Ozone Howard starts season with a bang (and a parade)

As nearly 100 little leaguers lined up at the intersection of Cross Bay Boulevard and 149th Avenue in Howard Beach, several baseball and softball games were already underway.
Although the Ozone Howard players and organizers officially paraded on Saturday, April 28, the season had begun three weeks earlier on Monday, April 9, and several games were played on the morning of Saturday, April 28 - before the parade started.
“The little guys have a lot of fun during the parade, so we wanted to wait until it was a little warmer for them,” said Guy Losito, Ozone Park Howard Beach Little League President.
For Losito and other organizers, the parade also offered a chance for parents, players, and politicians —Councilmember Joseph Addabbo and Assemblymember Audrey Pheffer — to check out the league’s spruced-up complex on 149th Avenue and Centreville Street. For this season, organizers completed an instructional field, a minor girls’ field, and a “bantam” boys’ field, and added new clay and new dugouts at several fields.
“Whenever we cut a ribbon on the opening season of Little League, it’s a great day for everyone,” Addabbo said. “And the Little League is really for everyone. It’s for the players, for the parents. Everyone enjoys it. I look forward to it every year.”
Addabbo, Pheffer, and Frank Gulluscio, President of the South Queens Democratic Club, helped to carry the opening banner on the seven-block march.
After arriving at the complex — made up of three standard-sized diamonds and an instructional field designed for smaller players — organizers honored several men and women who have donated their time to the league over the years as coaches and managers - Ralph Wallace, Nicholas LoPrenzi, Jimmy Marketti, Gayle Garita, Dennis and Debbie Ivazese, and Bruce Driezen.
Losito said that the league was particularly lucky to have been helped by Tom Soriano, and his wife, Sue, who were involved for past 30 years.
The Sorianos recently moved to Long Island, and Losito joked that neighbors are already annoyed at Tom for sticking a first base bag on their lawn.
Both Tom Soriano and Addabbo, who played in the Ozone Howard Little League as children, threw out the opening pitches.
“Every year they ask me to throw the opening pitch,” Addabbo said, explaining that this year was at least his fifth as the season’s opening pitcher and as a kid, he once caught the opening pitch from his father, Joseph Addabbo, Sr.
“Every year when I am asked to throw the opening pitch, I sort of remember how my dad used to throw out the pitch,” Addabbo said.
After the ceremony, games began on all of the fields, and for some pint-sized players, Saturday was their first chance on the “big” fields - most of the time, the littlest little leaguers play on the half-sized diamond. Little leaguers from Anthony’s Brick Oven Pizza team — Matthew Matheis, Vincent Blandino, Miles Britt, Joey Campisi, and Richie Minerly - even took the field an extra 10 minutes before their 11 a.m. game so that they could get used to the spacious diamond and run drills.
Losito said that the team’s extra effort paid off - they won their game.