The Backyard Batting Cage

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Hungover couples eating outside Sidewalk Café gave them the thumbs up. The women at Sixth Street Pilates cheered from their studio window. On Avenue D, I thought I saw a pit bull smile. That’s what a parade can do.

This morning, this parade was special. It was the annual parade for opening day of the Felix Millan Little League from the Lower East Side. This year’s parade marked the league’s 30th anniversary. And what a parade it was.

Cheerleaders, banners, painted signs. A miniature marching band was anchored by a line of eager teenagers banging big bass drums. A little boy on the corner of East Fourth Street covered his ears.

Manny Rodriguez hugged me as soon as he saw me. Manny is a toucher. He hugs or touches everyone as he walks by. He has that ability to make each kid—and the kid inside each adult—feel special around him. It’s good to know Manny.
Manny runs the parade. He runs everything. The Felix Millan Little League has only had one (unpaid) volunteer president for 30 years. That’s Manny.

In a time before A-Rod, J-Lo or even Los Mets, there was Felix Millan; a quiet and consistent second baseman for the New York Mets. Felix Millan meant a lot to Latino kids in Alphabet City when he arrived in 1973. A year later Miguel Piñero’s “Short Eyes” took home plenty of awards and Miguel Algarin opened the Nuyorican Poets Café on East Sixth Street. In Felix Millan, “the community” now had a sports role model who reflected the pride and dignity and love Latin-Americans had for the so-called American pasttime. Twenty years later, Latin players would dominate the major leagues.

Manny Rodriguez knew what Felix Millan meant and he knew what it would mean to his neighborhood for their kids to have something to do in the summer. In 1977, he put up fliers, punk rock style, all over the Lower East Side and Alphabet City, announcing try-outs of the “Felix Millan Little League.” Forty kids showed up that day. Today he’s got 500.

John Solano, 37, marched with the parade. He lives on E. 12th and Avenue C. He started playing in Felix Millan Little league when he was 6 years old. Now he has a son, Jacob, who’s marching in the parade. “It’s the next generation now,” says John, getting a little misty. “Keeps kids off the streets, out of trouble.” He looks both ways and says quietly, like he’s telling me a secret “It’s better than spending a summer doing nothing, just going to the pool once a week.”

The parade started promptly at 11 a.m. on Avenue A and East Second Street. Coaches and parents marched with players dressed in full uniforms. Big smiles. This is a local league with local people. The team sponsors are local sponsors like the “The Acevedo Family,” “Mom’s Pizza on Avenue D” and “A.E. Supply Corp.” Not a whiff of Phil Hartman.

To be sure this parade was not without its heavy hitters: Congresswoman Nidia Velasquez headed the throng—turns out the she and Felix Millan hail from the same hometown in Puerto Rico, Yabucoa. “My brothers went to school with him,” she gushed. “I was home in Puerto Rico last month and who is shouting to me in the street but Felix Millan!” It’s all just one big neighborhood, you see.

Believe me, Millan is everything they say, I met him. Three years ago, Manny took me and filmmaker Christopher Frieri up to opening day for the Bronx Little League where they were honoring Millan. I watched that man sign an autograph for every single kid until the very last kid—even the kid who came back after the line was finished—got one. Mets fans in the 1970s knew Millan for doing the same thing at every home game. No other player did that. No other player felt so connected.

After all those autographs, Millan sat with me in a van on Walton Avenue while I interviewed him for my then-weekly column in the now sadly departed New York Sport Express. Never was there a man so gracious or grateful or giving. We talked for a long time. Chris captured amazing stills. Millan told stories about Tom Seaver and Hank Aaron. He forgave Ed Ott for body-slamming him. He shared that his granddaughter aspires to a career in country music and takes guidance from Tim McGraw, the bastard child of Tug McGraw, and his wife Faith Hill. What a sweetheart.

Later that year, I departed from interviewing famous New York sports figures for one week and did a Q&A with two of the Felix Millan Little Leaguers. Manny loved that. So did I. I included both interviews in my book that got published a year later and I invited Manny as an honored guest to the book launch at Arlene’s Grocery. When I brought him up on stage, Manny characteristically deflected any praise by presenting a plaque to Arlene’s Grocery for sponsoring a team that summer. The guy is too much.

By noon—right on schedule—Manny had pied-pipered the parade down to Diamond #6 at East River Park. The artificial turf field, a perk from an improbable post-9/11 Erin Brockovich/ABC Television renewal project, didn’t look like the same rock, grass and dirt from 30 years ago, but the spirit was there. The Domino Sugar factory sat unbowed across the East River and Williamsburg Bridge marked the southern horizon. Someone decorated the top of the fence behind the backstop with miniature Puerto Rican and American flags. Best of all, they had put together dozens of photographs on poster boards, chronicling the league’s 30 years. Manny was in every picture. He posed with Mayors Bloomberg and Giuliani, with Mets Millan and Mookie. He even took one with Don Mattingly. You saw the kids, the coaches and parents from year after year after year. It was a loving scrapbook of a community that stuck together and persevered together through three decades in this city.

You could almost hear their voices. We’re not visiting. We have families. We have memories. We live here. They’ve seen the frat kids replace the hipsters who replaced the real artists who replaced the addicts. The LES is not a theme park for them. It is home.

The teams sat Indian-style along the baselines as Manny emceed the opening day ceremony on the infield grass. Two guys from the neighborhood sang the U.S. and Puerto Rican anthems. There were citations, commendations and introductions. Manny even introduced me. Nidia Velasquez danced to a short musical performance. It was almost time to cut the giant homemade chocolate cake with the plastic Felix Millan figurine planted in the icing. Each kid got a thick slice. Just perfect.

Nidia Velasquez was just about to throw the season’s first pitch when fire trucks and police cars with full lights sirens blazed toward the field. Out of nowhere an NYPD helicopter circled above. How cool, I thought, Manny had really outdone himself. But it was not for them. It was a rescue. Somebody fell off a boat into the East River.

Later, there were games. The Cardinal beat the Warriors 2-0. The Royals clubbed the Puerto Rico Stars 12-4. The Renegades topped the Cyclones 14-8, and the older division Renegades outlasted the Lions 18-14. Summer on the Lower East Side had officially begun.

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