TRR photo by Richard A. Ross Cochecton Center Giant Brandon Kent, age 8 of Lake Huntington gets set in the batter’s box. (Click for larger image)

Let’s play ball!

Little League: A slice of Americana since 1938

By RICHARD A. ROSS

COCHECTON CENTER, NY — From the moment that Carl E. Stotz first gathered some neighborhood kids in Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1938 to establish the rules and field dimensions of Little League baseball, small town USA has never been the same.

Watch little guys or girls hold bats that look bigger than they are. Witness the laughter and the joy of parents as their child gets his or her first hit. Watch in delighted awe as he or she runs with arms and legs churning to first base. Emblazon in your memory the pride that child feels as the first base coach leans down to offer a congratulatory pat and some rudimentary base running advice.

For Dick Pomes, the manager of the first place Cochecton Center Giants with 12 seasons under his belt, little league hasn’t lost any of the luster or the wonder that he remembers as a boy playing in the Ascension League of Port Jervis. In a game against Haverstraw in 1965, his team fell one run shy of the state finals.

Little League holds great allure. Little Leaguers make a commitment to practice with the team and on their own. The game teaches them about work ethic and diligence and gives parents an opportunity to build relationships while helping their children learn the game.

And it’s a chance for kids, who range in age from eight to 12, to learn more than the fundamentals of baseball.

“Kids get to be a part of a team. It’s an experience they will draw on many times in their lives,” Pomes said.

	TRR photo by Richard A. Ross Tom Russell, 11, of Jeffersonville lets one fly in a game against the Dodgers. (Click for larger image)

Standing along the sidelines in Cochecton, Cochecton Center or Narrowsburg, NY mirrors the experience one has in Tyler Hill or Conklin Hill, PA. So powerful and majestic in its simplicity, Little League baseball is now played across the globe. In each and every town, the season ends with an All-Star game.

This year’s All-Star game will be played on June 26 on Heinle’s field, which was constructed more than 45 years ago by locals including Douglas Heinle, Clarence Jay, Bob Brock, Henry Umnik and Herman Heinle.

According to Doug Heinle, “the town brought in the dirt and we leveled the field. We harrowed it and picked the stones and then seeded it.” Heinle’s Field is a prime location for past pitch softball tournaments, as well as Little League games and Missy Softball.

All-Stars teams from the north, including the Tyler Hill Cardinals, The Cochecton Phillies and Conklin Hill Mets will face off against their southern counterparts, the Narrowsburg Braves and Dodgers and the Cochecton Center Giants. It’s the local version of the Subway Series.

Curiously, as people flocked to rain-soaked Shea Stadium last weekend to watch the Yankees play the Mets, most people might be surprised to realize that most major leaguers first learned the game on a little field that measured just 46.5 feet from the pitcher’s mound to home plate.

Towering home runs hit by the likes of Jason Giambi or Mike Piazza were once pop flies that sailed into the outfield of a Little League field while the blazing fastball, curve or slider thrown by a Roger Clemens or an Al Leiter was once a straight pitch coming out of the hand of a nervous young kid looking in at some menacing batter from the next town.

Will any of the players in this week’s All-Star game ever play in the majors? The beauty of Little League is that no one really cares.

So let the rain stop and let’s play ball.