LaFesta Baseball Exchange Marks 25 Years
 North Adams and the North End played the first of four games in the annual baseball exchange. See more photos here. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The score was 9-2 for home team North Adams on Saturday night in the first of two matchups against the North End at Joe Wolfe Field.
More important than the score, however, was the picnic at Windsor Lake that preceded the game and the 24 pizzas waiting for all the players afterward.
Saturday marked the 25th anniversary of the LaFesta Baseball Exchange that has brought more than 700 players aged 12 to 15 from North Adams and Boston's North End together.
The teams from the opposite ends of the state have been forging bonds on the diamond since 1990. The two games in North Adams are followed up by two games in the North End.
"I think what's most important is that we get a 26th year," said Mayor Richard Alcombright from the field before the first of two games in North Adams. "My commitment to this program is such that we are going to have a conversations with Mayor Marty Walsh to make sure this continues here and in the city of Boston.
"From the smallest city in the commonwealth to the largest city in the commonwealth, we have to keep this relationship going."
The program started in 1990 with George Canales, Tony Abuisi and John Lipa as a way to get youth involved in LaFesta, at the time a local heritage event at the former St. Anthony's Parish that grew into a celebration of the city's ethnic communities. The North End also had a similar fair, and out of that grew the baseball exchange that has long outlasted the original LaFesta event.
Now each year, the two Babe Ruth teams — one western and rural and the other eastern and urban — play twice on their home fields.
"I've been around this program quite a bit," said Jason Card, who played in 1997 and spent 10 years coaching the team. "It's great for the kids, it's a great game ... it's baseball.
"I had a the chance to coach this team and it was a really good experience ... baseball and the combination of everything, it turns out to be an all-round good experience for the kids and everybody involved."
One hasn't happened is the development of a rivalry, or at least not an obvious one. Rather, the results of the game are less important than the experience — playing on new fields, meeting new people, learning about how the other half the state lives.
"I got a lot out of the program. Just knowing the tradition," said John LeClair. "I was on the 20th anniversary team in 2010, we had a big ceremony down here as well. It was definitely nice going to the Boston ballfield and know the players down there, how they lived and what their life was like every day."
LeClair remembered the buildings, the street right next the field, a 25 foot fence, and a foul ball breaking the windshield of parked car.
"It was a great time, especially the street fair and hanging out with the kids in Boston," LeClair said.
The real heart of the program on the North Adams side has been George Canales, and his family.
John Romano, Canales' Boston counterpart, presented him with a certificate of recognition from Mayor Walsh for he and his family's "hospitality and kindness and their dedication to the youth of the North End and North Adams."
"It's a pleasure to come out here it's an honor to play on this field and to play with all these kids," Romano said. "We have a great time every time we come up."
The players take to the field again on Sunday at 11 a.m.
Tags: lafesta, youth baseball,
