WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Two hours before first pitch Friday night, the line to get inside Lamade Stadium extended around the corner and was filled with fans wearing T-shirts with “Bayonne vs. Everybody” emblazoned across the chest.
There was a full range of sizes, as well as colors. In fact, eight iterations were on display as fans entered and filled the stands to capacity for Bayonne’s game against West Chester, Pa.
“Everyone who has ever lived in Bayonne or lived close to Bayonne or knows someone who lived there now has one,” said Kenny Kopacz, who coached many of the current team’s players as 10-year-olds two summers ago.
When the first order of 500 shirts was placed two weeks ago, Bayonne Little League, then on the precipice of reaching its first World Series and looking to defray unexpected travel costs for players’ parents, set the price at $25 per shirt and split the workload between two local printers.
But with each Mason Rincon home run and Owen Feliz double play turned before primetime audiences drawing more attention to the ascendant team, demand exploded beyond Bayonne’s natural borders to national interest. One printer was so overwhelmed by the request volume that he eventually begged off additional loads. The other printer’s machine broke and forced him to briefly outsource his share to a friend before getting his machine back up.
In one day, 1,200 shirts were sold; altogether, more than 5,000 sales have been recorded. On Sunday at 1 p.m., thousands of fans will wear the shirts when Bayonne faces the Midwest team from Davenport, Iowa in the third round, and as the New Jersey squad relishes its emergence from the shadows of the Bayonne Bridge.
“We know we’re big time now because we’re getting Facebook stores popping up that are selling our gear,” said Roger Malone, the Bayonne Little League commissioner. “They have nothing to do with us. We’ve never heard of them. They’re copyright infringing us. Taking our stuff!”
While players are being heralded for high IQ plays in the field and at bat, Bayonne Little League, which was established in 1951, is low on infrastructure. It is a non-profit staff of less than 10 volunteers that is stitching together travel arrangements to transport busloads of Bayonne residents to Williamsport and taking T-shirt pre-orders. Malone received so many phone calls and text messages during the Little League World Series opener Wednesday night that his phone died. Meanwhile, the league’s Facebook page received so many direct messages from members of the Bayonne diaspora in surrounding suburbs and southern states that Malone closed the DM portal.
“It was dinging every three seconds,” he said. “We couldn’t keep up with it. It was crazy.”
Metro players reacts after Metro's 3-1 win over Mid-Atlantic in Game 12 of the 2026 Little League World Series at Lamade Stadium on Friday. Ralph Wilson | for NJ.comBy the end of the week, officials composed a poster that announced a shift in their mission: “Bayonne Little League: Bus and T-Shirt Company.”
“We need a night out,” said Natalie Visone, a board member.
Even Mike Sears, the owner of A+ Print Screening in Bayonne, has felt the pressure. He can print up to 800 shirts in a night with his single machine that works with up to six colors. He likened Bayonne’s historic run on shirts to when Saint Peter’s upset Kentucky in the NCAA Tournament and reached the Elite 8 four years ago.
Last week, one customer criticized him for not being ready for Bayonne’s unprecedented streak.
“Some guy told me I should have been more prepared,” said Sears, a former union electrician. “He said he knew they were going to win in Connecticut, and asked why I didn’t have 3,000 shirts ready. I said, you knew when they were down 4-0, then 6-2 in the regional championship that they would win? He said, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘OK, buddy.’”
It has been an all-hands effort. Jason Espositio, the league’s secretary, is on vacation in California, but he has arranged each social media post for the league. Officials apologized via Instagram for the inability to build out an online order system, and also posted a “buyer beware” notice about unaffiliated websites selling unlicensed Bayonne T-shirts for $100. To keep the shirts moving while they are in Williamsport, they left behind shirts at bars that sponsor the league.
Careful observers can tell at what point in the team’s ascent each person purchased the shirt by the version they wear. The originals were maroon with white lettering when this team played in the 10-year-old All-Stars tournament. On the back was the silhouette of New Jersey with the high school’s mascot — a bee wearing boxing gloves — marking the city’s location.
Then, there were the shirts before the Metro Regional championship that was played in Bristol, Conn., two weeks ago that added the Bayonne Little League logo. Finally, the Little League World Series location in Williamsport has earned a position. A fresh order of 1,200 being worked on by Sears on Saturday added a “Metro” regional designation.
“We’re not even looking up at anybody,” said Visone, who has distributed the shirts on folding tables in the Little League’s meeting room. “It’s ‘What do you want? What do you need?’ The middle sizes always sell out so quickly.”
Requests trickle in at all hours. At 7 a.m. on Saturday, Mike Conway, a Bayonne Little League board member, stopped at a corner store on Broadway to grab a breakfast sandwich. When he brought a shirt in for the owner, others inquired about availability. He sold another 12 out of his trunk.
Conway proceeded to open the gate at the Bayonne Little League complex, where a line had started.
“We hadn’t posted that we were selling today,” Malone said. “These people were just hoping they could get them.”
Read the original article on NJ.com. Add NJ.com as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
Leave a Comment