Around The Horn

"Allegheny Valley player earns starting spot on Federation League team with never give up attitude"

PITTSBURGH POST GAZZETTE - 7/17/08

When Allegheny Valley holds open tryouts before the start of the Federation League season, manager Kevin Giza says that he doesn't care what players have done in the past.

Good thing for Dante Vaccaro.

In high school, Vaccaro never had a chance to play baseball for North Hills. The two times he tried out, his sophomore and senior years, he was cut. After graduating, he went to Slippery Rock University and did not make the team there.

Not to be deterred, after reading an ad in a newspaper for open tryouts for the Allegheny Valley team Vaccaro thought he would give it one more shot. The only baseball he played was American Legion ball through his high school years.

Still, Vaccaro showed up for tryouts along with about 50 other potential players who were trying to make the 25-man roster.

After the three-day tryout Vaccaro had beat the odds and made the team. After not playing in the WPIAL or in college, Vaccaro was now in one of the most competitive semipro leagues in the East.

"I figured after my last year of Legion I was done with baseball," Vaccaro said.

"I read about Allegheny Valley in the newspaper and rather than just give up on baseball I gave it one more try. I figured I had nothing to lose and as long as I was confident I could make it."

The reversal of fortune did not stop there for the North Hills High School graduate. After working with Giza and the rest of the Allegheny Valley coaching staff, Vaccaro decided to tryout for the team at his new school, Point Park University.

He made that squad, too.

"Giza gave me a shot and he and the older players have worked with me the last couple of years and they helped me progress and make a college team, something that I never thought I could do," Vaccaro said.

"I think people doubting me helped make me better. All those years of getting cut and not making it made me work hard."

Vaccaro starts in right field most of the time for Allegheny Valley and bats seventh or eighth. His once shaky defense has now become the strength of his game.

"You talk about someone showing you that hard work pays off," Giza said.

"He is one of the hardest workers on the team. From the time he first tried out to now he is head and shoulders above what he was before. He is a total athlete now. His defense went from his weak spot to his strength and that is a tremendous transformation. He is just a great kid and a great player."

The left-handed batter has had success hitting the ball all over the field not just pulling it. Vaccaro has consistently been able to go the other way with the ball this year and he is hitting around .400. Against first place St. Johns last week Vaccaro went 4 for 5.

After two years playing for Point Park Vaccaro has played in 21 games but only started one. He hopes after another summer playing for Allegheny Valley and with the help of Giza and the other veterans on the team he can work his way into a starting role for the Pioneers.

In high school, Vaccaro was a wrestler and that cut into the offseason conditioning program for baseball. He was never up to speed with the other players by the time wrestling season had ended and it became tough when it came to tryout.

During high school for summer ball most of the North Hills varsity played in the Palomino League, while Vaccaro played American Legion for West View/Ross.

Now in the Federation League, Vaccaro is playing alongside those same players.

Team captain Steve Long along with Dustin Mills and Mike Reeves all played for North Hills in high school.

Vaccaro pointed out those three fellow North Hills alum as three players who have helped him progress since he joined Allegheny Valley.

Read on Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A lack of players shrinks Fed League -

Venerable association down to five teams

PITTSBURGH POST GAZZETTE - 7/3/08

When Mt. Lebanon won the WPIAL Class AAAA baseball title in 2002, George Strasbaugh's Greater Pittsburgh Federation League team bearing the same name saw an influx of players eventually matriculate from that championship squad.

Those players helped catapult Mt. Lebanon near the top of the Federation League.

When the Blue Devils won the WPIAL title again in 2006 Strasbaugh saw no such influx of players. He didn't have one player come over to his Federation League team.

"After the WPIAL title [in 2002] the next three years we were strong in the Fed League. The players [from the high school team] who went on to play college baseball came back to play for us in the summer and they formed the nucleus," Strasbaugh said.

"After the second title, I got nobody off that team. That is only a short period of time [four years]. My assumption was that it was going to be just like 2002 and I would get a nice nucleus of four or five ballplayers coming in here knowing how to win and wanting to play locally.

