28 | JULY 4 • 2024 
J
N

T

he Frankel 
Jewish Academy 
baseball team 
won the Catholic League 
Intersectional 2 Division 
championship this spring 
while riding in a bus.
But that didn’t matter to 
the Jaguars.
“We’ll take a champion-
ship any way we can get 
it. We’re not complaining. 
Another banner is going 
up in the gym,” said senior 
first baseman Harry 
Shaevsky. 
“But we were disap-
pointed, too,” Shaevsky 
said. “We preferred to win 
the championship on the 
field, not by forfeit. We 
were so amped up for the 
game.”
The game Shaevsky 
referred to was against 
Detroit Cristo Rey. Frankel 
was 2-1 and Cristo Rey 
was 3-0 in the three-team 
division heading to their 
May 22 showdown for the 
championship at Cristo 
Rey.
Frankel needed to beat 
Cristo Rey by at least seven 
runs May 22 to win the 
tie-breaker for the division 
championship. 
Why seven runs? Because 
Cristo Rey beat Frankel by 
six runs (9-3) when they 
met May 2 on Frankel’s 
home diamond at Total 
Sports in Wixom in “easily 
the worst game we played 
all season,” said first-
year Jaguars coach James 
Swanson.
Ten minutes before 
Frankel arrived at Cristo 
Rey for the showdown, 
Frankel athletic director 
Robert Walker got word to 
the team that Cristo Rey 
was forfeiting the game 
because of a scheduling 

problem.
A forfeit win goes 
as a 7-0 score in high 
school baseball. Mission 
accomplished for the 
Jaguars.
“We were confident we 
could beat Cristo Rey in 
that game,” Shaevsky said. 
“We under-estimated them 
the first time we played 
them. They weren’t very 
good in previous years. 
They took it to us in the 
May 2 game. They slapped 
us in the face. But it was a 
wake-up call for the rest of 
the season.”
Frankel won its next 
five games, including the 
forfeit, after its loss to 
Cristo Rey before losing 
a 3-2 heartbreaker May 
23 to Whitmore Lake in a 
Division 4 district game on 
a walk-off wild pitch. The 
loss dropped the Jaguars’ 
season record to 7-4.
Swanson also was 
confident Frankel could 
beat Cristo Rey in the 
rematch.
“I told the kids before 
the game that we’re a better 
team than they are and all 
we needed to do to win was 
play our game,” he said. “I 
also cautioned them that 
they didn’t want to go out 
there thinking they had to 
win by seven runs. If we 
played well, that would 
happen.”
The Jaguars beat Detroit 
Loyola 15-0 on May 14 and 
17-4 on May 16 in their 
other two division games, 
setting up the showdown 
game with Cristo Rey that 
never happened.
Swanson took the Frankel 
baseball coaching job in 
February, replacing Joe 
Bernstein, who resigned 
after nine years in the 

3-PEAT!

The Frankel Jewish Academy baseball 
team wins its third straight 
Catholic League Intersectional 2 
Division championship.

STEVE STEIN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Frankel baseball 
team poses for a 
selfie-style team 
photo after its final 
game of the season.

SUBMITTED PHOTO
SUBMITTED PHOTO

Frankel baseball coach James Swanson shakes hands with 
Elliot Salama during the Jaguars’ Senior Day festivities.

SPORTS
COVER STORY

