The relatively balmy weather lately has been welcomed by, among many others, Vinny Alversa and Annemarie Cangiolosi, who have been doing their utmost best to strengthen East Hampton High School’s baseball and softball programs, from Little League on up.
They were both outside on the high school’s turf field Sunday — even on the varsity baseball field for a while in Alversa’s case — schooling large groups of ballplayers.
Alversa, who once led an amateur baseball team here that was tops on Long Island, thinks that in two years’ time things will really begin to click baseball-wise, as this year’s fifth and sixth graders come into the high school. Cangiolosi, who last winter reintroduced “Reale Ball” here, presumably faces a somewhat similar situation.
The two coaches are giving of their time practically the year round so that someday Bonac, when it comes to baseball and softball, will indeed be back.
“On average,” said Alversa during Sunday’s outdoor session, which he was overseeing with his assistant, Henry Meyer, “we’ve been getting 20 to 21 guys at our Sunday morning sessions, sometimes as many as 30. They’re not mandatory.” As he spoke, Andrew Rodriguez and Rob Rivera were working with another group in East Hampton’s gym.
“We’re going to give a free clinic to Little Leaguers soon,” Alversa added, “on Feb. 15 — baseball and softball. We do four of these clinics for Little Leaguers in the winter. We’ve already done one. And on March 7 we’re evaluating all of the Little League’s players — me, Andrew, Rob, Henry, and probably Will Collins of Montauk.”
But really, the credit for youth development ought largely to go to his present varsity players and the team’s captains — Austin Brown, Elian Abreu, and Tucker Genovesi — Alversa said. “All of them have really been giving back . . . they’re a really good group of kids — they’re working extra hard.”
Brown, in turn, said of his coach, “He does a ton of work — he spends hours and hours on it, and he’s not getting paid.”
Asked what he hoped for when it comes to the coming season, which is to begin in March, Brown, a four-year starter and future merchant mariner who can play just about any position, said, “If we play together and play hard, we’ll do all right.”
“We’re in the hunt for a catcher,” Alversa interjected, “now that James Foster is at Canterbury Prep.”
Bonac’s head coach oversees East Hampton teams that play in the summer and fall leagues in Brookhaven, the fall one being “a machine league” so that pitchers, he said, could save their arms. And the off-season competition, which includes such schools as Sachem, Patchogue-Medford, Bayport, and Bellport, was, he said, plenty stiff. Really, the only month off nowadays was November.
“Wait till March — it’ll be freezing,” Alversa said, with a smile, in parting.
For her part, Cangiolosi said during her session, which followed Alversa’s — and drew about 22 participants — that she’s working to get everyone, including middle school and Little League coaches, on the same page. “We want them to do what we do,” she said, adding that it was important for softball-playing girls in Montauk, Springs, and East Hampton to get to know one another before becoming classmates at the high school.
As for the coming Little League clinics, “I think I’ll do what Vinny does, break them up into an hour for 8 to 10-year-olds and an hour for 11 to 12s. . . . I’ll be doing a clinic for the Little League coaches too, and some pitching clinics also.”
This past summer was the first in which East Hampton had entered Brookhaven softball competition, under the East Hampton Hawks’ aegis, fielding 10-and-under and 14-and-under teams, said Cangiolosi, who, because of it, forwent her former summer job as the Ross School’s summer camp director.
“We were going up there four times a week — me, Melanie [Anderson], and my husband, John, and our daughter, Lilah, who’s a shortstop and a pitcher. It became a family thing.”
“Brookhaven league games for the 10-and-unders are different from Little League — a coach doesn’t come in and pitch after four balls, and you can steal at will; you’re not limited to three per inning. It took a while to get adjusted. Our first game, in June, with the Long Island Crush, was an eye-opener. They crushed us. But, in August, in the playoffs we scored six runs against them.”
She too did fall ball, Cangiolosi said, with 12-and-under and 14-and-under teams. And this summer, she said, the Hawks will have three entries — in the 12-and-under, 14-and-under, and 16-and-under leagues.
So, yes, things were looking good, she said, adding that there were some good young pitchers she was coaching, including two ninth graders, Alyssa Brabant and Caroline DiSunno, and an eighth grader, Katie Kuneth.
Her goal when it came to young windmillers was not only to have them spot their fastballs and to master change-ups, but also to include a couple of other pitches in their repertory — a drop, a screwball, a curve, or a riser.
As for who will start this season, “we’ll see who steps up.”