By Anthony Bosco
A year later and the Ozone Howard Little League still is running strong, League President Guy Losito said.
Losito took over as the league’s main man in May 2001, replacing longtime City Councilman Al Stabile (R-Ozone Park), who said he stepped down due to health reasons. But soon after his departure, Stabile came under attack from some of the parents, claiming financial wrongdoing on the part of the council member.
Stabile, who was running for Queens borough president at the time, denied any misuse of funds from the league, which then housed more than 60 teams and collected an estimated $130,000 in registration fees.
The Queens district attorney’s office declined to comment on the status of the investigation, but no charges have been filed. Stabile eventually withdrew his bid for the borough presidency.
The new regime at Ozone Howard did not wish to speak about the controversy, concentrating on the league’s positive accomplishments in the past 12 months.
“We don’t even want to go into that,” said Losito, 42, an Ozone Park resident. “We don’t want to deal with anything that was prior to my taking over as league president.”
In the short time since Losito took over the reins, the league’s baseball complex, located on the corner of 149th Avenue and Centerville Street, has undergone a major face-lift, and the league itself has expanded in numbers, both in terms of players and teams.
According to Losito, all the fields the Ozone Howard Little League calls home have been redone with fresh clay and sod. The league also has installed a new sprinkler system, laid new asphalt inside the complex and restructured the parking lot to accommodate more automobiles.
“We’ve done a tremendous amount of work,” Losito said. “Every field on the complex has been redone. We also installed brand new dugouts on all the fields.”
The money for the reconstruction, Losito said, came from some of the league’s new sponsors, but most of the work was done by volunteers inside the league. Losito, who works as a branch manager for Bobcat of New York, which leases and sells construction skid steer loaders, said managers, coaches and parents donated their time and skill to fixing the complex.
“We started [the construction] right after the season ended last year,” Losito said. “We made it right to the wire, April 6. The field was finished two weeks before [the season started], but we got it in.”
Tom Soriano was key to the reconstruction and is responsible for the daily upkeep of the fields, and the president credits him as “the foundation of the league, the heart and soul of the league.”
Soriano, who is retired, has been with the league for years and maintains the fields during the season.
“What he does is unbelievable,” Losito said. “Without the help of Tom Soriano there wouldn’t be a Little League.”
The league, Losito said, also is hoping to eventually light the complex, a goal that is in its very early planning stages.
“We’re looking forward to hopefully putting lights in the place,” Losito said. “The funding is not there yet.”
The number of teams in the league has grown from 63 last year to 80 this season. The more than 925 players in the league compete in nine different age groups from 5 through 16 in baseball and three separate divisions for players 8 through 16 in softball.
In addition, the league has hired a new umpiring team for the “in-house” league, Losito said. It is going to add a two-week summer camp in July for some of the younger players and also is “going full-speed ahead” with a league for the fall, starting the week after Labor Day and running through Thanksgiving.
“The league is running very well,” said Losito, who also credited the league Player Agent, Mike Molé, Vice President Tony Ambruzino and Sam “The Plaque Man” Marsh, who takes care of the equipment for the league.
Most important to the league, however, is to defend its many District 27 banners, won last year during the annual district tournaments. The district tournaments are run from July through August after the completion of the intramural season when all-star teams representing Ozone Howard in different age groups compete against other District 27 leagues, such as Ridgewood-Glendale-Middle Village-Maspeth and Briarwood-Jamaica little leagues.
“We’re looking to defend them all,” Losito said. “We did well last year.”
Until then, it is business as usual at Ozone Howard.
Reach Sports Editor Anthony Bosco by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 130.
