WESTFIELD – It was a toasty late afternoon Saturday at Bullens Field, and the sounds of summer, and baseball, abounded, including ping of aluminum bats making good contact, ketchup and mustard being squeezed onto hot dogs, and nonsensical chatter coming from the dugouts amidst the spitting of sunflower seeds.
In the booth overseeing the action, there was Dan Brown and William “Bill” Amanti, the two men who have become most synonymous with Westfield Little League baseball.
“I’ve been president now for 15 years now,” said Brown while simultaneously operating the scoreboard during Saturday’s late afternoon game, which was coming to have more in common with a woodshed beating than a baseball game. “We’ve done some stuff these last few years that have really improved this league for the kids. And of course we had to twist this guy’s arm to name this particular cup after him.”
The arm in question is that of Bill Amanti, a man who has been the foundation for the league for decades, starting with his star role on the city’s 1963 Little League championship squad.
“Babe Ruth baseball is part of Westfield,” said Amanti, the namesake for the younger of the city’s two little league divisions, whose divisional championships were held this weekend at Bullens. “It started to get big again in the mid ’80s, and culminated in ’92, when the City Cup champions made it all the way to the championship in the Little League World Series.
Amanti was also quick to point out the work of last year’s 13-year-old All Stars team which made it all the way to the World Series in Washington.
Had it not been for the work of Amanti and Brown, the role of those younger players would be much different today.
“We split the teams up,” said Brown. “because we found that the 13-year-olds weren’t getting time in meaningful roles, so we took the 13-14 teams and creates the Amanti division, while keeping the 15-16s in the City Cup division. And, in the Amanti division games, a 13-year-old must pitch at least nine outs.”
All of this is done in the name of fun, and also development.
“Westfield High won the western Massachusetts championship this past year,” said Amanti. “And every single one of those guys on that team played Babe Ruth and Little League.”
A testament to the strength of Bill Amanti, Dan Brown, and the city of Westfield’s love for game.
