Londonderry News

History Of Londonderry Athletic And Field Association, Part 3

Editor’s note: The following is the third and final publication of a 3-part series. To read the first part, click here. To read the second chapter, click here.

In 1998, while I was publishing a local sports newspaper, I did a series of articles on LAFA. I had done some research on the group and talked to some people that I knew who had been involved with the league when I first got involved and they gave me names of some people who were there before them, who in turn gave me other names. What follows is some of what I was told, some of what I dug up and some best scenario conjecture.

The 90′s started and as LAFA headed toward 25 years the Campo years were well under way. With a strong group of volunteers and money coming in the focus was on more fields and more use of existing fields. In the early 90′s I was running Babe Ruth and was approached by a newly formed group called the Dugout Club. Their goal was to build a diamond at the high school for baseball. I joined the group. We had grand ideas, were prepared to do most of the work, were highly committed and dead broke. We did some fund raisers, but raised nowhere near what we needed. I went to a LAFA meeting and asked for $5,000. It would be years before we could fund raise a total like that. The LAFA board gave us the money with the stipulation that we take all games – high school, Babe Ruth and Senior Babe Ruth – out of their complex when the field was done. A little over a year later we had a field, dugouts, pressbox and scoreboard at the high school and one of the best fields in the state, too. LAFA made the big field a 60′ diamond,- which is now Hale Field – soon fenced in Forrest Field and Perkins Field and put a gopher field in what was a parking area near the road. With registrations at about a thousand kids LAFA now had the fields to let them play.

Several years went by and the idea of lighting some fields was taking hold. Even during the Forrest years we had talked about lights and expanding above presidents Field, but we kept getting snow balled by the FAA people who run that white building up there. That is a tracking station to triangulate flights into the airport, and they absolutely refused to allow us to put up metal lights or come closer to their building. We really didn’t have the funds anyway, so we never pushed that hard. Then along came Owen McDermott. I was now running Senior Babe Ruth, but in my last year of Babe Ruth I had taken the league back under the LAFA banner. Financially, it was the smart thing to do, but Campo and his group would make the league better because it was ready to expand, also. Owen was running Babe Ruth when he made contact with the FAA. Seems there was someone new running the show up there and he was not opposed to lights or a field closer to the building. Owen tackled both projects head on and got lights and a 90′ diamond done before he moved to New Jersey. Now games could be played at 8:00 at night and the older kids could still play at the complex. The field has been a godsend. With the Middle School Field allowed to fall into disrepair, their teams play at LAFA.

Another thing that Owen did which was very important had to do with All-star teams. I had the opportunity to take the Major All-stars to two tournament and six games. A few years later, Owen had the team and he searched everywhere for tournaments. When he came up with just the two tourneys in New Hampshire he took his teams to Methuen and Haverhill. He more than doubled what we had done. Of course, now the teams play a lot of games, but it was Owen who got the ball rolling.

In 1998 when I researched a lot of this I also had a plaque made up with many names of the people who got LAFA going. All the presidents that I knew of, plus people who were so instrumental in making this a great organization. The plaque hung at Town Hall for many years and hopefully will be there for many more. Perhaps names will be added.

Click for a larger image.

It was my idea to name the fields and I brought it to the board. It would certainly make it easier for people to know which field to go to if they were named, but I thought it was time to recognize some people. But while the fields have names it is also important to understand that they represent a great many people. It didn’t matter what night I went to the complex in my early years, I would see Peter MacInnis working on a this small stonedust field long before any players got there. Raking, lining, filling in holes. Taking excellent care of a field where most kids dig holes in the outfield and forget to run to firstbase if they hit the ball. So while it is called MacInnis Field it is meant to honor all the folks who take a real interest in keeping the complex special. People like Bob Rimol during field clean-up day, and Marty Srugis who I have seen countless times working on the fields, and Ben Parker who did such an amazing job on Hale Field, and Scott Hale himself who spear-headed the Pavillion project in 2003.

