Softball Fact: Reale Ball Is Back

It is fitting that Annemarie Cangiolosi Brown is now East Hampton High’s softball coach inasmuch as the dugouts, built by her father and her brothers, Phil and Paul, were dedicated to her grandmother, the late Molly Cangiolosi, who started the push for Title IX here years ago.

On learning that she had been named as the new coach — the job had been hers from the get-go, Joe Vas, East Hampton’s A.D., said, though when first tapped she demurred because she had an infant to take care of — she called her father, Phil Sr., and asked him to come to the field.

“I didn’t tell him why — I think he thought somebody had sprayed graffiti in the dugouts. He  was kind of mad when he got there. I asked him when the last time was that he was there. He said not for a long time. ‘I think you’ll be coming up a lot now,’ I said.”

“ ‘Why?’ he said. So I told him. We had a little moment; we were both tearing up . . . I was carrying on the tradition.”

Her grandmother, she said, had coached “all the sports, for $100, and was always pushing for more.” Upon her death, in the new coach’s senior year, the interviewee became the first recipient of the Molly Cangiolosi outstanding senior athlete award, which was funded by her family and friends. It is given each year to an East Hampton senior aiming to become a physical education teacher.

Brown, who still holds pitching records at the State University at Cortland, a 1.33 career earned run average among them, was a protégée of Lou Reale, one of the state’s winningest high school softball coaches, who lives now, with his wife, Ginny, in the Orlando, Fla., area.

“Reale started here when I was a freshman. I thought he was a great coach. He taught us how to be dedicated and hard-working, and taught us life lessons. The people we are today,” she said of a group including Melanie Anderson and Mylan Le Eckardt, teammates of hers on Coach Reale’s inaugural team, which went 22-2, “is because of things he did for us. . . . I had a photo taken of all the coaches at a recent Sunday workout and sent it to him. He’s proud of all of us.”

Yes, she said, in answer to a question, “Reale Ball will be back! I want to rebuild the program back to where it was, beginning with Little League and travel leagues.”

Reale was a stickler for form, for doing things the right way when it came to hitting, bunting, fielding, throwing, pitching, catching, base-running. . . . His teams played heads-up ball, “Every Pitch, Every Inning.”

For example, Brown said, “the wrist snap for an overhand throw is a little thing, but so important. If you don’t snap the ball correctly you’re risking an error, which might lose the game. . . . We’ve been breaking down the grips, the throws, and we’ve done the same with hitting. We’ve been doing a lot of hitting. . . . We break down the swing with every kid. We work with all of them from the ground up.”

Brown, Anderson, who will assist her in coaching the team, and Eckardt, who will volunteer her help, not to mention the junior varsity coach, Nicole Fierro, all played in the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s World Series — Brown, as aforesaid, for SUNY Cortland, Anderson and Eckardt for Bloomsburg University, and Fierro for C.W. Post. All are in East Hampton High’s Hall of Fame as well.

Brown, who is in her 16th year of teaching here, said she still goes back to Cortland, to “help with winter clinics. My daughter, Lilah, who’s in fourth grade, goes too. I was the pitching coach last February. I taught Lilah how to pitch last spring. She pitches with full motion, as I do. . . . We’ve got a lot of good young pitchers here. Once I knew I was going to be the coach I helped out last spring with the Little League all-star traveling teams.”

Brown and her fellow coaches, who also include John King of Springs, Chris Merkert, Beth Crowley, and Erin Abran, who is another former Bonac teammate of Brown’s who played in college, will constitute a formidable array.

East Hampton’s field, Reale’s creation largely, is one of the best in the county, if not the best. Recently, the baseball field got a turf infield, though Brown said she preferred a skinned infield “because there’s a lot of bunting, a lot of leaning and sliding. We didn’t want grass or turf on the infield. They’ve resodded the outfield, though, and put in new irrigation. My freshman year, there were just two metal benches and a little backstop. When the boys got their dugouts, my dad, who’s a mason, said he would build dugouts for the girls. Jill Kampf’s dad, Billy, did the carpentry.”

Asked if she, as Reale used to do, would drag the infield, Brown said, with a smile, “Mel has her own landscaping company. She might do it.” Reale called Anderson the best hitter he’d ever seen, male or female.

Coach Reale, she said, “had a terrific run. We’re aiming to get back there. It will take some time, but definitely we’ll be there.”

When Brown’s Sunday afternoon workouts at the high school’s gym began a few weeks ago, 40 seventh through 12th graders turned out. 

“My goal,” she said in parting, “is to build a program from Little League all the way to the top with the same drills. I’d like to collaborate with the middle schools, with Montauk, Springs, and East Hampton. It won’t just be, you know, the varsity softball team. It will be East Hampton softball. We’re all a team, all going for the same goal.” 

“Lou knows we can pass on the knowledge. He told us,” she said, looking down and reading from her cellphone, “the kids couldn’t be in better hands. He told us, ‘You guys will do a great job. I couldn’t be more proud.’ ”