Losing Powerball Means the Office Lights Stay Lit

Unless you were in Chicopee, Massachusetts this week you are not holding the one grand prize winning ticket sold in last night’s Powerball.

Someone in that town of nearly 56,000 purchased a ticket at a convenience store that is worth $758.7 million, the largest jackpot with a single winner in U.S. history.  I coordinated a lottery pool at work and for the past couple of weeks 36 of us chipped in $10 for each of the growing jackpots with very disappointing results.

Okay ,our odds were not good (same as yours) one in about $292 million.  You had a better chance of being struck by lightning, dying from an asteroid or making three consecutive holes-in-one the next time you play golf. But like many of you we dreamed big and our dreams of turning the lights off at the office forever are over.

Speaking of dreams ending the long summer of baseball has ended to the Holbrook Little League All-Stars.  The “Jackson 13” bowed out of the Little League World Series following a 12-2 loss to Fairfield, Connecticut in Williamsport, PA Wednesday.

It was the second time in the tournament the hard-hitting Holbrook team lost to the New England champs and they now head home with a chance to enjoy the final week of summer before school begins.  What memories these boys will have to share one day with their children as most of them played together for the last three years and achieved tremendous success.

At a time when we need good things to share they gave Jackson Township and Ocean County a shot in the arm.  Plenty of credit should go to manager Rob Grano and coaches Gene Daddio and Jim Osmond for not only guiding the players on the field but taking the responsibility that goes with spending most of your summer with ten kids who are not your own…they each of course had boys on the team.

Plus how about the juggling with work and family schedules to spend a good part of August in Bristol, Connecticut and Williamsport.  Well done by all!

And well done by Toms River’s Mark Leiter Jr. who collected his second major league victory as the Phillies blanked the Marlins 8-0 at Citizens Bank Park.  In just his fifth start the 26-year old rookie allowed just one hit in 7 innings.  Leiter is a graduate of Toms River North who pitched at NJIT before being drafted by the Phillies.  He is the son of Mark Leiter and nephew of Al Leiter who both of course has long major league careers.