Mary Perkins Field is for all the team Mother’s who year after year help out the coach or work the concession stand year after year. We had Mary and Marie Greene, and there has been Joan Campo, Debbie O’Neil, Sara Lynn Harkness, Sue Johnson and others. That is your field. Rod Forrest Field. Just read this article again. It’s there because of him and the league was stronger and better when he left it than when he got there. Owen McDermott Field. Again, just re-read this article. Founders Field is for the four couples who got this thing rolling and the folks who helped them make it a reality. Presidents Field was suppose to be Tod Wicker Field, but when I called him to tell him what I was planning, Tod insisted that a better name would be Presidents Field.

The Campo years have spanned over two decades as I write this in 2010. Countless people have helped during that time. After Norm Vincent left softball Becky O’Donnell, Rick Madden, Michelle Conroy and Bob Lees all did great work for the league. The Abbott’s, Cindy and Bill, took the league to new heights. Ken Hajjar sold numerous signs and raised a lot of money thru sponsers. Cindy Marrett, Tom Moran, Gail Hale, Gary Wobrock, Gary Fisher and the names go on and on.

The league now has about 1300 players on 110 teams. Babe Ruth and Senior Babe Ruth play under their banner. Tournaments go thru the Summer. Fall ball is big. The success of the All-Star teams is more than impressive. It’s been a little over 40 years since starting with a little over a hundred kids and one field with burnt grass. In such a short time there are now 10 fields, most with dugouts, most with irrigation, four lit fields, an expanded concession stand, four press boxes, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of improvements. It is a league and a complex that all of Londonderry can be proud of. It is a league and a complex that if you have been part of it, you are a part of it.

A Londonderry Resident, Bob Napolitano is extremely active in Londonderry Sports. Bob even published a sports news paper he hand delivered to homes in the 1990′s. This has been “Part 3″ of a 3-part series that Londonderry News has published, courtesy of Bob. This series gives readers a history of the LAFA complex and people involved with this great program.

History Of Londonderry Athletic And Field Association, Part 2

Editor’s note: The following is the second publication of a 3-part series. To read the first chapter, click here.

In 1998, while I was publishing a local sports newspaper, I did a series of articles on LAFA. I had done some research on the group and talked to some people that I knew who had been involved with the league when I first got involved and they gave me names of some people who were there before them, who in turn gave me other names. What follows is some of what I was told, some of what I dug up and some best scenario conjecture.

What is now MacInnis Field is where the 6-9 year olds played. The better nines and weaker 10-12 played on Founders Field In the Minor League Division. There were six teams in that group. Softball was played there also. Six teams made up the Major League Division and they played on what is now Presidents Field. Tod Wicker was President of LAFA in the early eighties when I first coached a team and his group of people were there until 1985. When that board moved into Babe Ruth there was a huge void and no one came forward to take over LAFA. Just before the 1986 season, Dick Joyce stepped forward to run the league – he was coaching Pop Warner, also – and he did a great job with hardly any help. Then Rod Forrest took the Presidency and a bunch of us took a more active role in running the league, and some good people got involved in coaching around that time. People like Ed Gorman, Larry Gingrow, Don Ball, Chico Carballiera, Bruce Cygan, Norm Vincent, Ken Lynch and a fellow by the name of Ron Campo would help Rod to take the league to the next level.

I was VP of baseball and I had the honor of being the all-star coach a couple of times. Back then the minor league all-stars played a tournament in Hudson and then a tournament at Youngsville, which is over by Massebesic traffic circle. The major league stars played only the Youngsville tourney. In 1988 I took the major league stars to the Hampstead tournament which Phil Torre was just starting up over there, and then Youngsville. That was it. Six games total.

