Milford, CT Approved by Little League HQ in Williamsport to Merge
For decades the City of Milford, CT has had two or more Little League® organizations and was one of the only cities in the State of Connecticut to operate in such a manner. Most cities have one official Little League for all of the kids to play in, which creates a culture of city pride and increases the number of teams playing at each age level.
Now the two existing Little Leagues, Milford National Lou Gehrig and Milford International have been approved to create one large baseball and softball Little League. "This has been a labor of love. The merger has been a conversation for several years, and because of the great volunteers of both leagues, we were able to finally pull it all together," says Rob Hoxie, Milford Little League President.
The merger will now allow Milford to serve all boys and girls age 4-13 no matter where they live in Milford. "Just a quick look at the numbers and we should have over 600 children playing either baseball or softball in this Spring season alone!" says Pat Fallon, Milford Little League VP of Baseball.
The biggest winners in this merger are the kids of Milford. There will now be more teams in each age group, the opportunity for all kids to play with their friends, better fundraising to increase the quality of fields, more competition, and, of course, a larger volunteer base of coaches!
The new combined league is simply called Milford Little League and can be found at www.MilfordLittleLeague.com. "There are of course many projects that need to be done such as combining databases, updating logos/colors, signage, field assignments, etc. But at the end of the day the group of people who put this merger together should be thanked by all the baseball and softball parents of this community because the only mission has been to do what is best for the kids of this community," says Mark Kaminski, extended board member of Milford Little League.
“This is a year to remember in Milford as this Spring season will be the first baseball and softball season as Milford Little League, now the oldest, largest, and ONLY Little League® in Milford!” says Bill Garfield, VP of Softball.
The volunteers who spent countless hours to make this merger happen:
Jay Aliberti
Mark Deitelbaum
Carl Deprofio
Kelly DiGioia
Pat Fallon
Bill Garfield
Paul Goglia
Scott Griffin
Rob Hansen
Rob Hoxie
Mark Kaminski
Mike Liebelt
Anthony Meglio
Mike Merchant
Lori Seluga
Joe Trapani
Scott Worzel