe McGinniss about a local businessman who was convicted of hiring somebody to kill his wife in 1984 so he could collect on her insurance policy.

“Whenever I tell anybody I’m from Toms River, they say, ‘Oh, the water and the murder,’ ” said Nancy Lorenzo, 42. And, like a lot of other residents anxious to give Toms River a new image, she has a ready answer for people who wonder why this team is special. “It must be the water,” she said.

“All my boys want to play now; they want to be like Todd,” she said, referring to the star pitcher who won Saturday’s game. “But I tell them, ‘Todd Frazier also gets straight A’s in school.’ ”

“There’s been so much bad news, with what the country has been through” said Bruce Cranmer, 51, alluding to embassy bombings and presidential peccadilloes. “These 11- and 12-year-olds were more or less underdogs. I hope it pulls the country together.”

Cardone managed to overcome three weeks of homesickness during the tournament and a lot of pine time on the bench for his big moment, said his grandmother, Catherine Pontoriero.

“He’s a very sensitive, quiet boy,” she said.

He’s also a big star in Toms River. As the motorcade pulled into the ball field after the sweaty masses spent hours waiting, the firetruck carrying the team stopped in front of a huge truck draped with a banner: “Marry me, Chris Cardone,” it read.