little league

He gave it to his favorite camp counsellor in 1992, but neither of them knew how big he'd get!

There are over 180,000 Little League teams around the world, featuring over 2.6 million young baseball players. This week, that tremendous field will be narrowed down to 20 teams for the 2022 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. One of those teams may be representing New York.

Sunday May 22nd from 2:30pm to 4pm at Tri Little League in Delmar there will be a baseball clinic open to kids from 5-12 years-old. The cost of the instructional afternoon is only $5 per player. All proceeds from the afternoon, including a percentage of the concessions, will go to the Epilepsy Foundation of Northeastern New York, in memory of Lazar LaPenna, the 11 year-old boy that died from a seizure while playing Little League on Long Island on April 29th.

As we reported last week, 4th grader Lazar LaPenna, of Long Beach, New York, suffered a fatal seizure after hitting a baseball and running to first base. There was no injury caused by a baseball. Lazar suffered from epilepsy for several years and was on medication for seizures. LaPenna loved baseball and the Mets. His dad was his coach. The baseball world and others took notice of this awful tragedy and even took to Twitter to recruit everyone to pay tribute to the little boy from Long Island.

I love to volunteer to coach Ryan's Little League team, but my coaching cost his team the game last weekend. I beat myself up over it for the entire week. We brought it up on the air and it was comforting to know that I am not the only one. The phone calls made me realize that my error in coaching wasn't even close to what these other coaches did that cost their kids the game.

This past weekend was very nostalgic for me and my family. My son, Ryan, embarked on something that was part of my childhood and now it's part of his. Ryan starting playing in the Mechanicville Stillwater Little League. It wasn't only nostalgic, it was amazing.

We are so happy that we are able to watch Ryan play Little League baseball. It gives us a sense of normalcy. Along with that normalcy comes loud and obnoxious cheering him on. Listen to this week's Big League Chooch.

With baseball back and our son Ryan playing nearly every other night, we had a double-header this past weekend. Ryan loves to play and on Saturday we were at the baseball field for seven hours. He had a great couple of games including an in-the-parker home run.

We are so happy that baseball is back in our lives. Ryan is back on the field and that means that I tend to get a bit vocal. We had a doubleheader over the weekend and The Big League Chooch was out in full force, with a mask on of course.

We were so excited when the governor announced that Little League baseball could start back up on July 6th. But I don't think anyone was totally prepared for what it was going to look and feel like because of the coronavirus pandemic.

We finally got some good news about Little League baseball. It looks like they will have a season after all. But there are some serious safety rules that the boys need to know before they hit the field. Listen as the sometimes obnoxious and overbearing Big League Chooch quizzes the little leaguers.

New York state has continued to make great progress with coronavirus cases across the state. Now the governor has announced that low-risk youth sports can begin starting up games soon.