Many of our board meetings were heated as were our league meetings. Growth was constantly gnawing at us, causing real scheduling problems for games and practices. There was a faction that thought players should try-out to make a team and those not good enough would not play in the league. Softball constantly felt that they were not being treated equal by the board and many Mothers were very vocal at league meetings. Norm Vincent was VP of softball and he did a great job getting us to do more for the girls. We kept stressing to the softball parents to get more involved with the league if they wanted more and eventually they did. A huge problem was the growth of soccer. A soccer tournament in Connecticut over July 4th weekend coincided with our play-offs and the players would leave for the tournament. Because of all-star baseball tournaments we could not change our dates. At the beginning some coaches would change scheduled games to accommodate the soccer players, but eventually we stopped doing that and that led to resentment and conflict from both sides. Those were very tense and unpleasant years. Many meetings were volatile between baseball people, softball people and soccer people, but the calm and reasonable voice of Rod Forrest got us through those difficult years.

With the growth came more registration money, more concession money, more sponsorship money, more volunteers. With the growing bank balance, Rod put together a plan for the lower land that had been granted in 1976. His design added two fields. A Farm field in what was the far corner of left field on the big diamond and a softball field in what was centerfield. These fields could not be utilized when the high school was playing, but that was only one or two nights a week and they were done by 7:00. The 90′s began with LAFA having five fields, consistent growth and constant turmoil. It would get just a little worse, and then it would get better.

The concession stand became a problem. For many years Mary Perkins did a great job of running the stand but she was no longer doing it. Rod brought in Leo and Elie Dorson, a retired couple who ran the concession stand, keeping it open every night and turning a considerable profit. I believe it was Ron Campo, who was treasurer at the time who came up with the idea of raffle tickets and that was a great fundraiser. Money raised from these ventures went into field improvements like a new backstop on Presidents Field and repair of dugouts on Founders Field. As more softball parents got involved with Norm Vincent, the girls got better equipment, uniforms and of course their own field, Perkins Field. I will tell you that the softball issue got so volatile that we discussed cutting them loose and letting them do their own thing like Babe Ruth did. No doubt, they had talks about going on their own. It didn’t happen but it almost did.

Both the Concession Stand and Forrest Field can be seen here. The Concession Stand is the building on the far left with the red roof. Next to it stands a covered picnic area. Forrest Field was named after Rod Forrest, a former LAFA President.

One of the major changes under the Forrest Presidency was the creation of the Triple A Division. Four teams between the majors and minors. This is how that came about. We had six teams at the Major level and 7 at the Minor and we were facing a large influx of 9 and 10 year olds. There was a very strong group of tens that year – many who went on to play varsity ball – and their dads wanted to keep them together, but really didn’t want them playing against strong 12 year olds. That might give you an idea of what we were dealing with back then. Also, they wanted to coach and the Majors only had 1 or 2 openings. We had been talking about adding another division for a year or so and this was the perfect time to do it. The Triple A started with 4 teams of 11 and 12 year olds who didn’t make majors and the real strong 10′s. The majors went from 6 teams to 4 and made that league stronger. Two coaches dropped down and Triple A actually had 3 coaches on each team with head coaching experience. It was a very competitive league and they played on Presidents Field.

A Londonderry Resident, Bob Napolitano is extremely active in Londonderry Sports. Bob even published a sports news paper he hand delivered to homes in the 1990′s. This has been “Part 2″ of a 3-part series that Londonderry News will publish, courtesy of Bob. This series gives readers a history of the LAFA complex and people involved with this great program. Check back for the final installment!

In 1998, while I was publishing a local sports newspaper, I did a series of articles on LAFA. I had done some research on the group and talked to some people that I knew who had been involved with the league when I first got involved and they gave me names of some people who were there before them, who in turn gave me other names. What follows is some of what I was told, some of what I dug up and some best scenario conjecture.

I have been told that prior to games being played on Sargent Road baseball was played on a field that is now Bockmon’s Trailer Park. In fact, I was told that the mobile home that I had purchased there in 1970 was right about where third base was. It appears that by 1968 baseball had moved to Sargent Road.

