Tides’ contest narrows
Published 7:46 pm Thursday, March 1, 2012
Today is the last day to vote in a contest that officials from Bennett’s Creek Little League hope will result in their winning field improvements, courtesy of the Norfolk Tides baseball organization.
Three local youth baseball leagues will win renovations for one of their fields in the Facebook-based contest, in which 20 different area youth baseball organizations are competing.
Fan votes on the Tides’ Facebook page, which can be found at facebook.com/norfolktides, will determine the winner. To vote, fans can simply “like” the photo of the field they believe is most deserving of the Tides’ help. The deadline for voting is 4 p.m. today. Vote for the specific field, not the album.
To go straight to the picture to add your vote, click here.
The three winners will be announced on Monday.
“As evidenced by the overwhelming amount of support we’ve seen in such a short time, this contest is obviously important to the Hampton Roads community,” Tides General Manager Joe Gregory said in a press release on Thursday. “We’re extremely happy to do our part in helping these leagues have fields they can be proud of.”
At 5 p.m. Thursday, the Bennett’s Creek field was in fourth place in the voting, about 500 votes behind Shore Little League in Northampton County and trailing Smithfield and Ocean View fields by a 2-1 margin.
Bennett’s Creek is looking for help renovating the field used by its Challenger division, which caters to disabled youths.
The field was set up for handicapped play through the generosity of corporate and individual donations and volunteers, which allowed the league to add space to the dugouts for wheelchairs.
But league organizers would like to further enhance the dugouts, pave and level surfaces for easy access and refurbish bleachers and restroom facilities to make them more accessible to children with disabilities.
“We turn nobody away,” BCLL Commissioner Frank Ittel said recently. “Whether you’re healthy or not healthy or you’ve got [a] disability or not, it doesn’t matter. We treat all the kids the same.”
The league plans to dedicate the field to the memory of one of its former players, Tyler Fago, who had a variety of debilitating problems and died at the age of 10.
The Challenger program gave him a chance to participate in baseball, however, and to be around other people, which his father, Dale Fago, said was his passion.
“He loved the interaction with other people, and that was his main thing,” Dale Fago said recently. “Being confined to a wheelchair, he was blind, [he had] seizure disorders, all kinds of different disabilities that he had, but his big thing was being around other people. When he was out (at the field), he was always happy.”