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Photograph by. Randy Reid
Southern Tier Life // ISSUE 003
Instagram @reidmediagroup
BACK TO THE FUTURE writen by. A’Don Allen As May hits, cities across the country will have a tradition that is second to none in the spring, Little League Baseball! There are over 27, 000 Little League teams in over 5,000 leagues in the United States, including in Elmira, NY. Little League Baseball has been in Elmira since the early 1960’s. There used to be 2 Little League’s in the city of Elmira, Mark Twain which was located on the Southside of Elmira & Huck Finn which was located on the Eastside of Elmira. Then in 2014, the 2 leagues decided to merge. Terry Greene, current President of Elmira Little League said, “The merger became finalized in 2016, forming Elmira Little League. We wanted to name the league after the city we live and play in. Our league motto is “one city, one league”.
Greene, who has been the President for the past 5 years, oversaw the merger, but also began to see a vision. Normally, each team in Elmira Little League is named after a Major League Baseball team. But Greene was thinking about something different. “For a couple of years, I had been talking to the board members about having our kids wear the hat and shirts of the Negro league teams to honor them. I remember as a kid listening to my grandfather Bill Bell talk about the Negro league & some of the talent in the league that was better than players in the all-white major league during his younger day before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the MLB in 1947. In 2019, I found out that in 2020 it would be the 100th anniversary of the Negro league and I told my board about it and
