Pottsville

If wine doesn't do it for you in the summertime, maybe you'd like a nice, cold beer instead. Then the place for you is Pottsville, where you can tour America's oldest brewery, where they make Yuengling beer - just as they have for more than 150 years. The first thing you'll see on the tour is the dark, paneled office where Dick Yuengling, the fifth generation of Yuengling brewers, runs the brewery. His forebears look on from surrounding portraits. The office is full of old photos of beer wagons, early advertisements, and a couple of elk heads hanging from the wall.

Vinny Testaverde is a big hit in Pottsville, and not just because he is the likely Heisman Trophy winner. Testaverde, quarterback of the unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Miami Hurricanes, surprised Pottsville teacher Jack Spleen and his fourth-grade students by responding to an "Athletes Who Care" questionnaire with an additional three-page letter. Spleen's 24 students were asked to mail the questionnaires with questions ranging from athletes' favorite foods to how to deal with drugs.

Like any good sports drama, Iron Age Theatre's world premiere production of Ray Saraceni's Maroons: The Anthracite Gridiron covers as much action off the field as in the game; maybe more. And like the most successful efforts in its genre, filmed, staged or literary, Saraceni connects the thrills and agonies of winning and losing, the struggle against all odds, to their parallels outside the stadium. The odds are stacked mightily against Pottsville's hometown heroes, the Maroons, a bunch of "coal crackers," who got their name when sporting goods supplier Zacko (Dave Fiebert)

Pottsville first baseman Matt Price insists his team can hit the ball. So does manager Irv Schappell. As for the fans who watched the three games Pottsville played in the Little League World Series, they will have to take Price and Schappell at their word. Pottsville managed just one hit yesterday against Mission Viejo, Calif., and lost, 3-0. That dropped Pottsville to 1-2 in the U.S. pool and eliminated the crowd favorite from the tournament. Mission Viejo went on to win the U.S. final last night, defeating Bradenton, Fla., 12-1.

It took Pottsville manager Irv Schappell 42 years to get to the Little League World Series even though he lives barely more than an hour away. So, what's one more day to wait to see if his Railway Park team can make it to the U.S. final? After rains washed out almost all of yesterday's games - Mexico did defeat Canada, 3-0, in four innings to clinch a spot in tomorrow's international final - Schappell will send what he calls his best team ever out to play Mission Viejo, Calif., at 1:30 this afternoon.

It looks as if the Coatesville will have to be sharp with its gloves tonight when it takes on Pottsville in the quarterfinal round of the PIAA Class AAA state baseball tournament. The first pitch is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Reading's George Field. Reports from District 11, where the Crimson Tide (23-1) captured the district championship, are that the Tide love to bunt and run, and play aggressively on the base paths. Pottsville scored on a suicide-squeeze play in its 5-4 victory over Donegal in the first round of the state tourney.

Each night this past week, Garnet Valley quarterback Matt McHugh took home videos of the Pottsville football team and, after homework was finished, spent hours watching the tapes. The Jaguars' senior has been sacrificing his leisure time to prepare for tonight's PIAA Class AAA state quarterfinal game with the Crimson Tide at Blue Mountain High in Orwigsburg. "I've been up until all hours of the night," McHugh said. But Pottsville assistant coach John Toomey and his players have been keeping late hours, too, watching tapes of Garnet Valley starring an elusive, 5-foot-10, 175-pound senior quarterback.

When Jack Hirschfeld looks out at the old, worn-looking buildings along Centre Street in Pottsville, he sees something more than empty storefronts or the "Closed" signs that dot the windows. He sees majestic Gothic arches, grand marble entranceways and dazzling mosaic-tile walls. Spectacular buildings from a bygone era that - with some elbow grease and just the right touch - might someday become antiques shops and boutiques, outdoor cafes and hot nightspots. This small, depressed city of 16,600, once the home of wealthy coal barons, still attracts a steady stream of tourists.

A Schuylkill County woman and her elderly father yesterday admitted their roles in a scheme in which more than 150 antique and rare timepieces were stolen from a blind 90-year-old Pottsville watchmaker. Mary Beth Thomas, 38, of Port Carbon, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Edward N. Cahn to one count of conspiracy and five counts of interstate transportation of stolen property. Thomas' plea was watched in seething silence by relatives, including her father, Peter Welikonich, 76, who had pleaded no contest just moments before to charges of conspiracy and interstate transportation of stolen property.

One of the perks of being a U.S. senator is you get to deliver good news. On Thursday, the office of Sen. Harris Wofford, D-Pa., announced that Pottsville would get a $125,183 federal grant to hire additional police officers. The Pottsville Republican, the local newspaper, printed the information along with appreciative quotes from local officials. The only problem was, the actual recipient of the money was Pottstown - about 45 miles away. The error was discovered Friday once the Associated Press moved a story about Pottstown's receiving the money.

In 1925, the Pottsville Maroons were cheated out of the NFL championship. That's how the people of Pottsville will always see it, and that's how the story is presented in a new play by the Iron Age Theater in Norristown. The story itself is fascinating. A team of coal crackers in the Anthracite League of Pennsylvan- ia, in the earliest days of professional football, joined the NFL. Nobody gave them a chance. But they won the championship game against the Chicago Cardinals, 21-7.

