This weekend is the biggest weekend for high school baseball and softball players. Four state champions will be crowned in each sport as the student athletes play out their dreams at Yale Field and DeLuca Field (in Stratford).

I just fairly recently finished reading a book about this time of year. The book is "The Fat Lady Never Sings" by Seymour's Steven Reilly. If you are a fan of baseball and especially from the Naugatuck Valley area, I would highly recommend this memoir of the 1992 Derby Red Raiders baseball team.

To sum up this redemption story, it is about three seniors on the football team who break an over 20 year streak of having a winning record at Derby on the gridiron and then find their championship on the baseball field. If you are familiar with Valley sports or Connecticut high school athletics in general, you know that Derby is a huge football town and breaking this streak really hurt all those involved.

Reilly gives a first-hand account of the 1992 season and Derby seasons in the past. He was an assistant coach for the Red Raiders (and he has actually recently returned to Derby in this role) and he gives great insight to the discussions that coaches have during the game action, on bus rides, and in the privacy of their homes waiting for the next ballgame. You can absolutely tell that Reilly is not only a fan of the game, but also a great teacher. He gives even the novice baseball fan explanations why certain plays are called. As a reader you can also visualize him instructing and inspiring the Derby players.

The strength of the book is the characters, and real life characters they are. Names like Romo, D, Tules, Ray Ray, and Jocko become second nature to the reader and you feel like you are in the dugout and locker room with them lacing up your spikes getting ready for the first pitch. One example is, assistant coach Jacques "Jocko" Veillette talks in Yogi Berra-isms. One time when the team was making mental mistakes he said (and I cleaned it up a bit), "Get your butts out of your butts!"

What I enjoyed most was coming across numerous people that I have come across as a native of Ansonia, which of course is Derby's biggest rival. Derby's star quarterback and pitcher was Ben Bartone. If you grew up in the Valley, you knew that name. In Babe Ruth baseball, the Derby and Ansonia leagues were combined, so we got to face Bartone a few times a year. It was always a big game because he threw smoke and beating him was a real success. Years later we were teammates in an adult baseball league with another member of the 1992 team, Pete Chrzanowski. Pete played outfield at Derby and was their lead-off hitter. When I played ball with Pete, he was my catcher. I never threw to a better battery-mate in all my years playing. Whatever pitch he called, I threw. I never questioned him and I don't think I ever shook off a sign. He saved me more times than I can count with his arm, plate blocking, and pitch framing skills. He is depicted absolutely accurately in the book. He loves baseball more than any other teammate I have ever come across.

I was actually at the 1992 championship game at Palmer Field. I remember being jealous of Derby because my Ansonia team had lost in the quarterfinals that year. It was interesting to relive the game through the eyes of the coaches and compare it to my memories as a spectator.

I am sure there are stories from "The Fat Lady Never Sings" that are similar in small towns all across the country, but take it from a fellow member of the Valley, we are passionate about sports and we love winners, and Reilly hit this one out of Derby's Ryan Field.

Finally, good luck to all the baseball and softball teams playing for titles this Friday and Saturday. I am just disappointed the Ansonia Chargers fell short this year.