Toms River
By now, "Everyone knows this as Toms River," Castner said Friday as he manicured one of the Toms River East Little League fields before a playoff game in this baseball-crazed city.
The league, which won the world championship in 1998, used to be known as the East Dover Little League but was changed to Toms River East to differentiate itself from the rival Toms River Little League.
When the team beat Japan to win the world title, Dover Township went crazy — under the name of Toms River, of course. On "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," the team was Toms River. During a visit to the White House, it was Toms River.
"If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck," said John Webb as he made pizza in a downtown restaurant. "This is Toms River."
While the Little League championship was perhaps Toms River's best burst of publicity, it has also made national news for less savory reasons. Robert O. Marshall, a former insurance salesman, was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his wife, Maria, in 1984 so he could continue an affair with another woman and collect insurance money.
The case was the subject of the book "Blind Faith" and was made into a TV miniseries.
The town also gained attention in 2001, when a federal health agency determined that Toms River was one of a handful of communities to have an unusually high rate of leukemia, citing pollution from a former chemical company's dump site.
The name change will be welcomed in another part of the state, leaving a town in Morris County as New Jersey's only Dover. For years, calls for each community's municipal agencies were often misrouted. Bibi Stewart Garvin, the Morris County Dover's town administrator, has the phone number of the Ocean County Dover memorized because she's had to give it out so often.
"As far as we're concerned, we're the best Dover, the one and only Dover," Garvin said.
Everything changes moments after 6 p.m. Tuesday, when the results of the election will be read into the minutes of the Dover Township Committee. That body will cease to exist and the Toms River Committee will take its place.
Michelle Krol couldn't be happier.
"I think it's great," she said. "We're on the Weather Channel map as Toms River now. How cool is that?"
Vindicated.
By now, "Everyone knows this as Toms River," Castner said Friday as he manicured one of the Toms River East Little League fields before a playoff game in this baseball-crazed city.
The league, which won the world championship in 1998, used to be known as the East Dover Little League but was changed to Toms River East to differentiate itself from the rival Toms River Little League.
When the team beat Japan to win the world title, Dover Township went crazy — under the name of Toms River, of course. On "The Rosie O'Donnell Show," the team was Toms River. During a visit to the White House, it was Toms River.
"If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck," said John Webb as he made pizza in a downtown restaurant. "This is Toms River."
While the Little League championship was perhaps Toms River's best burst of publicity, it has also made national news for less savory reasons. Robert O. Marshall, a former insurance salesman, was convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his wife, Maria, in 1984 so he could continue an affair with another woman and collect insurance money.
The case was the subject of the book "Blind Faith" and was made into a TV miniseries.
The town also gained attention in 2001, when a federal health agency determined that Toms River was one of a handful of communities to have an unusually high rate of leukemia, citing pollution from a former chemical company's dump site.
The name change will be welcomed in another part of the state, leaving a town in Morris County as New Jersey's only Dover. For years, calls for each community's municipal agencies were often misrouted. Bibi Stewart Garvin, the Morris County Dover's town administrator, has the phone number of the Ocean County Dover memorized because she's had to give it out so often.
"As far as we're concerned, we're the best Dover, the one and only Dover," Garvin said.
Everything changes moments after 6 p.m. Tuesday, when the results of the election will be read into the minutes of the Dover Township Committee. That body will cease to exist and the Toms River Committee will take its place.
Michelle Krol couldn't be happier.
"I think it's great," she said. "We're on the Weather Channel map as Toms River now. How cool is that?"
Vindicated.
posted by Vindicated at 7:23 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home