Call it “the miracle that Ruth built.”

Or choose your own explanation. All theories are plausible.

So says the guy who was standing in the third base coaching box while the Babe Ruth 15-year-old All-Stars from Colonie, N.Y. — down to the final out of their season — methodically dismantled the laws of baseball possibility.

“I’ve been around baseball for 40 years,” said that guy, Colonie head coach Bob June. “The magic of that inning is something I’ve never seen before. That’s all I can tell you. Whoever was on our side … I know a lot of people in the stands were praying. Maybe something from a higher realm was helping us. But what I witnessed was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen as a coach or an athlete.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he added. “The kids on our team now understand that in baseball, anything is possible.”

As far as June knows, there isn’t video of the two-out, bottom-of-the-seventh rally staged by Colonie in the Mid-Atlantic Regional championship game. A father of one of the players had been filming the game, but turned off his recorder around the time Mifflin County took a 7-3 lead.

“He thought that taping the game was bringing us bad luck,” June said. “So he shut the camera down. If the game wasn’t meant to be on tape, so be it. It’s fine by me. All the other parents have let him have it. But … so be it.”

You get the sense talking to June that he is a superstitious man. During a phone call on Sunday, the former Army National Guardsman and one-time baseball standout at Oneonta State said “knock on wood” an awful lot.

But perhaps June wasn’t that way before the regional championship game.

Maybe what he saw changed his baseball theology.

Colonie had gone 0-for-51 in its previous attempts to reach a Babe Ruth World Series, and trailed Mifflin County 11-4 with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning.

It was 11-3 an inning earlier when June called the team together for a pep talk. He told his players to stay calm. He told them to work the count and find the right strike to hit. He told them to swing with purpose and not cheat themselves by holding back.

And then June had each player tap the lucky charm that hangs from a lanyard around his neck, encased in two layers of plastic: A replica of a 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth baseball card.

“We have a ritual before every game where we give Babe five,” June explained. “We bring the Babe to the games and hope he helps us out. In the sixth inning, I decided to do it again. I told the kids that the Babe wasn’t feeling our love and we needed to give him a little more.”

The Babe was slow to reciprocate, although when a Colonie batter dived into first base to prevent a double play, allowing a run to score, June felt a glimmer of hope.

That made it 11-4.

What happened during Colonie’s next turn at bat may not have any video documentation. But on Sunday, June recalled the events of the bottom of the seventh inning in such lucid, encyclopedic detail, he may as well have been broadcasting live from press row.

Colonie sent 13 batters to the plate in the inning. How’s that for a lucky number?

June remembers every pitch, every count and each conversation he had with each runner at third.

Except the final baserunner to pass by.

The ending, you see, is still a blur.

By the time Jami June came to the plate, Colonie had chased three Mifflin County pitchers to the showers and pushed five runs across the plate. It still trailed 11-9, but it had the bases loaded, with the tying run at second base and the go-ahead runner at first.

“I had my fastest runner on first,” Coach June said. “I was just yelling at Jami to be ready. I’m thinking a base hit ties it. Something in the gap can win it.”

The June family — including the head coach and his youngest son, digging in at home — had scheduled a family vacation to Cape Cod the following week.

“I’m thinking, ‘I’m either going to Cape Cod or I’m going to Washington,’” said Coach June.

Jami made the decision with a first-pitch swing.

“I could tell,” said June, “that he hit it good.”

June tracked the flight of the ball as it soared toward the outfield fence. His thoughts raced. Scenarios and strategies compressed into milliseconds.

Is it in the gap? June wondered.

If it kicks off the wall funny, can I score the guy from first?

“Then it went over the wall,” said June, his leathery, upstate New York accent betraying an underlayer of soft cotton. “I wasn’t Coach June anymore. I was just Jami’s dad.”

Jami June’s walkoff grand slam capped a nine-run rally, made a 13-11 winner of Colonie, clinched a regional championship and sent it to a World Series for the first time in the history of the league.

“The only thing I was hoping for was that (Jami) would hit the ball hard,” June said. “Just hit it hard. If they catch it, so be it. All you can do is hit it hard.”

The celebration, also not recorded on video, was delirious and “overwhelming,” he added. June tried several times to describe his emotions, starting each attempt with, “As a father …” before trailing off.

Finally, he just said: “It was something. That’s all I can tell you.”

Colonie will open the Babe Ruth 13-15 World Series at 2:35 p.m. Saturday against Tallahassee at David Story Field. Players Doug Avery, Zach Longo, Dave Monin, Jake Mullen, Tom Hausman, Jami June, Josh Harrison, Matt Leonardo, Mike Zelinski, Sammy Carter, Dave Mann, Chris Kearney, Jesse Carter and A.J. Mogavero will stroll into Longview as eyewitnesses to a miracle, like characters from a Yogi Berra aphorism come to life.

“They just know that you are never done until that last out is recorded,” June said. “I’m sure if you asked the kids, they would say that if they were able to win a World Series, it would top what they did in the regional championship. Then again, maybe not. I don’t know if anything could top that inning. That inning was magic.”

Colonie, N.Y.

Mid-Atlantic Regional champs

Population: 79,258

Notable: The central part of the city was once the location of the extensive Shaker community farms. Much of that land is now occupied by the Albany International Airport. In November 2007, the town of Colonie was ranked the sixth safest place to live in the United States.

Famous natives: Pat Riley, NBA coach (Schenectady); Andy Rooney, TV personality (Albany); Chester Arthur, 23rd President of United States (Albany); Abe Simpson, cartoon character (Albany)

Driving distance to Longview: 2,961 miles