A few years ago, the Hightstown-East Windsor Babe Ruth League fell on numbers problems and decided to merge with Robbinsville to form Mercer East. At the end of last year, when Hopewell’s 15-year-olds suffered the embarrassment of forfeiting its state appearance because it didn’t have enough players after advancing from districts, the league merged with an equally struggling Ewing program.
It has always been the two towns of West Windsor and Plainsboro forming one team but, of late, Princeton dropped out of Babe Ruth district competition and those leftover players are now with WW-P.
It is a recurring theme all over the state, as travel ball is ravaging Little League, Babe Ruth and American Legion baseball.
And then there is Nottingham Babe Ruth.
Nottingham is not a two-town team, but a team that shares players with a second team in town – Hamilton Babe Ruth.
Sadly, Hamilton has endured its own struggles, which is unfortunate since that was once the township’s lone Babe Ruth league and actually the first league in the nation.
Since forming its league in 1995, Nottingham has stayed strong and keeps thriving. This year, the 13-year-old and 15-year-old All Stars won the District One Tournament, while the 14s also advanced to the states by finishing third in districts and was in the state winner’s bracket finals at press time.
This year’s 15-year-old team finished its three-year district run by going 12-0 and winning titles at all three age levels. In the six season the three current teams have been in District One competition they have won five championships and finished third once.
In addition, Nottingham re-instituted a 16/18-year-old Senior Babe Ruth team this year, which promptly won the Southern New Jersey State Tournament.
It’s a track record unequaled by any other one-town team, or two-town teams for that matter.
Dan DeRose, who has been Nottingham’s president since 2000, praises the influx of HTRBA and Nottingham Little League players as part of the success. He also makes sure they know all about Babe Ruth.
“I think we have two good feeder leagues, and we badger them to death until they get here,” he said. “We have 10 or 12 registrations and if they don’t come after three registrations we start sending them emails.
“Sometimes we go down and talk to them. But a lot of it is, there are kids from the same family in both leagues so our guys have younger siblings, and they come up through the league, too.”
Matt Ricci is a perfect example of that.
Ricci plays shortstop and pitches for this year’s 15-year-old team, which is managed by his father, Chris. Ricci’s older brother, also Chris, played for Nottingham Babe Ruth while Ricci was leading Nottingham’s 12-year-olds to a District 12 title.
After a sophomore season at Steinert in which Ricci hit well for the varsity, he made Hamilton Post 31 and did not just play regularly, but became the first 15-year-older in Mercer County American Legion League history to win a batting title, with a .490 average.
And yet, when All-Star season started, Ricci made it clear he was sticking with Nottingham, just as guys like Shane Keledy and Kyle Muller did last year.
“I think it’s just the winning tradition of this league, everybody wants to play,” Ricci said. “Fifteen-year-old was special for me because I saw my brother wearing the pinstripes (only the 15s wear stripes) and I always wanted to do it. And our team won districts every year; that gave me motivation to come back and get three titles.
“Legion is a great learning experience, but I’ve been playing (with Nottingham) since I was 7, and the coaches on Post 31 understood completely. I go to those games whenever I can, but this is the last time I’m going to be playing Babe Ruth baseball for the rest of my life.”
Ricci made his feelings known to his dad before the summer even started.
“Matt had the chance to play on 31, and he said ‘There’s no way I can’t play for Nottingham,” Chris Ricci said. “He said ‘Dad, I know I made Post but I have to play. This is my last year of Babe Ruth, and we want to go out with a win.”
“With legion, we have an agreement that Babe Ruth 15 year-old all stars take precedent,” DeRose said. “Last year, we had three guys in legion, and they played both. Babe Ruth takes the priority in the 15 year old age group.”
That still doesn’t explain how Nottingham consistently keeps a league enrollment between 130 and 140 each year, which DeRose says is No. 1 in South Jersey.
Jeff Plunkett, who has been involved with the league for years as a manager and assistant coach, reeled off three good reasons. Those same three are echoed by Jim Maher, who guided three straight Nottingham teams to the Babe Ruth World Series as 13s, 14s and 15s in the late 2000s.
“One is Dan DeRose,” said Plunkett, who is an assistant for the 13-year-old team this year. “He’s been there so long. He’s had kids play in the league, and now he doesn’t have kids play in the league, and he’s still the president. His commitment is to running it as competitive as possible without it being a travel program.”
“Obviously Dan’s leadership is huge,” Maher said. “He really promotes the league, he goes out and goes to little leagues and stay on the kids to play, I think that’s one big reason.”
