City of Angels baseball team gives recovering addicts something new to play for
Jon DiLisa was a star outfielder for McCorristin and Hamilton West high schools before withdraw from baseball helped push him in the direction of drug addiction.
Casey Sinopoli played for Lacey Township (Ocean County) all star little league teams and played for two years at Lacey High School, where he was also a soccer star before quitting all of it in order to focus on his drug habit.
Sage Ferraro was a four-year varsity baseball player for Leonia High School in Bergen County, and was planning on playing college baseball before withdrawing from school because he knew “it was inevitable” that his career would crash and burn due to addiction.
All three are recovering addicts who thought their competitive baseball days were behind them. But thanks to the newly formed, Groveville-based City of Angels baseball team, they are enjoying clean living and getting that natural high on the diamond that they thought they would never experience again.
As of June 23, the Angels were 3-11-1 and in sixth place in the eight-team South West Division of the Intermediate Wood League. But according to township councilman Kevin Meara, a founder of COA and the driving force behind forming the team, they were 15-0 as far as life wins were concerned.
“It’s been a great experience,” Meara said. “The marks in the win column have been tough to come by, but the victory we’re looking at isn’t counted by those marks. They’re being counted by those guys coming on the field and their support group, which is us and their families, who come out to watch the games. In that sense, it’s been a great victory.
“We’re counting our victories in unconventional ways when it comes to baseball. We’re just enjoying the games. It’s great watching them play.”
The team does not solely consist of recovering addicts. It’s divided between guys who just want to play baseball, and guys who have received help from City of Angels. Several Hamilton residents play on the team, but declined to be interviewed for this story. Not all are as comfortable discussing the team and their personal lives as DiLisa, Ferraro or Sinopoli are.
Still, for those recovering, the team provides a new lease on life.
“For me, baseball is my everything,” said Ferraro, who had 58 strikeouts in his first seven starts. “I’ve played travel baseball, AAU baseball, high school baseball. For me baseball is the time I get to get out of myself and just enjoy being on the field.
“This means a lot to me,” Sinopoli said. “Kevin gave me the offer of ‘If you complete the 30-day program you can come and play baseball.’ That was a good thing to strive for, to get out there and do something sober I haven’t been able to do for years.
“With other guys out there also in recovery it makes me feel accepted. There’s nothing to hide from, nothing you’re afraid to say. I have something to offer to the world now and I can just go out there and have sober fun.”
DiLisa feels it’s a sure fire way to chase away the demons.
“It’s when I play baseball that I don’t even think about all the hard times in my life,” he said. “It never even happened. I was never in those dark places in my life. It’s a great experience.
“At one point, I was in a funk and didn’t know if I wanted to stay in the program. My buddy said ‘You know Jon, the only time I see you happy is playing baseball. Other than that it doesn’t seem like you want to be here.’ So I put my head down and kept going.”
Those dark places DiLisa spoke of are easy to wander into and extremely hard to escape from. Each of the three players had an unfortunate tale to tell.
Sinopoli was always a great athlete early in life, but at age 14 he began hanging out with the seniors at Lacey High.
“That was no good,” he said. “I started smoking weed and started getting very progressive very quickly. I’d been in sports my whole life and started to slack in my junior and senior year. I didn’t want to do too much because I had to fulfill my need.”
Sinopoli began getting arrested and landed in county lock-up three separate times. His wake-up call came after being arrested on Feb. 1 of this year, when he did a month-and-a-half in the Ocean County jail.
By then, his mom had met Meara at a meeting. Meara helped get Sinopoli bailed out, and eventually talked him into going into treatment. The sessions are 30, 60 or 90 days, and all Meara wanted was 30 for Sinopoli to play baseball, but Sinopoli opted for the 90-day treatment.
“At first I didn’t want to go, but Kevin wouldn’t give up on me,” the 19-year-old Sinopoli said. “He made about 20 people talk to me. With him knowing all these people and his resources, that got me to where I am now. I graduated from the 90-day program, and I haven’t used since January.
“Everything is going good for me now. If it wasn’t for Kevin, I wouldn’t be where I am. I would be in jail again or dead. Now I’m playing baseball.”
He is also serving as a volunteer at the City of Angels and hopes to get certified to become a drug and alcohol counselor.
