A parade to play ball!

BY TEQUILA MINSKY   | City Hall Park percolated with excitement under a bright sun on a perfect morning as Downtowners — parents and kids — crowded the sidewalk at City Hall Park ready to launch the 2015 season for the Downtown Little League last Saturday.

Arriving with their dad before joining their own teams, big brother Owen, 8, who plays shortstop with the Mariners hung out with his brother Andrew, 6 and a half, who will play with  the Angels.

Girls from one of the league’s two state championship softball teams —very happy ball players — assembled early.

“We were too young — we were 11 — to go on to the regionals [that start at age 12] last year,” one piped up. The girls, with encouragement from their parents, started playing in second grade.

“We were students at P.S. 89 and P.S. 234,” one said of the Battery Park City and Tribeca schools.

Zoe Anderson, who now goes to I.S. 276 in B.P.C., explained what baseball is to them: “It means being a team. We stick together, we’re like family.”

How did they win? Her answer,  “Our coach, Scott Morrison says, ‘the team that makes the least errors, does the best.’ That’s how we got through the tournament.”

Meanwhile, Adam Fritz, 7, a student at PS 234 adjusted his stilts. He’s become quite adept with them from Children’s Tumbling and though he doesn’t play baseball, he was part of the morning’s fun. “I’m here, just for the parade,” he said.

Board member and once a Little League mom herself, parade coordinator Marijo Russell-O’Grady made sure all the police were in place to block traffic.

As the sidewalk and park began to burst with players, moms and dads, and  siblings, some in strollers too young to play,  were more than ready to take it to the streets April 18.

Then, leaving City Hall Park, the parade began walking west to the Battery Park City ballfields where the Opening Day ceremonies began.

The league has about 1,000 players.