OLD BRIDGE – The Old Bridge Girls Softball League finally has a home after 57 years of essentially bouncing around practicing and playing on different fields.
Thanks to a longtime Old Bridge resident who had some property to spare, the youth softball league now has a permanent residence in town. The girls are taking over the grounds at 3011 Cheesequake Road, which houses two fields, a concession stand and parking lot.
Roger Passarello from the Manzo family approached the township about donating the land at the end of 2019. Mayor Owen Henry’s office and Matt Mercurio, director of the township’s Department of Parks, Recreation and Social Services, mediated the initial discussion with the Manzo family and the Old Bridge Pop Warner Cougars and Old Bridge Girls Softball League.
Since then, Mike Keller, the youth softball league’s president, and Passarello have worked on securing the land for the league and it was finalized in December 2020.
Passarello was also generous enough to cover all attorneys fees in the transfer and setting up The Mike and Rose Manzo Memorial Sports Complex.
The league, which is gearing up for its home opener on April 10, is in the midst of a fundraising effort to provide a much-needed facelift to the property, lights for night games and a new scoreboard.
The non-profit organization, which has been growing in number over the past several years under Keller, a former Old Bridge athlete himself, has high hopes and big plans for the future.
“The goal is to not only raise money to fix the property for the players within our organization, but so we can start to offer events for the community outside of softball as well,” Keller said.
The Old Bridge Girls Softball League has already donated time and space on the property to other youth organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America, and are hoping to do more once COVID restrictions loosen. Farmers markets, food truck festivals, charity softball games and free movie nights are other events the organization wants to offer the local community in the future.
On March 1, the league of about 150 families launched their first crowdsourcing event in an attempt to raise funds to better their newly donated grounds.
At the forefront of those efforts are Skyeler Pellowski and her father Matthew Pellowski and mother Anastasia Konstantinou. Skyeler, 9, a fourth grader, has been playing softball for almost three years and is on the 10U Old Bridge Outlaws Travel Program within the league.
In the past two weeks, Skyeler and her dad have visited more than 100 local businesses letting them know about the fundraiser for the league.
And despite the hardships and struggles the businesses have been dealing with because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, they were met with kindness and generosity, they said.
Skyeler said they received gift certificates and gift cards, whether for a free pie or coupons for hair cuts or piano/singing lessons.
Pellowski said their endeavor has not only helped the league, but helped his family get to know the area and build a connection to the township they moved to three years ago.
The league has raised $12,000 in two weeks with the goal of $25,000 by April 1. They plan to highlight all the businesses on boards in front of the field and are continuing to look for sponsors who they can highlight on the light poles.
In addition to the fundraiser, the Manzo family is also building a memorial garden as well between the football field and softball field by Cheesequake Road.
Skyeler said the game of softball has helped everyone stay together, have fun and make new friends during the challenging times of the pandemic.
“I like playing softball because I love the challenge in playing it, and I really like making friends and being part of a team,” she said. “I also really enjoy playing the positions that I play in. It makes me feel good about myself when I strike someone out with my pitch, or take part in a play that wins the game.”
The Old Bridge Girls Softball League is a recreational softball league serving girls ages 5-16 from Old Bridge and the surrounding area. The league carries on the long tradition of the Madison Park Girls’ Softball League, which first started in 1964, with an emphasis on now being the softball organization for the entire town of Old Bridge.
For more information on the league’s fundraiser visit www.gofundme.com/f/fixourfields