Little League founder hailed

The long-time Campbell resident turns 100 on Saturday.
By JOHN KOVACH
VINDICATOR SPORTS STAFF
CAMPBELL -- The founder of franchised Little League baseball in Mahoning County is turning 100.
Tony Dann, who founded the Campbell Little League in 1952 with a franchise from the fledging organization in Williamsport, Pa., and with the help of the Campbell Boosters Club, will be celebrating a century of life Saturday.
Dann will be honored by family and friends at a 100th birthday party Saturday at Johnny's restaurant from 1-4 p.m.
But he certainly doesn't look, feel or act like 100, even though he recently moved from his long-time home in Campbell to Victoria House for assisted living in Austintown.
"I fell last Christmas Day and cut myself on a bucket. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that. The doctor thinks that I shouldn't be living alone," said Dann, who looks physically strong, has a sharp mind and is in good spirits although he uses a walker. He looks like someone far younger than 100.
Dann said his family -- nieces Loretta, Georgia and Ernestine and Ernestine's husband, Robert -- take good care of him with support from godson Greg Gulas.
Got idea in 1949
A machinist for the Youngstown Sheet & amp; Tube Co. for 45 years before retiring, Dann became president of the Campbell Boosters in 1949 and got the idea for Little League by reading about it in a sports magazine in 1951.
He said he was an avid New York Yankees fan and always loved baseball and thought that organized baseball would be good for the kids.
"There was nothing for the kids to do. They only had playground games," said Dann, a 1926 graduate of Campbell Memorial High and a center and captain on the school's first football team in 1925.
"I said to myself, 'Why can't we have Little League baseball in Campbell?' I brought it up [with the Campbell Boosters] and they agreed."
Dann said he asked then-mayor Michael J. Kovach if the city would build a Little League field.
"The mayor said, 'Why not,' and he brought it up before City Council and they voted for it," said Dann, noting the Sheet & amp; Tube provided dirt for the field and the flagpole while the Boosters built the dugouts and erected the flagpole, the city built the clubhouse, Bill Barillaire built the scoreboard and CIO Local 1418 provided the bats and balls.
"Every year something was added," Dann said.
Dann said that the city also cut the field's grass and eventually put in a grass infield.
"[Mayor Kovach] was the best mayor of Campbell as far as we were concerned," Dann said. "He would never refuse us. He was always there to help."
League love
Dann said the league flourished and was loved by children.
"The league brought all the kids together. They knew each other and they all played together. They learned how to behave and what to do [as a member of a team with rules] and they learned the basics of baseball, like sliding," Dann said. " Do you know that some kids didn't even know how to run?"
Dann said that he had great support from other Boosters members Nick Botch, George Brayer, George Zamary and John Keleman, and from game announcers Kenny Brayer and Mickey Nestor, and that the umpires and coaches also were all volunteers. And the Boosters used to line the field.
"No one got paid," he said. "I used to work three turns in the mill and then come out and line the field to get it ready [for games]."
He said the field was "one of the best fields in Ohio except for two fields in Canton."
Was District 2 director
Dann spent 16 years with the Campbell Little League, 13 as president and the last three as a volunteer umpire and worker. And he also served as director of Little League District 2 in Northeast Ohio from 1954-63.
Dann admits that that Youngstown was the first city in the area to provide youth baseball and called it Little League in 1949, but he claims that the league never was franchised by Little League baseball in Williamsport and never played according to Little League rules, and even was told not to advertise itself as Little League.
Dann said that when he was District 2 director, his district had 15 leagues and 60 teams.
"After that it started to grow," said Dann, and "eventually many area communities adopted Little League baseball."
He is happy that he had a pioneering role in that development.
kovach@vindy.com