Like any good sports drama, Iron Age Theatre's world premiere production of Ray Saraceni's Maroons: The Anthracite Gridiron covers as much action off the field as in the game; maybe more. And like the most successful efforts in its genre, filmed, staged or literary, Saraceni connects the thrills and agonies of winning and losing, the struggle against all odds, to their parallels outside the stadium. The odds are stacked mightily against Pottsville's hometown heroes, the Maroons, a bunch of "coal crackers," who got their name when sporting goods supplier Zacko (Dave Fiebert)

FLEETWOOD, Pa. - On this corresponding week in each of the last two years, Mark Sheftic was preparing for the PGA Championship as one of 20 club professionals in the nation to qualify for the year's final major. Sheftic, a teaching pro at Merion Golf Club, did not make it into the field for this week's PGA in Atlanta, but he is playing in the Pennsylvania Open at Moselem Springs Golf Club, and playing well. Sheftic, of Blue Bell, shot a 5-under-par 65 Tuesday for a 36-hole score of 6-under 134 and a 3-stroke lead over Terry Hatch going into Wednesday's final round.

Lillian Reis, 79, a colorful former showgirl and Philadelphia club owner implicated in a famous 1959 burglary in Pottsville, died Thursday at Virtua Marlton Hospital. A striking, stylish brunette in her heyday, Ms. Reis was known as Tiger Lil. She owned the Celebrity Room, a club that booked up-and-comers such as Don Rickles and Johnny Mathis, said her daughter, Midge Pfersich. Ms. Reis and her lover of 54 years, Ralph "Junior" Staino, who went to prison for the burglary and later for a racketeering and drug-trafficking case involving the Nicodemo "Little Nicky" Scarfo organized crime family, were friends with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and actor Robert Conrad, who once planned to make a movie about her. Pfersich described her mother as a modern-day Mae West.

Seventy-five years ago a local boy named John O'Hara published his first novel - Appointment in Samarra - and left his former friends and neighbors fuming because it chronicled in great detail the business, brand-name, and bedroom preferences of the people in a town he called Gibbsville. O'Hara changed the names of the streets and surrounding towns, but no one here was fooled for a minute. The fictional geography fit the real map skintight. But far worse, real people - murderers, bootleggers, philistines, philanderers, promiscuous women, and unscrupulous businessmen - were given different names.

The 130-mile-long Schuylkill River Trail that, when finished, will link five counties from Philadelphia to Pottsville is coming together in fits and starts. A popular 26-mile segment runs between Philadelphia and Phoenixville. An additional 19 miles have been opened between Pottstown and Reading. But a couple of huge gaps remain: a 20-mile stretch between Reading and Hamburg in Berks County, and a 14-mile segment in Chester County. Last week, the Chester County commissioners took a step toward closing that 14-mile gap when they announced they were buying the historic Henry Parker house and 5.5 acres along the proposed trail route in East Vincent Township's Parkerford Historical District.

While his friends were studying for exams and gearing up for the prom, Scott Thomas was out on the campaign trail - and it paid off. The 18-year-old Pottsville native defied the odds and beat a party-endorsed candidate to win a place on the Republican State Committee and go into party record books as one of its youngest members. In April, Schuylkill County GOP voters elected Thomas, then a senior at Pottsville Area High School, one of four delegates to the party's 364-member state committee.

Each night this past week, Garnet Valley quarterback Matt McHugh took home videos of the Pottsville football team and, after homework was finished, spent hours watching the tapes. The Jaguars' senior has been sacrificing his leisure time to prepare for tonight's PIAA Class AAA state quarterfinal game with the Crimson Tide at Blue Mountain High in Orwigsburg. "I've been up until all hours of the night," McHugh said. But Pottsville assistant coach John Toomey and his players have been keeping late hours, too, watching tapes of Garnet Valley starring an elusive, 5-foot-10, 175-pound senior quarterback.

Workhorse Jared Bradley ran for 176 yards and two touchdowns to lift Strath Haven to a 21-3 win over host Unionville for the District 1/12 Class AAA sub-regional football championship last night. The Panthers (10-2), who missed the playoffs last season under the PIAA points system after winning nine District 1 titles since 1993, needed everything the 6-foot, 202-pound senior could give them to shake the Indians. The victory puts the Panthers in a PIAA quarterfinal-round matchup next weekend with Pottsville at a time and place to be determined.

Edward M. Whetstone, former zoning and code-enforcement officer in Schuylkill Haven, takes the helm today as West Pottsgrove Township manager. Whetstone, 51, replaces Roger D. Villano, 63, who says he used personal contact to carry out the people's business for 21 years. "I'll be only a phone call away. He's free to stop in at my home any time," Villano said in a light moment yesterday, his last on the job. "I won't be there, but he's free to stop!" Villano plans to spend time at his house in Cape May, N.J., and with his grandchildren during retirement.