Little League memories fade or disappear like that shoebox full of baseball cards that mothers eventually threw out. 

"Baseball Boys, Rediscovering 1950s Little League Baseball in Mount Vernon, NY"  (amazon.com) rekindles those memories.  It was written by one of those players, Bruce Fabricant, who is, all these years later, still a Westchester County resident, and still a baseball fan who remembers fondly the baseball fabric of his early life.  Newspapers capture statistics and game summaries forever. Memories fade to some degree. This book has plenty of both.

"Baseball was exciting and fun," said Fabricant. "Little League gave each of us so much, independence and camaraderie. It was a game that filled our late summer days.   Go to school, play ball, and stay out of trouble was our job"

More than six decades have passed since that first Mount Vernon Little League game on June 10, 1950, which was the same day when the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees each lost.

Now Fabricant recreates a memorable and riveting detailed, year-by-year account of the league's first decade, 1950-1959, in Mount Vernon, a small city just north of New York City in Westchester County, notable in baseball for producing major leaguers Andy Karl, Ralph Branca and Ken Singleton.

In "Baseball Boys" (ISBN 978-1-481-044-875) he blends game summaries, nostalgia, and more than a good anecdote or two.  The years disappear as he reconstructs each year bringing exciting pennant races alive.  More than 100 photos capture and hold forever Little League friends, preserving their swings, slides, frowns and smiles. 

Singleton, who went from the city’s Little League to the Major Leagues, explains in the book how he used to ride his bike several miles to Baker Field for Little League games while Branca tells how as a six-year-old he remembers pitching to his older brother Julius in the driveway at his home at 522 South Ninth Avenue.

Fabricant points out many unique and sometimes funny happenings involving youngsters during the decade like when a young Tony Petrillo took time off during a game to pull out a bothersome and loose tooth. He came to the sidelines to do it and went right back to the mound and won the game.

In "Baseball Boys," 25 men now in their late sixties and seventies, alumni from the ’50s, reminisce about their Little League lives.  You will also meet the many managers who taught the game, soothed egos, and built self confidence. You will revisit baseball diamonds, Longfellow, Baker and Hutchinson fields that were not much too look at but were where youthful reputations were made.

Who were the best Mount Vernon Little Leaguers during the ’50?  Fabricant offers his top 10 players of the decade, surely to stir a controversy.        

Fabricant said that parents of young athletes could learn something new from the book.   In a conversation with nationally recognized expert in the field of sports psychology and sports parenting Rick Wolff explains the reasons behind parent over involvement today in their kid’s sports participation.

Fabricant underscores the fundamental value of Mount Vernon Little League's original mission that was focused on what was in the best interest of its young participants, not on those who watched from the grandstands.

"The positive successes of the '50s have been blurred somewhat by a contemporary culture of adults who compete with one another from the sidelines and grandstands, instead of allowing their kids to live out their dreams through the wholesome experience of competitive sports," he said.

"Those early years made a lasting impression," said Don Cook, the youngest player in the league's first year.  Little League eventually led Cook to a career path in intercollegiate athletics, 20 as a college baseball coach, 47 years combined, as a coach and athletic director.

"They represented a critical time for learning the game. More important, the experience gave us the first taste of what it meant to be a teammate, a friend, a caring neighbor, how to be a good sport, and how to give up some of oneself for others. Without that early education, far more important than the baseball we played, we wouldn’t have developed the skill sets needed to grow and mature into our teen years."

"Baseball Boys, Rediscovering 1950s Little League Baseball in Mount Vernon, NY" is available on Amazon.com.

Fabricant, who runs his own PR firm, has written four made-for-television sports films and four books including "That Perfect Spring" (amazon.com) that recalls winning a  high school baseball  championship in 1959 in Mount Vernon and "Remembering Mount Vernon, NY The Place We Called Home" (amazon.com) about growing up there in the 1950s. 

To arrange an interview, contact Bruce Fabricant at 914-276-3397 or bfabric459@aol.com