Neighborhood residents Terry Moore, John Mondics and Joe Hodges hope Little League is as big a hit with their kids as it was for them.
The three started Little League of Dallas last fall and are gearing up for their first spring season with an estimated 10,000 players. They helped neighborhoods throughout the City draft Little League charters so that Dallas children can play in, what they say, is the best youth baseball league around.
“We’re trying to make it the way it was – when baseball was baseball,” Moore says.
Moore played Little League growing up in Pasadena. Hodges play it in Little Rock, Ark. They want to bring their Little League memories alive – with the National Anthem played before each game and team members’ names and numbers announced.
“We were raised playing baseball,” Hodges says. “It’s the national past time. It teaches team work, team spirit. It teaches them responsibility.”
Moore says many parents think their children are playing Little League, but they’re not. Most of the programs in Dallas are through other athletic associations that take children out of their neighborhoods.
Little League has not been able to break into Dallas because the City is so big and Little League is based on a small community concept, Moore says.
So he, Hodges and Mondics have broken the City down into smaller regions and have been helping neighborhoods establish Little League charters. Their first neighborhood was Lake Highlands. Other neighborhoods that will probably play this spring are Casa View, Casa Linda, Preston Hollow, Preston Grove, Oak Lawn and Highland Park.
In order to support the League, Moore is recruiting corporate sponsors to build neighborhood baseball fields. Two have already been built at Wallace Elementary.
For information about the League, call 348-8602.
