MCDD sponsors softball game

By William K. Alcorn

Everybody gets to be a ball player for at least one day a year.

It might well have been the World Series.

There was shouting, heckling, cheering and enthusiastic hitting and fielding at the fourth annual Mahoning County Board of Developmental Disabilities Adult Services softball extravaganza.

The games, played on two fields donated by the Poland Community Baseball Association for the event, had 389 participants.

Everybody gets to be a ball player for at least one day a year, said George Gabriel, director of the board’s Meshel MASCO (Mahoning Adult Services Corp.) sheltered workshop.

“As soon as this is over, they will be asking about next year’s game,” Gabriel, coordinator of the popular event, said of the players.

Bill Marstellar, one of the players, said he looks forward to the game every year.

“We always have hot dogs and a good time,” he said.

The best part of it is the fun, said Shawn Trifero, another player.

The participants came from a number of public and private adult day-care programs in Mahoning County, including MCDD’s Meshel and Bev Road MASCOs, both in Boardman; Turning Point Residential in Youngstown; Iron & String Life Enhancement in Youngstown; and RaeArc and Siffrin Residential Association, both in Austintown.

The players all received team T-shirts, hot dogs for lunch and got to play, Gabriel said.

He said the idea for the annual game was suggested by Terri Lundy, an MCDD workshop specialist. Gabriel thanked Harvey Farbman, habilitation coordinator at Bev Road MASCO and Jessica Bolen, secretary at Meshel MASCO, for their help in organizing the event; Richard Ranshaw, Bev MASCO workshop director, who announced one of the games; and David Sullivan of the Poland Community Baseball Association, who set up the fields.

“Without everybody’s help, this wouldn’t work,” Gabriel said.

alcorn@vindy.com