Maher and Plunkett are two of the Nottingham coaches with vast experience. Plunkett coached at Rider under Sonny Pittaro (who also coached Babe Ruth). Maher won a state title at Hamilton West. Jim Geraci, another assistant for the 13-year-olds, is a former head coach at McCorristin High (now Trenton Catholic).
“The second reason is, there are coaches that have gone through this league, that have coached outside of Babe Ruth baseball at high levels,” Plunkett said. “And the coaches in the high schools and colleges around here really commit free time to teaching it.”
“They have good coaches,” Maher said. “They have a lot of non-parents that have been involved for many years, and that makes a big difference.”
DeRose also weighed in on that aspect.
“The coaches are great,” he said. “We keep guys around. On our board, most of the guys don’t have kids playing anymore, but they all stay. On our All-Star teams, you’ve got three guys with no kids playing. They like to come back, and we’re teaching real baseball, high school level baseball.”
And the final reason is winning itself, be it in Little League or Babe Ruth.
“You have the tradition of Nottingham Little League and HTRBA, and the tradition in Babe Ruth,” Plunkett noted. “A good example of that is some kids didn’t play last year on the 13-year-old team, but they came back this year as 14s.
“They kind of missed opportunities to play during the week, to get good coaching in the summer time. They miss the attention that the press gives them in the summer time that they don’t get elsewhere, and honestly, I think it’s hard to find another Babe Ruth League around that has the ability to practice with their own batting cage, pitching screens, mats, and practice every day. That’s hard to find.”
“The third thing is, the success,” Maher said. “They’ve won, and kids want to be part of something that wins.”
Not only do they win, but they win with guys they have grown up with. That is rare in these days of showcase baseball, where it’s a bunch of strangers thrown together to show off their wares.
“I just enjoy winning something with your community,” Maher said. “Being part of a district champion or in our case, we were regional champions. It’s something you don’t get with other things. You come to our league and you get all that.”
Not to mention, players get a little bit of that travel experience as well. DeRose, who is also quick to note that the league’s parents are invaluable as volunteers, is working hard to keep the Babe Ruth concept while offering an extension of competition.
“We’ve been a little innovative the last couple years,” he said. “We joined the Super League, where we’re playing other leagues so we get a little bit of the travel experience, where it’s us and West Windsor and Mercer East all playing against each other. We travel doing that, and it helps.”
During All-Star season, they also get involved in travel tournaments between the Babe Ruth Tournaments. Plunkett, Pittaro and Mark Peroni began doing that several years ago.
“We keep putting our teams in these travel tournaments, and we keep coming in first place, second place, and we’re constantly having success in tournaments,” DeRosa said. “The 13s won a tournament in Neptune, we beat a team from North Jersey, a travel team from Neptune. It’s a big, big help.”
“We wanted to build an outside schedule around the districts,” Plunkett said. “The only way to do that was go find tournaments. We went to Neptune, and we tried to sell it like ‘It’s not a Babe Ruth game, but we’re here to win.
“The best example I could give is like you’re in the Southeast Conference playing an ACC team. It doesn’t mean it’s a scrimmage. It’s a game. That’s how we’re trying to get the travel aspect involved. I think it’s working. It gives them a little of that travel cache’.”
It also gives them a chance to promote township baseball.
“For these kids it’s a pride thing,” Plunkett said. “One day in Neptune, we played three games, two against really good teams. And they pulled out all the bling bling, every high falootin’ composite bat, where the ball flies forever.
“We’re playing with kids from this town—everyday, normal kids—and we want to show you we can play. And we go out and win four out of five in the tournament.”
While those tournaments may not provide the visibility that Showcase teams do, they do provide some of both worlds—playing for your town and playing in a travel environment. It might be the way to go considering Babe Ruth’s dropping enrollment.
“I think it’s in trouble, it’s dying in a lot of areas, just like little league and legion,” Maher said. “Travel ball is taking a lot of kids away.
“But I hope it survives. I like travel ball and I like playing with your own community. I’m an advocate of, if you can find a way, to do both of those.”
At the moment, there is at least one Nottingham player who leaves nothing to the imagination as to where his allegiance lies.
“It’s great to have kids come and play Babe Ruth baseball,” Matt Ricci said. “I love coming here and playing. It’s a great experience and one of the biggest parts of my life so far.”
Judging by the league’s success, quite a few kids are saying the same thing.
Nottingham Babe Ruth 14-year-old All-Star Chris Cote throws a ball from his knees during a game July 22, 2014 at Veterans Park. (Photo by Albert Rende.),
