ROSELLE PARK, NJ — Thirty years ago, John Wagner guided the Roselle Park High School Panthers football team to a second straight 11-0 record and back-to-back North Jersey, Section 2, Group 1 state championships. Before that, he was a highly successful varsity head softball coach at Roselle Park, where he graduated from in 1969.
At Roselle Park’s Herm Shaw Field was where Wagner passed Herm Shaw as the program’s winningest head football coach. His final record for his 25-season tenure, 1981 to 2005, as head coach, is 150-92-2. Wagner, 72, previously served as an assistant on head coach Geoff Hill’s staff for five seasons from 1976 to 1980.
Brian Chapman, a 1987 Union Catholic High School graduate, has guided the Millburn High School baseball team to two Greater Newark Tournament championships – 2021, 2023 – and two Group 4 state championships – 2015, 2017 – since taking over as head coach in 2011. Before that, the Cranford resident was a longtime assistant coach at Cranford High School with head coach Dennis McCaffery, as the Cougars captured the Group 3 state championship in 2010 with their guidance.
Ryan Matlosz, who played his high school baseball at Cranford, is one of the hardest-working and most respected assistant baseball coaches in New Jersey, as his scouting reports for the Cranford Cougars are instrumental to their success. The Cougars enter the 2024 season seeking a third straight Union County Tournament championship, after winning back-to-back crowns in 2022 and 2023.
Wagner, Chapman and Matlosz are the 2024 Union County Baseball Hall of Fame inductees and will be honored at the 87th annual Union County Baseball Association’s Hot Stove League Dinner, scheduled to take place at the Gran Centurions in Clark on Sunday, Jan. 28, at 1 p.m.
The dinner will begin with featured guest speaker Al Santorini, a 1966 Union High School graduate who is considered to be arguably the best pitcher to ever come out of the state of New Jersey, before embarking on a Major League Baseball career that saw him pitch for the Atlanta Braves, expansion San Diego Padres and St. Louis Cardinals in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“It is a true honor and a dream come true to be inducted into the Union County Baseball Hall of Fame,” said Chapman, who will turn 54 on Saturday, Dec. 23.
Chapman played at Union Catholic from 1984 to 1987 and then collegiately at Fairleigh Dickinson University-Teaneck in 1988 and Kean College from 1989 to 1991.
He was an assistant coach at Union Catholic for three seasons, from 1996 to 1998, and at Cranford for the next 12, from 1999 to 2010. In those dozen years at Cranford, the Cougars were UCT champs in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2007 and 2010. Cranford also reached the Group 3 state championship game in that period in 2000, 2003, 2007 and 2010.
At Millburn so far in his first 12 seasons – 2011 to 2019 and 2021, 2022 and 2023 – Chapman has led the Millers to six sectional titles, five conference titles, two county titles and two Group 4 state championships.
Millburn had only won the GNT once in 1984, before Chapman took over in 2011. Chapman was named the ABCA National High School Coach of the Year in 2015.
Chapman’s record at Millburn so far is 267-82 or .765.
“There are so many wonderful coaches and players that have paved the way for this to happen,” Chapman said. “I am humbled by and grateful for their contributions and, of course, this recognition.”
A special Hall of Fame induction will be made to the players of the 1982 Linden Tigers Group 3 state championship team that repeated as Group 3 state champs. Linden High School won Group 3 in 1981 and 1982 with the direction of head coach Tony Picaro.
The 1987 Roselle Park Panthers, Group 1 state champions after reaching the final the year before in 1986, will also be celebrated. McCaffery starred on both of those teams his junior and senior seasons. They were coached by Jack Shaw.
Other awards being given out at this year’s dinner include:
• Joseph R. Lombardi Memorial Award for Outstanding Female Athlete of Union County;
• Chris Zusi Memorial Award for Outstanding Male Athlete of Union County; and
• Union County Baseball Association Academic Scholarship.
Sponsored by the Union County Baseball Association, in cooperation with the Union County Board of Commissioners and the Department of Parks and Recreation, the Hot Stove League Dinner is the primary annual fund-raising effort for the Union County Youth Baseball Leagues.
The summer and fall leagues have given more than 50,000 boys and girls an opportunity to participate in an organized baseball program in the past 80-plus years.
For more information, visit www.UCBA-NJ.org; write to the Union County Baseball Association, PO Box 176, Fanwood 07203; email [email protected]; or call UCBA President Jim Iozzi at 908-917-2523.
Photos Courtesy of Brian Chapman