Three years ago, when board member Brian Lattimer stepped up to take charge of the Otisville Little League in New York, it had no programs past coach pitch and was on the brink of dissolution.
In three years, he and a group of volunteers transformed the dying league into a thriving community, setting up divisions all the way up to seniors and picking up new players every season.
Lattimer said building the league is building lives.
“We put a lot of our free time—essentially our life—into it to help kids have fun and grow into young adults,” Lattimer told The Epoch Times. “It’s about kids. It’s about them building camaraderie and learning how to win and lose.”
“You never know what winning feels like unless you lose it,” he said. “If you win, be humble about it.”
Stepping Up to the Plate
A lineman by profession, Lattimer joined the Otisville Little League board in 2014 after purchasing a house in the area for his growing family. He volunteered for tasks such as coaching the teams, prepping the breakfast fundraiser, and setting up concession stands.
In 2019, the then-board president decided to leave, but no one on the board stepped up to take his post.
Talks were held to dissolve the 61-year-old league and merge it with the nearby Minisink Valley Little League.
“I don’t want to see the league fail. I grew up playing in the league, and I want my three kids to play [in] it, too,” Lattimer said. “So I said, ‘I will do it if you guys are willing to help me.’”
At the time, the league only had two divisions: T-ball for 4- to 6-year-olds and coach pitch for kids above 6.
Lattimer wanted to add a player pitch and advanced divisions—he wanted to build a full-fledged league.
He started by calling people up and knocking on doors to recruit coaches. He suggested that families with financial difficulties volunteer time in exchange for registration fees. He encouraged volunteers to join the board to take up more responsibilities.
Dan Brown, a father of two and a sergeant at the county sheriff’s office, became a volunteer head coach and joined the board at Lattimer’s encouragement.
Brown said he shared the same passion for the league with Lattimer.
“There is nothing better for us than seeing the growth of a player,” Brown told The Epoch Times. “It is like that one time that a kid that normally doesn’t get a hit gets a hit, and someone scores—and that happens to be the one that wins the game.”
COVID-19
For the 2020 spring session, 197 kids signed up—a 40 percent increase compared to the past year.
However, when COVID-19 hit, the session was canceled.
“My very first year as the president, we were met with obstacle after obstacle,” Lattimer said. “But I live for this. This is my passion. I just try to overcome everything.”
Lattimer and volunteers like Brown wanted to build the league into a family culture-oriented community where kids have fun and parents volunteer to keep it going.
“Our motto is community commitment,” Lattimer said. “I often tell the parents, ‘if you want your kid to play, I need you to be a part of his upbringing as a coach.’”
One time, Lattimer had to run a team of 13 kids on a minors team by himself because three other coaches couldn’t make it—one was stuck at work, one was ill, and one was out of town.
“I thought to myself, ‘how is this going to be possible?’ So I walked right up to two fathers watching on the sidelines and asked them to help me out,” he said.
Growth
The spring session registrations grew from 212 in 2021 to 229 in 2022.
The league has also grown to six divisions: T-ball, mini-minors, minors, majors, juniors, and seniors, for kids between 4 and 16 years old, including both softball and baseball.
It has about 20 teams and 60 coaches, some of whom volunteer for multiple divisions.
Behind the growth was much work done by volunteers like himself and Brown, Lattimer said.
“As soon as I wake up in the morning, I check emails and texts. It is really like a 24/7 job,” he said. “But we don’t want people to know all the work that we do. We just want them to come to play and have fun.”
Lattimer hopes to build a new field to accommodate the growing league. “This spring, six minors and majors teams had to share one field, and it was a scheduling nightmare,” he said.
He is in talks with Mount Hope Town Board members on how and where the field might be built.
Town councilman and little league liaison Brian Casey told The Epoch Times that he fully supports the new field.
Follow
Cara is an Orange County, New York-based Epoch Times reporter. She can be reached at cara.ding@epochtimes.com
