Staten Island has history of tremendous baseball
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South Shore Little League is making its fourth Little League World Series appearance after capturing the Metro Region championship last week. The team from Staten Island started gaining all-star momentum when it beat fellow Staten Island rival Mid Island and won the District 24 title.
Mid Island, by the way, has reached the Series three times, most recently, in 2018. It is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its world champion team this summer as well.
The message is clear. There long has been and still is some tremendous baseball being played in Staten Island. Get off the Island and one has a shot at making it pretty far.
South Shore is proving it yet again, returning to the Series for the first time since 2009 and opening its tournament against Nevada Thursday afternoon.
"It’s hard to get out of our district," South Shore Little Little League president Vin Nicholo said. "To me, districts is the hardest part of the tournament until you get to regionals."
Driving that home, South Shore had to go through Staten Island in the semifinals and Mid Island in the finals to capture its latest district championship. From there, it bounced back from defeats in both sectionals and regionals. Hardened from its games on the Island, South Shore joined three other squads as the most decorated in league history.
So consistent South Shore has been that the 2010s is the only decade in which it has not produced a Series qualifier in the last five. Add in Mid Island and seven of New York’s 19 Series qualifiers have come from Staten Island.
Nearby New York City might never sleep, but Staten Island never stops producing excellent Little League teams.
"We have very talented Little Leagues in Staten Island. That’s why every year you see Staten Island teams in states for sure and getting to regionals on a regular basis," Nicholo said. "There’s just a lot of good, competitive baseball being played in Staten Island."
This particular South Shore team has been playing excellent baseball together the past four seasons. It captured state championships at the 10 and 11U levels the past two seasons, highlighting the potential they had going into their last Little League season.
Still, those successes hardly guaranteed anything entering this summer. South Shore was great the past two seasons, but it had to keep progressing. On cue, the players went into overdrive and kept grinding, making sure every once of that potential burst through.
It was a long tough road, but South Shore brilliantly navigated it and its 17 wins entering the Series were second among American teams, trailing only Pennsylvania. Along the way, it also avenged both its defeats, beating Greenwich Village and New Jersey, respectively, in the section and regional finals.
"They work. They often practiced three hours a day since May. The hard work pays off," Nicholo said. "It shows on the field. All the credit to the kids. They’ve performed great."
South Shore opened its summer-long run with some dominant performances and entered the section final undefeated. Then Greenwich Village stunned South Shore and defeated it, 2-1 after South Shore had won the previous game, 16-0.
Instead of that game serving as a downer, it helped South Shore go to another level. It responded the next game and won 7-0 before going 5-0 at states and taking the championship.
"Sometimes a loss is not the worst thing in the world to happen to a team if it opens their eyes and makes you work a little harder," Nicholo said. "I think they were a little overconfident and a loss opened their eyes a little bit and they went back to work."
That work included South Shore showing it has the character to match its talent. Literally, it produced two comeback wins at regionals, but considering it bounced back from an 11-1 defeat against previously undefeated New Jersey and won the championship rematch, 5-0, it was three impressive comebacks.
South Shore rallied from four runs down to win its Metro opener and thumped Rhode Island, 17-7. It then erased a two-run fifth-inning deficit and earned a title shot when it walked off with a 6-5 win against Connecticut. Every player did his part in Bristol with all 12 players reaching base multiple times and both the pitching and defense coming up huge in tense moments.
With both the Yankees and Mets in pennant races, it can be hard to make a splash, but South Shore is creating some monster waves back home. Suddenly, fans in Staten Island and in New York City are talking about three title contenders and at this point, South Shore might be generating the most excitement.
"It’s very exciting for everyone involved," Nicholo said. "We’re getting a lot of coverage and everyone is watching the games and sending messages. It’s crazy."
South Shore has seen videos which highlight how caught up Staten Island is in its success, but the true magnitude probably will not hit until it returns home. There, the players will be treated like royalty.
Comedian Pete Davidson calls himself the "King of Staten Island," but the torch has been passed. The South Shore Little Leaguers are the kings these days. Considering how strong Staten Island baseball is that says quite a lot.
"I got to go to the Eastern Regionals in 1990 and played in high school and some in college and to me the biggest moment was in Little League. This is something these kids will never forget," Nicholo said. "This is going to go down as one of the biggest things in their baseball careers even if they play in college or in the pros. This is different. This is playing on ESPN and talking to Todd Frazier.
“This is such a big deal for these kids."