"I didn't have anybody and that says a lot about what the Fed League is going through right now. Some of those players might have played for me this year and we could have had a team."

In just the past three seasons, five franchises have folded. After the 2005 season, the Greentree franchise folded. The following year, 20th Ward, one of the league's oldest and most revered teams, called it quits along with Clairton. Then following last year, Mt. Lebanon and Findlay decided to drop from the league.

So in just three seasons, the Federation League has shrunk from nine teams to five (Elliott joined in 2007). League officials cite dwindling player involvement as the main culprit.

Once the premier independent semipro league in Western Pennsylvania, the Federation League, a wooden-bat league, has been a victim of a decreasing talent pool of players along with the emergence of a few other independent leagues. The Federation League once boasted as many as 12 teams.

With high school players remaining mostly with their American Legion or Palomino teams and college players going to play in college leagues such as the Great Lakes League or for teams such as the Pittsburgh Pandas, who pay in the Tri-State Collegiate League, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Federation League teams to maintain full rosters.

The Frontier League, where the Washington Wild Things play, is another example of a league that is challenging the Federation League for players.

The Federation League has extended invitations to the Pittsburgh Pandas and Allegheny Pirates, among others, to join the league.

The current five teams that form the Greater Pittsburgh Federation League are Elliott, St. Johns-Lefty's, Allegheny Valley, Crafton-Ingram-Thornburg (CIT) and Bethel Park (formerly called South Hills).

Former Federation League dynasties such as North Pittsburgh, 20th Ward, Monroeville and Dormont have since folded, but St. Johns-Lefty's, named after a former church by Sullivan Field in the Bloomfield-Lawrenceville area where the team used to play, has picked up the role as the league powerhouse.

St. Johns has captured six out of the past eight Federation League titles and advanced to the National Amateur Baseball Federation title game last season in Louisville, Ky.

The team was originally sponsored by Lambros Bar on Route 28 but with its impending closure, the team has switched sponsorship to Lefty's another bar owned by one of the players. St. John's Church on Liberty Avenue has since closed and is now the Church Brew Works. That is an example of the longevity of the Federation League. The team has managed to outlast its sponsor and the namesake church.

The Federation League has been around since the 1930s and the current group of managers involved may feel the pressure to keep the league going and not wanting to see it end on their watch.

Pat Paulson is the current league commissioner and is helped out by the managers who chip in with administrative duties.

Paulson was asked to take over as commissioner after her husband, Paul, passed away in 2004. The Paulsons originally got into the league in 1986 and were managing the Bellevue team together.

"It's still a good league with a good brand of ball and some great players," Paulson said. "St. Johns made it big nationally last year and there have some darn good players. A lot of these young players don't realize how good these teams are. The older guys do very well and the younger guys can really learn a lot from them."

The Federation League has seen some future major leaguers come through including Curtis Leskanic, who played for Tom McCarthy at St. Johns. Recently players such as Zach Jackson, who played in the Fed League for Bellevue and is now in the Milwaukee Brewer farm system, and Don Kelly, who played under Strasbaugh for Mt. Lebanon and is with the Arizona Diamondbacks, have played in the league.

Elliott's manager and top pitcher, Ryan Douglass, is one of the premier players in the league and a former 13th round draft pick by the Kansas City Royals. After an eight-year minor league career and one year in the Frontier League Douglass joined the Federation League.

Douglass, who reached the Class AA level in the Royals organization, says Fed League play compares to minor league ball.

"I think it is [comparable to] low Class A to high A depending on what team you face," he said. "St. Johns has a lot of guys who have played professionally at some point and it's good competition.

"Young players are very surprised how competitive the league is."

The Federation League is midway through its current season. With five teams, each team plays a 24-game schedule seeing the other teams six times a season. There was a time when teams played as many as 40 games.

"This is the first year we have dropped this low [in numbers]," Bethel Park manager Jim Lowen said. "Having to play each team six times, I think it is going to wear on you after three or four games, but that's what we have to do.

"We certainly don't want to drop any lower. We are hoping that this is just a down year and we are hoping to get some new teams [next year]."

