Maybe the last “first pitch” is thrown by Windham town supervisor Thomas Hoyt on Opening Day for the Mountaintop Little League at H.B. Moore Memorial field, last Saturday, joined by league vice-president Jean Jaeger.

The town is planning a new facility that may be ready by next season, moving from the traditional ballpark on South Street to the outskirts of the hamlet of Hensonville. The supervisor’s pitch hit the corner of the plate for a strike, snared by backstop Grayson Uhrik. Jaeger played a lot of baseball in her day, patrolling left field for the 1998 Catskill Babe Ruth championship team from Windham.

Opening Day for the Mountaintop Little League, this season has four teams along with two “coach-pitch’ squads and four T-ball outfits, drawing girls and boys from multiple towns and villages. 

It wouldn’t be the Mountaintop Little League without longtime Knights of the Road sponsorship and the annual Hensonville Hose Company’s “Opening Day” picnic, with many shared organizational memberships. Helping prepare (and eat) the feast are (front) players McKenon “Kennie” Jaeger and Hannah Brimberry (middle) Missy Dippold, April Brimberry and Knights secretary Karen Matteo (back, left to right) Cuyler Brimberry, fire chief and Knights president Tyrel Sherman and Michael Jaeger.

In-between games, there is always time to play in the sand and dirt pile where red-uniformed brother and sister Anthony and Amaya Poehmel and little Ariana Alberti are busy creating a second C.D. Lane Park lake.