Blast from the past: Uptown had impact

By John Bassetti

Several players went on to make lasting contributions to the Valley.

HUBBARD — The Rev. Tim O’Neill has a childhood memory that rivals Bill Mazeroski’s home run to win the 1960 World Series for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

O’Neill hit a home run in the opening game on opening night of the Uptown Kiwanis Little League’s second season in 1952 — and has a sports page picture to prove it.

The newspaper clipping shows the 12-year-old O’Neill taking a whack at a pitch at Shady Run Field before 4,000 people.

“Little Timmy O’Neill provided the fireworks, leading off with a line-drive home run to left field,” the article said in describing the childhood highlight that he carries to this day.

“It was a big deal back then,” said O’Neill, speaking more about the league’s importance in the community rather than his blow with the bat that day in the month of May. The cherished moment took place during the first of two previews the Uptown League held back then.

O’Neill, now pastor of St. Patrick Church parish in Hubbard, was a West Sider who played for the Joe Benish-managed Mahoning Valley Supply team. The inaugural season had eight sponsors, then grew to 12 in the multi-division league that came along at the right time for post-World War II baby-boomers who were teeming in the Youngstown area’s neighborhoods.

Some of the teams in 1952 included Molnar Motors, Lustig’s Shoe Store, Steel City Chevrolet, Strouss-Hirshberg Music Center, Al Wagner Motors and Jimmy Livingston Jewelers. Others in the first few years were Ben’s Appliance, First Federal, Donnell Ford, Kirby Shoes and Henderson Chevrolet.

The teams played most of their games at Gibson Field, but also used Stambaugh, Ipe and Victory to accommodate players from different sides of town.

“Joe Bennett was the driving force,” O’Neill said of the man responsible for organizing the league.

In its programs, the Uptown Kiwanis baseball motto stated: “Little Leaguers make big-league citizens of tomorrow.”

O’Neill rattled off a dozen names of Uptown players from his generation who eventually made significant contributions in the Valley.

“Many of these became leaders in the community,” O’Neill said of businessmen and politicians such as Pat Ungaro, former Youngstown mayor and current Liberty Township administrator, and Ed Abel, now Banner Supply Co. co-owner with his brother, Dick.

Melvin “Pepper” Watkins was another Uptown alumnus who graduated from South High, got his Ph.D. in literature and did book reviews in The New York Times.

In 1952, Frank Masluk’s Philco team beat O’Neill’s Mahoning Valley Supply team for the championship.

“They took the winner and runner-up teams by Greyhound bus to Williamsport [Pa.] to watch the Little League World Series,” O’Neill said of a treat, courtesy of the Kiwanians. “I was never away from my parents and by myself before that.”

Masluk ended up owning Mahoning Valley Supply, a business on South Avenue that sold tires and other automobile parts.

Mike Phillips and Al Bright were other Uptown players who became successful. Phillips is a retired FBI agent living in North Carolina, O’Neill said, and Bright is a YSU art dept. professor.

Ernie Borghetti, now a dentist, recalls his days with the Livingston Jewelers.

“We had a tryout at Oakland Field and about 100 kids showed up. When the final cut was made, 85 of them went home crying.”

As a 12-year-old in 1954, Borghetti and Andy Kosco were on Uptown’s all-star team that won a state championship and advanced to play in Illinois before falling short of Williamsport.

Kosco went on to play in the majors leagues.

A 20-page season program was a testament to the league’s marketing savvy — and to the abundance of businesses to be tapped for support.

In its preface, Uptown Kiwanis Club president Parker B. Arnett wrote: “Locally, Little League has consisted of teams which were sponsored by a business or merchandising house as a cooperative venture with Uptown, whose program for underprivileged children has long stood in need of such a project.

“The activities of the Little League have been under the close supervision and control of a group of some 65 far-seeing business and professional men on Youngstown’s South Side who have seen in this effort an opportunity to implement the motto of the club — We Build.”

In another season’s program, president A. Dorfmueller delivered a strong message about service: “Kiwanians think of the opportunities they are affording youngsters who, otherwise, might never have an opportunity to engage in such a character-building activity.

“Kiwanians are scorekeepers, a transportation committee to get the boys to and from their games, gatemen, team supervisors, publicity men, promoters, advertising men, uniform custodians and all personnel including glorified water boys who work as insurance office managers, company presidents, doctors and salesmen in their spare time.”

In one of his other newspaper write-ups, O’Neill had three hits to lead Mahoning Valley over Ben’s, 10-9. O’Neill, the player, also made the northern division all-star team in 1952.

O’Neill, the priest, seems to have adopted the Uptown philosophy and spirit as an active member of the “Difference Makers.”

The local charitable organization that exposes kids to entertainment recently sent 70 underprivileged youths to the Ringling Bros. Barnum Bailey circus at the Chevrolet Centre in March.

“We bought them tickets for the performance that followed our worst snow of the winter,” O’Neill said of a Friday night when few people ventured out. “Yet everyone who signed up showed up.”

O’Neill said he’s thought of holding a reunion for Uptown League players from the 1950s.

“I’d like to have an outing for those who played the first dozen years or so,” he said.

bassetti@vindy.com