64.0°,
Light Rain A historic day for Valley Stream Baseball League
Founder’s grandson throws out first pitch
Thousands of children have played in the Valley Stream Baseball League in its nearly seven decades, but few know more about the league’s history than Richard Totten.
Totten, the grandson of one of the league’s founders who now lives in Port St. Lucie, Fla., threw out the ceremonial first pitch last Saturday to kick off the league’s 68th season. Then Totten, 71, watched as players scurried off for their free hot dogs and the first game of the season.
His grandfather, Conrad Totten, organized the league in 1943, along with Watt Howe, publisher of the local newspaper, the Valley Stream Maileader. Until a few years ago, it was called the Valley Stream Mail League.
The opening day of the league’s inaugural season was June 10, 1943. Richard Totten’s cousin, Mayor Henry K. Hendrickson, threw out the first pitch. In the early days of the league, Totten recalled, games were played at a field on Rockaway Avenue in Gibson, and where Memorial Junior High School now stands.
Totten played in the Mail League from 1948 to 1955, most of the time as a first baseman for a team sponsored by Grace United Methodist Church. He later joined the St. Mary’s Cardinals, however, and, at age 14, became the youngest manager in league history when the Cardinals manager disappeared.
Totten went on to play for the Central High School baseball team. His last game was at Firemen’s Field, where he patrolled center field.
Two decades later, in 1976, he coached a team in the Brentwood Pony League that finished 20-0. The team was invited to play against a team of 15-year-olds in upstate Cooperstown, and Totten said he never told them that his team was made up of 14-year-olds.
In the mid-1980s, he said, he put together a short history of the baseball league. Recently, at his home in Florida, he began working on his own family history, tracing the roots of the Hendricksons in Valley Stream all the way back to 1693. As part of his research, he visited the baseball league’s website and saw that the history of his grandfather was missing. So he contacted league President Bob Inzerillo.
“He sent me all this paperwork — a whole big stack of stuff,” said Inzerillo, who noted that the information included the lineup from a 1948 Mail League game.
