Echo Park site to honor 1962 Little League champions

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A dedication site at Echo Park honoring the 1962 West Hempstead team that won the Little League World Series Senior Division Championship in Williamsburg, Pa., that year is being organized by a 17-year-old aspiring Eagle Scout from West Hempstead.
Alex Menachery, a Life Scout from Troop 240 in West Hempstead, is working to add a plaque and bulletin board mounted onto the baseball park’s concession stand honoring the 1962 team.
“The plaque will have the dedication to the championship team and the bulletin board will display the history of Echo Park’s baseball field, as well as a story of the 1962 champions journey to Williamsport,” Menachery said in an email shared with the Herald.
Also being created is a garden featuring stone pavers alongside the plaque and the bulletin board, all of which is currently being organized by Menachery.
“The goal of the project is to remember this historic moment in West Hempstead’s history which many have forgotten about,” Menachery said in the email.

“It honors the baseball team, my hometown, as well as my father (Joe Sarcona), and Echo Park, which all played a role in this significant milestone, which was a first for Long Island, their first Little League World Series baseball title,” said William Sarcona, son of the head coach of the 1962 head coach Joe Sarcona, in an email.

“What is impressive is this young man's reverence for history and the using of a touchstone event, from nearly 60 years ago, to galvanize a community, while paying tribute to the team, as well as my father, Joe Sarcona, who was the manager,” Sarcona added.

The West Hempstead team won the championship in 1962, the second year of existence for the Senior League Division, created for ballplayers ages 13 to 15. After winning the national title, the championship team came home to Long Island and was showered with celebrations.

“It was our ‘field of dreams’ moment,” Sarcona said of the important event in West Hempstead history.