Hackensack High School baseball from 1919 until 1950 was the best baseball team in the area by far. In 31 years they had 18 league championships. When they started having State sectional champs Hackensack had claimed six out of ten titles. This team was a product of maybe the best baseball this county has ever seen.
Stan Pitula maybe the greatest pitcher in county history pitched for Hackensack the year before and struck out 143 batters in 70 innings. Larry Doby played for Paterson in the forties and four or five other players who made it to the majors came from the area. Hackensack's Joe Bracchitta, 1946 who played 9 years in the minors.
Chet Hanulak who played on this 1950 team played for the Cleveland Browns in professional football in 1954 and1957 after staring at the University of Maryland.

Hackensack Baseball had three of the greatest years of any school probably in the history of the State of New Jersey. In 1948 they were 15-1, in 1949 they were 13-2, and in 1950 they were 17-0. All three years they were league and State sectional champions. Over the three years they were 45- 3.

If you go back to 1945 there record was 15-2, in 1946 they were 15-2 and both years they were league and State section champions. In 1947 they had a bad year by there standards and were 12-5 and took second place in the league. For these three years they were 42-12.

For six years from 1945 till 1950 Hackensack's baseball teams had 87 wins and only15 loses with five league and five State Sectional titles.

At the end of the 1949 season Hackensack had won there last five games. They won all 17 games in 1950 running the streak to 22 and capturing a lot of attention in the papers of the day. On opening day of 1951 they lost to Teaneck 4-1 which ended the wining streak at 22. During the Korean War many of these men who played on this team served in the armed forces. The three that are shown here served there country and got to play baseball doing it.

Written By: Bob Meli