We’re Better Together: Inside the Love of Baseball, Volunteerism, and Sportsmanship That Powers Our Hometown Little League Team

Editor’s Note: This is the tenth in a periodic series for 2024, “We’re Better Together,” celebrating ways in which community organizations and citizens in Northern Dutchess County support one another. The series is sponsored by Rhinebeck Bank. Read more about the sponsorship.

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The year was 1967. The United States was in the throes of the Vietnam War. The Big Mac debuted in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The Beatles released the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. And the Red Hook All-Star Little League team won the district championship.

As the news settled in this past weekend that, now linked with Rhinebeck, they’d done it again nearly six decades later, leaders and players of Little League could scarcely contain their emotion.

“Winning the championship, I was filled with tears,” said team manager Gino Balacic, born and raised in Red Hook and father of pitcher and infielder Bradyn. “It’s an incredible amount of work to run a smooth program. This victory shows we’ve done that.”

Added Coach Paul Haight of Rhinebeck, whose son John pitches and plays first base and catcher, “To do something that has a historic bent is really special. And this hasn’t been a team with a few kids dominating. Every player on the team has contributed.”

Coach Dan Shapley of Rhinebeck, whose son Ben, 12, has been playing Little League for six years, offered another perspective. “Everyone is buzzing, and it’s really exciting. As we research the history, we are learning just how special this is, not only for these players but for the whole community.”

Connor Cruikshank, who hit a single and a go-ahead bases-clearing double in the weekend tournament, said he was super-stoked by the victory. “The coaches had a really good game plan, and we executed it well,” said Connor, a middle-schooler in Rhinebeck, as his dad Ryan listened in. “It was ‘Go after the hits. Make the plays. Always be paying attention. And since anything can happen, be on alert.’ ”

The story of the Red Hook-Rhinebeck All-Star team, victorious Saturday in a nail-biting second game in a best-of-three tournament against LaGrange, is one of passionate devotion to baseball by local pre-teen boys and their parents. And it is also a tale of the precise division of volunteer labor, of positivity both on and off the field, and of belief in the lessons team sports have to offer.

What’s more, the victorious team is part of a Red Hook-Rhinebeck partnership that is not even 10 years old, born when the Rhinebeck Little League operation realized in 2016 that, as it competed with soccer and lacrosse options, it needed a better path forward to recruit kids to baseball. “Initially it was hard to get Rhinebeck and Red Hook together,” recalled Tom Connolly, president of Rhinebeck Little League, who has stuck with his leadership role even as his son grew out of the sport more than a decade ago. 

Neither Connolly nor Jim Mulvey, president of Red Hook Little League, grew up in the area. They cared more about the future of the sport for kids than about past inter-town competition. “The rivalry wasn’t as important to us as getting the kids playing,” added Connolly, who saw the wisdom of keeping separate charters for both town leagues but merging on the field. “Now, none of the people who’ve come through it have a vested interest in either town. They see the power and strength of the union.”

Little League today offers four divisions for both baseball and softball. Kids as young as 4 play T-ball, hitting a softer ball off a stick. At 7, kids can join the minor division, first with coaches pitching and then with players pitching to one another. And from 10 to 12, kids participate in the major division. That is the level that has the chance, moving through district, sectional and state tournaments, to play in the Little League World Series, which has been hosted every August since 1947 in Williamsport, Penn.

This year’s Little League Red Hook-Rhinebeck All-Star team of 14 boys grew from the batch of 48 kids who played on one of four combined Red Hook-Rhinebeck teams in the regular season. Some 24 kids then tried out and the coaches selected the All-Star roster, said Balacic.

Participating in Little League is often a family affair and it incites passionate and focused volunteer opportunities for parents. Balacic, for instance, awakens at 3:30 a.m. every weekday to commute by train to New York City for his job managing the front desk at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. By 5 p.m. in spring and summer, he’s back in Red Hook at work attending to Little League tasks, everything from recruiting umpires to creating practice schedules.

Volunteerism includes both informal roles — organizing concessions or cleaning the field — and formal roles, like coach; the Red Hook-Rhinebeck team has two, as well as Balacic’s position as team manager.

Among the volunteers, Kevin Tiberio has shown up with his loader to spread infield dirt during spring maintenance at Father Carroll Field on Route 199. This year, he also added a Major League-style wrinkle to the at-bat announcements for home games, loading custom walk-up tunes into a phone app that accompanies his deep-voice declaration of each player’s name.

Red Hook Fire Chief Mike Lane mows and maintains the field at Father Carroll Field, usually with his son’s help, while Jeff Cassens is the unofficial steward of Wager Field at the Rhinebeck Rec Park, spending hours grooming and weeding.

