CNB, ESE, American merge, form brand new Cranston East Little League

Kevin Pomeroy, Sports Editor
Posted 11/20/14

For quite some time, the City of Cranston has featured four Little Leagues – Cranston Western, Cranston National Budlong, Cranston American and Edgewood-South Elmwood.

This spring, when baseball …

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CNB, ESE, American merge, form brand new Cranston East Little League

Posted

For quite some time, the City of Cranston has featured four Little Leagues – Cranston Western, Cranston National Budlong, Cranston American and Edgewood-South Elmwood.

This spring, when baseball season rolls around again, that group of four will be trimmed to two.

Say hello to Cranston East Little League.

Thanks to the merging of CNB, American and ESE, CELL has been created with the combined efforts of CNB president K.J. Howe, American president Matt McCreavy and ESE president Dave Ciolfi.

Ciolfi served as president of ESE for the past six years, and will step into the same role for the newly-formed Little League, which has already been approved by District 1, the state of Rhode island and Bristol, Conn. thanks to a proposal put together by the three presidents, endorsed by Cranston mayor Allan Fung.

Ciolfi is waiting for official word to come down from the Little League Charter Committee in Williamsport, Penn., which is expected to happen sometime over the next week.

McCreavy and Howe will serve on the new Little League’s board of directors.

Now, Cranston’s Little League situation will be as simple as the East, and the West.

“Without a doubt in this merger, all three presidents realize that we have to go this way,” Ciolfi said. “The future of Little League in this city, on the Eastern side, is in trouble if we don’t.”

The merger marks the end of the three longtime Little Leagues, all of which have a rich history, most notably ESE’s two state championships in 1970 and 1973.

But with dwindling numbers in all three leagues, and CNB and American already resorting to inter-league play last year in order to keep things competitive, combining the three leagues into one makes sense now more than ever. ESE would have been down to three teams this season without the merger.

“This is a monumental task,” Ciolfi said. “This isn’t about the adults. There are some decisions that are going to be made that the adults won’t make, but it will be what we perceive to be beneficial to the kids.”

There is a specific plan in place going forward, with the help of Cranston Parks and Recreation director Tony Liberatore, to make the transition from three to one as smooth as possible.

The home fields for Cranston East Little League will be ESE’s Lisi and Carberry Fields, American’s two fields on Speck Avenue and a field known as Little Fay on Dallas Ave.

Little Fay has been seldom-used, but the city is working on coordinating an effort to clean it up and get it in shape by the time the season rolls around. There is also a plan to add dugouts to the fields at American, for which Ciolfi has already applied for a grant.

Fay Field will continue to be used for the Senior League teams, while Tee-Ball will be held at Little Fay.

“We feel that would be sufficient enough to do the merger,” Ciolfi said.

In addition to the merger, CNB will keep its complex and turn into a full-time, girls’ softball league, as that successful program will continue to run on its home fields, which will also receive modifications to make it more state-of-the-art.

Another difference in the local Little League scene is the redefining of the boundaries separating the East and the West. ESE and CNB kept their boundaries, meaning all players within those areas will be in the Cranston East zone. On the American side, the area south of Plainfield Pike has been re-classified as in the Western area. Those players will play for Cranston Western.

“We want to get the word out,” Ciolfi said. “And get the word out to returning members. We want to put their minds at ease. You’ve got people that have been going to the same place for four or five years and are now going to different places.”

Size-wise, Ciolfi doesn’t expect the league to be as big as Western or even Johnston Little League, but it should be stable and have the opportunity for continued growth in the future.

Plus, there will be legitimate depth in the league. Whereas some teams have dominated during the regular seasons at CNB, ESE and American in the recent past, merging should regulate that.

“What it does is make our leagues deeper during the season,” Ciolfi said. “Instead of having a four-team league where only two teams are competitive, we might have a six-team league where all six teams are competitive.”

As far as the board goes, CELL is planning on having anywhere from 25-30 members. The color scheme for the league will likely be green and white, although that hasn’t been determined just yet. Funds for the three leagues are being consolidated.

And, when the summers roll around, CELL’s all-star teams should have a better chance to compete, something that none of the three leagues that are merging have been able to say very often over the past decade or so.

Overall, it shapes up as a win for everybody. Though it’s difficult for leagues that operated independently for so long to give up their flag, there’s little doubting that it’s for the good of Little League baseball in the city.

Information on registration for Cranston East Little League will be available in The Herald at a later date.

“It’s going to be a great place to play,” Ciolfi said. “It’s going to be about the kids, not about the adults.”

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