BYE BYE TO BOCCE

MATCH BETWEEN NEIGHBORING TOWNS' OFFICIALS ENDS 30-YEAR RUN
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 07/12/07
BY CAROL GORGA WILLIAMS
COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU

NEPTUNE CITY — The signature event will conclude with matches among 52 teams Friday and Saturday at Memorial Park. The event kicks off Friday at 6 p.m. with the traditional celebrity match. The celebrity teams will be comprised of officials from Asbury Park, Belmar, Long Branch and Neptune City, among others.

It is time to retire the horse's butt.

After 30 years — including almost a decade of rivalry between the governing bodies of Long Branch and West Long Branch — the Anthony "Putt-Putt" Petillo National Bocce Tournament is fading into the sunset.

The tournament, which began in 1977 in Asbury Park, is saying "arrivederci," announced organizer Sal Caliendo of Neptune City, who added "never say never" about a reprieve in a written history of the Shore tradition. Caliendo still will organize mini tournaments during the year to benefit local charities.

The signature event will conclude with matches among 52 teams Friday and Saturday at Memorial Park. The event kicks off Friday at 6 p.m. with the traditional celebrity match. The celebrity teams will be comprised of officials from Asbury Park, Belmar, Long Branch and Neptune City, among others.

It has been two years since officials from Long Branch played officials from West Long Branch, eight years of matches made resonant because the then-mayor of West Long Branch, Paul Zambrano would challenge his brother, then-Long Branch City Councilman John "Fazz" Zambrano.

The losers would carry home reproductions of a horse's butt.

But both men have since resigned their respective positions after being caught in a corruption sting and await sentencing to prison terms.

Long Branch Mayor Adam Schneider said the city challenged West Long Branch last year but the borough could not field a team. Long Branch played Neptune City instead but the magic of the rivalry was gone, said Long Branch City Councilman Anthony Giordano.

In office for more than 13 years, he said nothing resonated with residents more than the annual bocce matches. Even he is at a loss to explain why.

Giordano said it was an event that brought people together — rooting for the home team — no matter where on the political spectrum viewers fell the rest of the year.

"I loved it," said Schneider. "It was always a good time. People wrote nice things about us, and that doesn't happen very often. There was always more coverage about the tournament than anything else we did."

"Those were great times," agreed Giordano.

"Year-round, as I talked to people throughout Monmouth County, people used to get a kick out of them," Giordano said of the rivalry games. "The years we lost, it was brutal around here for weeks. We used to joke that we got a harder time from constituents when we lost the bocce match than we did in a bad budget year."

The tournament is named after Caliendo's cousin, a former Asbury Park police officer and special events director for the city who passed away on the eve of the event in 1987. Then-Gov. Thomas H. Kean declared it "the official bocce tournament of New Jersey," and it attracted participants from as far away as Staten Island. This year, teams are coming from remote locations like Ridgefield Park in Bergen County and Northfield near Atlantic City.

The current tournament is being played in memory of Caliendo's brother, Ricky, who died Feb. 11 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also referred to as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Ricky Caliendo, 52, a former Asbury Park city worker, was one of the original tournament officials in 1977.

Sal Caliendo will bring out one of those original courts to serve as the championship court this year, he said, along with an original scoreboard and bocce ball set. Sal's wife, Liz, has been preparing hundreds of photographs to display at the tournament. Those photographs are available for the taking as the Caliendos, who have a collection of thousands, hope some of the attendees see themselves or a cherished relative in the displays.

"If you see a memory you like, take the picture," Caliendo said.

Although bocce has become increasingly popular along the Shore in the last 30 years, that wasn't always the case, recalled Sal Caliendo, noting that at the time the tournament was created, bocce was largely confined to backyard barbecues at Italian households.

The game mixes qualities of bowling, shuffleboard and marbles. The object is to roll colored balls as close as possible to a smaller white ball called the pallino, which is thrown first. In addition to smacking an opponent's ball out of the way, a strategic player can knock the white ball itself to a new location, redefining the playing area.

Caliendo, who also founded the Al Natale Men's League, a softball fixture for 25 years before it disbanded in 2002, said it was Petillo who suggested the first bocce tournament.

It proved more popular than organizers initially thought, leading to a second in 1978. They were held in Asbury Park and Belmar until moving to Long Branch in 1998. (The tournament had been cancelled in 1997 when organizers could not afford costly liability insurance.)

In 1998, Long Branch invited the tournament to a new home in West End Park, building courts to accommodate players.

The tournament was at home there until last year, when Neptune City gave it a place overlooking the Shark River.

Everyone from congressmen, state legislators, mayors, council members and sports figures have played in the tournaments, Sal Caliendo said. Asbury Park's own Danny DeVito played one year.

Among the more well known celebrity players have been John "The Count" Montefusco, the former New York Yankees pitcher, professional soccer player Kevin Gannon, professional bowler Marc Roth, former Oakland Raiders linebacker Phil Villapiano and pro wrestler Scott "Bamm Bamm" Bigelow.

Caliendo said he will miss the tournaments but still plans on playing a lot of bocce.

"It was just great, just fantastic," he said of the last 30 years. "To go back and think of all the memories and the people who played (we know) it brought a lot of people together and a lot of friendships were made."
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