League managers are optimistic the Mt. Lebanon and Findlay teams will return after this year. "Having to play each team six times, I think it is going to wear on you after three or four games, but that's what we have to do."

-- Jim Lowen, Bethel Park manager

Read on Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Helping players succeed the goal of Allegheny Valley coaches in Federation League"

PITTSBURGH POST GAZZETTE - 6/12/08

As the organization's president and coach, Kevin Giza has built the Allegheny Valley franchise into a Greater Pittsburgh Federation League power since joining the semi-pro league in 2003.

After finishing second in the Fed League to St. Johns-Lefty's in the regular season and playoffs last season, Allegheny Valley has established itself as a regular contender in the wooden bat league that is recognized as one of the best in this part of the country (St. Johns advanced to the National Amateur Baseball Federation's World Series last year).

But as much as Giza and his team strive to win league titles and advance in national tournaments, the goals of the organization focus more on helping players succeed.

"The thing about our program is we strive to give these guys the best competition and the best program available around Pittsburgh," Giza said. "We always try to get the best facilities to train in and bring in different coaches and do different things with competition in terms of going to Mechanicsburg or Harrisburg or New York -- wherever we need to go to play better teams. The guys leave having played high-level competition, and we help them try to find out what they need to work on, and we work on it with them all summer long."

The most prominent example of an Allegheny Valley player moving on in the five years of the program's existence is Nate Buttenfield, the coach of the North Hills High School baseball team who was offered a contract at age 30 this spring by the Toronto Blue Jays.

The ace of the Allegheny Valley staff, he would ultimately decline the minor-league deal because he did not want to lose his teaching and coaching jobs among the uncertainty of a career, but the idea that Allegheny Valley is striving to get its players on to bigger and better things was exemplified.

"Primarily, we try to get these guys better looks," Giza said. "If they're at a small college and not getting playing time, we want to get them on the field. If they're in college and getting playing time, we do what we can to help them get a better scholarship. If they're at a small school, we'll work to get them to a better college. And if they're at that level, at a good college playing, we'll find the things needed to get them to the next level.

"I'm sure we don't have a team full of Nate Buttenfields, but that is a big part of what we want to help make happen."

Not all of the players will be offered a contract by a Major League organization, but Allegheny Valley does have plenty of talent on its roster after conducting open tryouts this spring.

Its top players returning from last season's Fed League runner-up squad include Buttenfield, Steve Long (North Hills High School, Seton Hill University), Luke Katich (Fox Chapel, College of Wooster), J.P. Katich (Deer Lakes, Slippery Rock, professional Slippery Rock Sliders), Alex Sharick (Burrell, Duquesne), Mike Dukovich (Hampton, Harvard), Ryan Dukovich (Hampton, Cleveland State) and Mike Reeves (North Hills, High Point University).

Third baseman Jordan Premick (Hampton High School, Clarion University), Brian Youchak (Vincentian Academy, Johns Hopkins University), John Hastings (Fox Chapel, John Carroll University) and Dustin Mills (North Hills, Cleveland State) are among the top newcomers who figure to be able to contribute greatly this season.

Allegheny Valley, which plays its home games at either Etna Veterans Field or John Herb Field in Ross, also donated a portion of its fundraising proceeds to the Miracle League, an organization that works to provide facilities for disabled children to play baseball.

"North Hills High grad is veteran leader of Allegheny Valley"

PITTSBURGH POST GAZZETTE - 7/12/07
Pittsburgh Post Gazete - Some of the teams in the semipro baseball Greater Pittsburgh Federation League have rosters filled with players in their 30s and/or who have affiliated minor-league baseball experience.

Allegheny Valley is generally the exception to that, but being young hasn’t meant the team hasn’t been successful. Allegheny Valley was 17-5 and in second place heading into this week.

By being the only player on the team who has been on the roster each of the past four seasons, Steve Long has found himself in the job of unlikely young team leader. read more.

"Local players lead AV Federation"

8/02/2007
by Marty Stewart

Pittsburgh, PA - "Allegheny Valley recently concluded regular season play in the Federation League with a 21-8-1 record, which put them in second place." read more.

"Hampton brothers united for baseball team"