At Friday’s first game of the championship series against LaGrange, tournament director and family physician Amy Cocina marked each play in a scorebook, while her husband, anesthesiologist Dr. Steven Rogovic, took player and team photos. Steve also coaches the minors All-Star team when not rooting on his older son. Both have been summoned onto the field at times to manage player injuries. 

Meanwhile, another reliable group of parents – Tiberio, Ryan Cruickshank, Jacob Hoyt-Friedman, Mike Wisniewski, and Jared Capalbo, among others – will pitch in before games to spruce up the fields, Shapley noted. Michelle Duval and Elizabeth Carotti have ensured that the concession stands are open for games, and the American Cruisers MC 123 have helped cook and serve. 

This work is all in service of the life lessons parents hope their kids accumulate in practice and on the field. “It’s not about winning and losing,” said Fred Cantor, administrator for the District 17 Little League program, as he intently watched Friday’s LaGrange game at the Red Hook Rec Park. “It’s about accepting your role on the team, being a good teammate. And it’s a lesson some kids won’t easily get elsewhere.”

As kids head to bat, shouts of “Dial it in,” “You got this,” and “Be aggressive” emanate from parents behind the fence. And when kids fumble a play or strike out, advice comes forth, too, largely about shaking off the challenge. 

One such lesson came in the bottom of the first inning Friday when a Red Hook player hit an inside-the-park homer that batted in a total of three runs. Since the player on second base started running too soon, the umpire disqualified the entire play, and the kids returned to base dejected. Coaches then jumped in. “Get back in there,” shouted one of them. “Chin up boys,” said another.

 “I tell the kids ‘Don’t bring luggage onto the field,’ ” added Haight, in a metaphor for managing disappointment or stress. “It’s hard to play baseball carrying a suitcase.”

Connor commented candidly on his own fielding errors including an easy out at third base that he overthrew. “I’ve learned that there is always a chance to make up for mistakes. The coaches teach in a really nice way. They give you many chances to make up if you mess up.”

Preston France, who attends Linden Avenue Middle School, noted that the game’s not over till it’s over, another lesson he said the coaches have articulated. “I’ve learned there’s always hope and that even if you’re down, you can still win the game,” said Preston, who almost didn’t try out for All-Stars this year until Shapley made a personal appeal to him, noting he was about to age out. 

Preston also gave a shout-out to his friend and teammate Landon Hotaling, who hit the right-field hit that drove in the run that won Saturday’s game. “Always have some encouragement for your teammates,” said Preston. “Even if they only have a little piece of the team, that piece makes the whole. When it really mattered, Landon made it count.”

Parents also have learned lessons. Red Hook Little League’s Mulvey, whose 26-year-old son Jimmy went through the program and who still retains his leadership role as his way of supporting the game and other parents, recalled the early years after the 2016 merger of the Red Hook and Rhinebeck programs. The idea to effect the combination on the field was born from Little League girls’ softball, which merged Red Hook and Rhinebeck teams in 2008, he said.

Even a few years into the plan, some parents second-guessed the idea, Mulvey recalled. And in surveys the team conducted as recently as six and seven years ago, some parents were still challenging the decision, he added, noting they didn’t want to travel to the sister town for games and practice. 

“The mindset needs to be about the characteristics we want to pass on to the kids here, not this aggressive win-loss thing but rather about sacrifice, hard work, and the strength of the team,” said Mulvey. “The win-loss thing can get out of perspective.”

He said he still would like to see the merger of the towns’ charters into a single charter. But, for now, he said he’s pleased with the focus on shared joy for the kids.

“People don’t even look anymore to see what town a given volunteer leader is from,” Mulvey said. And parents readily acknowledge the benefits: more friendships across the towns for both kids and parents. “It’s not the same 50 families we’re socializing with,” said Rogovic at Friday’s game. “The world is so much broader.”

Shapley concurred. “As a parent, I love it. The kids have this whole other pool of people to meet and befriend and be close with on this team,” he said. “Now, we know all these Red Hook families. And the kids don’t think that they’re on Red Hook or Rhinebeck. They go to bat for each other.”

Another benefit, he added, is kids get to work with a broader array of coaches.

The All-Star team will take a break this week before heading to the start of sectionals on Saturday, July 13, likely against a team from Saugerties or possibly Albany. That will be a four-team, double-elimination tournament, Cantor said. The winner will play in the state tournament in Staten Island.

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Registration is open for Red Hook Rhinebeck Little League’s summer and fall programs for boys and girls. Summer Sandlot programs are free to registered players, and games are run, coached, and umpired by the kids for non-competitive, old-fashioned summertime fun. To register, volunteer, or inquire about sponsorship opportunities, visit rhrbkll.com, email [email protected], or phone 845-481-0211.

The post We’re Better Together: Inside the Love of Baseball, Volunteerism, and Sportsmanship That Powers Our Hometown Little League Team first appeared on The Daily Catch.