On March 22, 1965 papers were filed with the State and signed by Dorothy Holton who was the chairman of the Londonderry Athletic and Civic Association. Dorothy and her husband John were very active with this group. Having talked with her years ago, and also with Mr. Fowler and Mr. Robert Webber, this was a group who did things with the youth in town, so I would imagine that any organized baseball fell under their banner. The papers filed on March 22nd changed the name of the group to Londonderry Athletic and Field Association. It may be safe to assume that with the loss of the field in North Londonderry places to play became a priority. On a separate sheet of paper, but together with the document filed, are Articles of Aggreement for the new corporation. Article 2 states: To provide an athletic and recreational field and related facilities for the benefit of the boys and girls of Londonderry, New Hampshire. What makes this document particularlly interesting are the people who signed it. Daniel C. Webber and Rita L. Webber P.O. Box 217 Londonderry, Priscilla Leavitt 3 Elise Street Malden, Mass., Rebecca M. Desmond 651 Broadway Everett, Mass., and an illegible signature from someone on Litchfield Rd Londonderry. No one I spoke with remembered any of these folks.

At a Town meeting land was given to the group to construct a baseball field. That first field is now called Founders Field. At the 1976 Town Meeting the land below Founders Field was given for use to LAFA and there are now four fields down there. I believe what happened back in the late sixties is that the group mentioned above got the town to give the land and in the interim of getting the field built LAFA became solely a baseball/softball entity behind the organization of four couples: John and Barbara Joyce, Jim and Roberta Jeffrey, Horace “Tex” and Doris Ethridge and Paul and Patricia Corey. It was Fred Sigrist and Tom Curran who authored the Charter.

Everyone who I spoke with told me that Barbara Joyce was the first President of LAFA, because she did so much in the early years, but when I spoke with her she informed me that Walter Wells was the first President. She told me she was the first treasurer and maybe the second or third President. By the time I spoke with those who were around at the beginning it was almost 30 years later and many memories were a little shaky on names and dates. But everyone mentioned that Barbara Joyce, who passed away in the early part of 2009, did a lot of work for the group.

In the early 70′s the town was just beginning to get a little growth and it wasn’t long before another field was needed. When I was doing a Sports oriented show on CTV-20 I had Fred Sigrist and Duke Bonney on and they told a story about building the new field which is now President’s Field. There wasn’t a lot of clearing that needed to be done but there were several large trees and one particularly huge tree that stood where the mound now is. Trees and brush were taken out and loam brought in and spread by volunteers. Duke told me about going up to Grenier Field, which is now the Manchester Airport, and taking down chain link fence and bringing it back to the complex to put around the field. Through hard work and determination the small group had doubled its’ field space and dealt with the first real growth.

Frank Holdsworth became President early on and helped the organization through a tough time, so I was told, when a former board member – no name given – spent some funds on personal property and then left town. Not too long after another field was made and that is now MacInnis Field. That used up all the available property until the additional acreage was granted at the 76 Town Meeting when Herbert Kimball was President.

I had sat with John Joyce at a Town meeting and we talked about the early days. Like everyone else, he credited Barbara with most everything. She did the administration stuff, he said, he and the other guys just coached the kids. I talked with Jim Jeffreys one night at a Lions poker Night and he gave me some more names. Jim and Town Moderator Bob Webber coached together. One day, after the first article came out Dave Vautier came into my business carrying some trophies and artifacts from the early years. Several people had mentioned Dave to me. He was the fellow who got the sponsors for the teams. All twelve teams had sponsors at a cost of $150 per team. Sponsors like Indian Head Bank and Belanger Pool.

As the first decade came to a close, three fields had been built and a ninety foot diamond was becoming a reality on the new land. This is where the high school would play their first 10 years, and that is a story in itself. The league had had manageable growth but with the second decade came explosive growth which would tax the resources of the young Association, along with other influences that taxed the people running the league.

A Londonderry Resident, Bob Napolitano is extremely active in Londonderry Sports. Bob even published a sports newspaper he hand delivered to homes in the 1990′s. This has been “Part 1″ of a 3-part series that Londonderry News will publish, courtesy of Bob. This series gives readers a history of the LAFA complex and people involved with this great program. Click here for “Chapter 2″ and be sure to check back for the final installment!