Football may be king, but baseball is still considered America’s Pastime. So it’s fitting that a group of young Americans play their home games in front of those who actually fought for our country.
Now entering their third year, the VFW Patriots are one of the fastest growing travel baseball programs around. Playing in the USABL, the Patriots home base is VFW Post 491 on Fisher Place in Yardville, just down the road from Switlik Park.
The coaches have taken what was a dormant, weed-infested field — once being used for parking at VFW events — and turned it into a quality facility. The Patriots began operation in 2023 with 24 players, and will enter this fall season with six age groups from 7 to 12 that are composed of 140 participants. That number was whittled from 220 who tried out.
“Not because we wanted to cut them, but because we just didn’t have space,” said Joe Fuhrman, who founded the Patriots with Brad Downs.
“There are kids who are begging to get into this program,” said Post 491 Commander Terry Smith, an Air Force veteran. “It shot up out of nowhere.”
The organization is not a nonprofit, but it relies mainly on volunteers and fundraisers. A major event will take place on opening weekend of the fall campaign from Sept. 5-7. Mayor Jeff Martin will throw out the first pitch Friday at 5 p.m., followed by a barbecue while the game is being played.
On Saturday there will be games from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with the township donating lights for night games. Action resumes Sunday morning with the final game taking place at 7 p.m. The general public is welcome.
“The beef and beer is one of our biggest fundraisers,” Fuhrman said. “That will help us build a second practice field. Every Patriots team will play that weekend.”
What started as an idea to give travel ball more of a hometown little league feel has blossomed into a happening whenever games are played.
“It’s a cool vibe,” Fuhrman said. “If you’ve ever been to the Hibernians soccer games, it’s the Hibernians version of baseball. You have a bar in centerfield. People are having a few casual beers, we’re all having fun. Music is playing, people are playing horseshoes. They’re playing volleyball, whiffle ball in left field. And while all that’s happening the game is going on.”
Perhaps the neatest thing is that the veterans immerse themselves into the party.
“We have a quoits league, and the guys playing just enjoy (the baseball),” said Ron Sanchez, a VFW auxiliary member whose stepfather received a purple heart in Vietnam. His brother served in the navy, and son was in the marines. “I think it brings them back to their youth. A lot of them have grandkids playing for our teams.
“We sit in the outfield and we root them on. It doesn’t matter if they win or lose, they’re all winners because they’re out here playing. What those guys have done with our field is incredible from where it started. They have put so much time and effort into the maintenance of it. We can’t be prouder of them.”
Tom Brettell, one of the Patriots original managers, loves the interaction between the vets and the teams. During practices, when coaches are yelling out who’s at each position, the members will yell from their quoits game, “Who’s on first? What’s on second!” in reference to Abbott and Costello’s classic routine.
“It’s a good vibe back there, it’s a place that people like to go,” Brettell said. “They love us being back there, we love being back there. It’s got a Little League vibe without being Little League.”
And it has a bunch of grown men providing an added rooting section.
“You can literally look out the window or stand on the porch and watch them play,” Smith said. “That field was dormant for years. So now it’s like all this extra energy is floating around. It’s just amazing.”
The operation was hatched in February, 2023 by Fuhrman and Downs — a former Hopewell and TCNJ player now coaching at Allentown High — whose sons are the same age.
“Brad had a bunch of Allentown kids on his team, I was from Hamilton, I had a bunch of Hamilton kids,” Fuhrman said. “We started to see all our kids going to bigger programs so we said ‘Alright lets create a program.’ And we found this partnership with the VFW.”
The field was discovered by Jim Sapia, a Patriots coach. Sapia’s dad, Butch, is a VFW member who recommended the field to Jim. It was proposed to Sanchez, who presented it to Smith. Sanchez termed it “a no-lose situation for us.”
“When they approached me I said, ‘We don’t have money to run a field. If you want to use my field you can make whatever you want out of it as long as you take care of everything,’” Smith said. “So they took that and ran with it. We have a lot of teams, it’s very enthusiastic.”
Fuhrman and Downs inspected the facility and saw potential. Downs and his father did most of the work on the field while Fuhrman handled the baseball end of things.
“Brad was turning the field over to make sure there was enough dirt on it,” Fuhrman said. “It went from a completely unusable baseball field to one of the nicer skin infields in the area.”
After competing with two teams that first summer, the word began to spread about the “cool” environment. Suddenly, some of Hamilton’s top high school baseball talent from earlier this century began to get involved.
“It’s just unique, we’ve all grown up either playing or coaching together and now here we are together again,” Brettell said. “We have a bunch of kids all playing together. It’s kind of cool. We’re at the local VFW; there’s this little sandlot field out there with an army tank in the outfield. It’s just so unique.”
Fuhrman was able to recruit former Steinert great CJ Pittaro to serve as head of player development and training during his off-season from playing in the Athletics minor league system. Coaches include former Steinert standouts Fuhrman, Joe D’Andrea, Mike “Moe” Moceri, Frank Sabatino, Danny Mattonelli and Corey Radice, former Hamilton West standouts Brettell, Tom Paglione, Eric Ammirata, Eric Woodrow, Hiram Cartagena and Danny Alexander, and former Hamilton West pitching coach Matt Mayo.
“We’re trying to run a program that simulates Little League baseball. People come to the field at 10 a.m. and they don’t leave until 10 p.m. They hang out all day and watch the teams play,” Fuhrman said. “Any given day we could have 200 at our game because all the veterans are out there too. The post has dollar hot dogs for the kids.”
Fuhrman estimates that about 75 percent of the league is Hamilton players, and there is a large group of Allentown and Robbinsville participants since several of the coaches live in Upper Freehold. For all involved it’s an enjoyable experience beyond baseball.
“The social aspect is great,” Fuhrman said. “There are discussions with the veterans about what branch of military they served and the guys talk about it. The cool thing is that you have multi generations getting together and talking to each other. Guys in their 60s, 70s and 80s talking to kids eight years old about baseball and the history of the game.”
Smith feels the players are too young to fully understand what the veterans have done for their country, but Brettell noted that some of the older ones can appreciate it. “I don’t know if they get the whole picture, but they know (the vets) represent something bigger going on there than baseball.”
The Patriots name was the brainchild of VFW members, and the uniform colors are — naturally — red white and blue. The entire undertaking is a win-win for both parties.
“This is something this VFW never took advantage of,” Smith said. “We’re really proud of it. And I think they’re very proud to play for us here because they’ve got the uniform, they see a tank out there, they see a torpedo (in front of the building). The whole thing is going on.
“It’s great to see. All these kids have matching outfits, color-coordinated uniforms with the shoes and the bats hanging off them. They look like little armies running around out there.”
Playing at the VFW, what could be more fitting?
