A New Season, and new fields in the works

Rubber cleats dug into unfamiliar turf and balls arced toward an emptier sky as the Downtown Little League kicked off its tenth season last month with determined optimism and, for some, a tempered joy.

"No force, no matter how evil, is going to keep us from coming together as a community and from having fun," City Councilman Alan Gerson told a gathering of young players at the opening ceremony. Their ballfields closed for reconstruction, the kids are playing on alternate sites: a rocky vacant lot; sloping West Thames Park; and diamonds uptown. But what really mattered, after all that has happened, was that the kids were back together. One Little League parent was Ed Hardesty, whose family’s apartment in Battery Park City was laid to waste on Sept. 11. For him, Downtown Little League is a chance for his daughters, Sylvana and Nicoleta, to reconnect with their former neighborhood. "We’re trying to stay in touch with the community they lost," he said. "This was home." "No force, no matter how evil, is going to keep us from coming together as a community and from having fun," City Councilman Alan Gerson told a gathering of young players at the opening ceremony.

Their ballfields closed for reconstruction, the kids are playing on alternate sites: a rocky vacant lot; sloping West Thames Park; and diamonds uptown. But what really mattered, after all that has happened, was that the kids were back together.

One Little League parent was Ed Hardesty, whose family’s apartment in Battery Park City was laid to waste on Sept. 11. For him, Downtown Little League is a chance for his daughters, Sylvana and Nicoleta, to reconnect with their former neighborhood.

"We’re trying to stay in touch with the community they lost," he said. "This was home."

The loss of families from Battery Park City, in particular, has reduced the Little League population from 600 last year to 360 this season. Nevertheless, countless hours of scheduling, team assignments and registration by the league’s board (League President Victor Suppa, who is in construction, gave up three months of work) made for a successful, if poignant, start.

"Today is a community builder because the neighborhood lost so much," said Tribecan Suzanne Tinley, who lost more than most when her brother died in the Trade Center. She seemed to revel in the moment as her son Henry, 7, took fielding practice. "It’s just nice to see the people who have stayed," she said.

The community’s fight for permanent ballfields in Battery Park City began before many of today’s Downtown Little Leaguers were born. On April 26, Gov. Pataki himself visited the 2.6-acre site to break ground on land once slated for housing.

The $5.5 million reconstruction was to begin last year, but the disaster of Sept. 11 turned the fields into a parking lot for recovery vehicles. Last month, the bulldozers finally arrived. Expected to be completed by the start of the next baseball season, the lighted fields will allow for two reconfigured baseball diamonds (rendering at left) or four soccer fields for younger players.

In his remarks at the groundbreaking, Pataki was interrupted with laughter when he began to thank Community Board 1 and its chair, Madelyn Wils, for being "aggressive" in making the fields happen. He then corrected himself. "I guess aggressive is an understatement," he added.