Ferraro was raised by his aunt and uncle in Leonia, and was also very close to his grandmother, who he saw as a mom.
When his grandma passed away in 2007, Sage turned to marijuana and alcohol.
“I really got messed up,” he said. “Before all that happened, I was winning championships.”
He continued to play sports but things got worse. An acquaintance introduced him to crack, and in order to come down from the crack and get some sleep, he did pills. From there he started on heroin.
He eventually came down to Trenton to be with his mom, who helped Ferraro get some help. It hasn’t been easy as there have been a few relapses, but he is back on target and is one of the Angels top pitchers.
“After I quit college I thought I’d never play baseball again,” Ferraro said. “It never even crossed my mind until I got sober and clean. I realized I’m just 20 years old. Why am I wasting it? It’s definitely a gift.”
DiLisa’s problems started just after he graduated from Hamilton, where he played for the Hornets’ Central Jersey Group III finalist in 2003. He wanted to play baseball for Mercer County Community College, but could not afford the tuition.
He started to do some landscaping but it wasn’t the same as playing baseball, and he turned to drugs and alcohol. In the mid 2000s, he got hooked on heroin while a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. He saw active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan as an infantrymen and, because he knew the right people, he avoided any type of drug-related discharge.
He tried to re-enlist in 2011, but failed the drug test and returned home. He ran into some friends who had licked their drug problems, and DiLisa wanted to know how they did it.
Once his mom took him to City of Angels, he conquered the demons and got his life back in order. Now in his late 20s, DiLisa is caddying at Look Away Golf Course in Buckingham Pa., and plans on going to school to be a plumber.
For now, as the player-manager of the City of Angels, he’s trying to get a few more wins out of his team.
“I have a fun time out there,” he said. “At the same time you like to win. It’s the nature in us. We’re still competitive.”
“You accept the losses when it’s over but at the moment you get mad on the field,” Ferraro said. “That’s going to happen for any competitive athlete, but we’re happy to be here and having this opportunity. We’re having fun. Unless we’re getting smacked 16-0…we’ve had a few of those. That’s no good.”
While Meara put the wheels in motion to start the team—acting on a suggestion by one of the players who wishes to remain anonymous—he is the first to note there have been numerous contributors to this cause.
When the team asked the Los Angeles Angels if they could use their logo, the American League team went one better and donated used jerseys from their 50th Anniversary 2011 season. Once Meara proposed the team to NJABL co-commissioner/founder Tim Ritchie, he was so impressed he took $500 off the registration fee, gave the City of Angels a full-page ad in the sponsor book and donated a large portion of equipment received from manufacturers.
Meara, who founded KC’s Memorial Fund in honor of his son KC, who died from drugs, took $800 from the fund to chip in for the registration fee. Each player threw in $75 for the umpires, the Hamilton Little Lads have donated their batting cages and Trenton Catholic is offering their field for home games.
“You just have people in the community who have grabbed on to the story and thought it was a great human interest story, they’ve been helping us out,” Meara said. “The league was all over it from the beginning. Tim loved the story and then we followed through and supported them. He’s just been doing everything he can to help our guys. It’s great.
“It’s been a great thing for the guys. I walk behind the dugout and hear these guys saying ‘I thought I’d never be playing baseball again.’ We have mothers whose kids were suffering from addiction who didn’t know what to do, now they’re sitting here watching their sons play.”
Once they started playing, each of them had different emotions.
“At the beginning I was thinking, ‘Did I get in too deep?’ said DiLisa, who has been named to the league’s All-Star team. “But right now I’m coming around. You get some repetitions, and you come around.
“I was slumping, but as the season going along, everything starts coming together and I’m seeing the ball better. That goes for all the guys.”
“For some reason I didn’t feel nervous,” Sinopoli said. “I just felt proud to be out there playing the game. Everybody came up and welcomed with me with open arms. We’re not out there to be competitive. We’re out there to have fun, enjoy being sober and doing things we haven’t done.”
Ferraro took Sinopoli’s last statement and expounded on it in a way that put it all in perspective.
“Going back on the field for the first time was like going out in a state championship game against the number one team in the state and throwing a shutout and hitting the game-winning home run,” he said. “That’s how it felt, I don’t know how else I can explain it.”
