Talk Bronx New York

Allerton Ballfield in the Bronx renovated before All-Star Game

Cal Ripken Jr. works with Outsiders’ Edison Montalvo on his swing as Hall of Famer helps over revamped Allerton Ballfields with brother Billy and Bernie Williams

Emmanuel Fabre is a middle infielder from the Bronx, a wiry, 5-7, 140-pound kid who steals bases and hits balls in gaps, and is a key player for a fine youth baseball team called the Outsiders.

He is walking across the freshly renovated infield of the Allerton Ballfield in the Bronx, eyes wide with enthusiasm. The bumps and craters that made every ground ball an adventure have given way to evenly graded clay - the very same dirt used at that field a few miles away, Yankee Stadium. The new pitcher’s mound is pristine, the dugout benches upgraded and painted, the massive poison ivy patch climbing up the first-base fence a withering brown memory.

There may be a gala, and emotionally loaded All-Star Game, being played at the Stadium on Tuesday, but if you ask the Outsiders and the other ballplayers from the neighborhood, this $100,000 slice of urban renewal - courtesy of a public-private partnership between the city parks department and Nike’s Let Me Play initiative - is no small event, either.

“No more bad hops,” Fabre says. “They fixed the field totally.”

John Finck is the president of the Outsiders Baseball Association.

“The infield used to be a lunar landscape,” Finck says. “Now look at it.”

The new field - just off of Webster Ave. by 204th St. - was officially dedicated Saturday, after a whirlwind construction process that began on July 1 and was completed three days ago. Who says things can’t get done quickly in New York City? Of course, it doesn’t hurt when you have Nike capital and clout pushing for completion by All-Star weekend, or to have the services of Eve Burton - she’s VP and general counsel for the Hearst Corp., and John Finck’s spouse - navigating the labyrinth of city bureaucracy.

Bob Buono, whose company, Tri-State Athletic Fields and Services, did the contracting, says that it was one of the worst fields he has ever seen, not a surprise when you consider that the Allerton Ballfields, like most city parks, never get a rest, whether from soccer, baseball or softball.

Still, they got it done, and Nike was happy.

“When you promote sports and physical fitness, you make kids better and you make the world better,” says Nike spokesman Dejuan Wilkins. “That’s the philosophy behind Let Me Play.”

The ceremony Saturday featured Parks commissioner Adrian Benape, Bernie Williams, Cal Ripken Jr. and his brother Billy, and some 150 kids from various baseball clubs, including 40 Outsiders - almost entirely Latino kids from the Bronx between the ages of 16 and 18 who play in the competitive Westchester Baseball Association.

After the talking was done, the Ripken brothers and Williams ran the kids through a clinic. The kids got to work on their swings in prop-up nets, field grounders and shag flies.

“Every swing helps,” center fielder Eury Garcia of the Outsuders said. “Cal Ripken is helping us with bat speed, giving us tips - stay back, no lunging.”

Outsiders such as Emmanuel Fabre reveled in the care that went into the field. Edison Montalvo, the team’s star right fielder and cleanup hitter, imagined himself hitting his ropes and making his throws from right in a big-league field one day.

For now, the Outsiders play their home games at Roberto Clemente State Park. After the way the organization got the new field in, it has been assured of getting priority treatment when the Parks Dept. hands out permits next spring. There is an acute shortage of ballfields in the Bronx, and an even more acute shortage of good fields.

The shortage just got a little better, and you could tell just by seeing Emmanuel Fabre’s face.

“Compared to the way it used to be,” says Tony Reyes, the 33-year-old coach of the Outsiders, “this is like Yankee Stadium now.”

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The police at the Bronx apartment where they say a man killed his mother and brother

Police Arrest Bronx Man in Killing of 2

Investigators searching for a missing woman and her two grown sons entered their Bronx apartment through a window yesterday afternoon and found a trail of blood on the floor, the police said. Outside, they found one son — and a grim answer to the mystery: He admitted he had shot his mother and younger brother to death, cut their bodies into pieces and dumped them into the Harlem River at a nearby park, the police said.

Some neighbors recalled seeing the suspect, Lamar J. Platt, 24, maneuvering a blue laundry cart with a big plastic bag several days ago, bumping it down the steps of the apartment building entrance at 1610 University Avenue, also known as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

“It’s really a tragedy — someone as nice as her,” one neighbor, Duane Bowser, 39, said of the mother, Marlene M. Platt, 45. Another neighbor and acquaintance, Sharon Hawes, said: “We knew the mother and younger brother were having problems with the older brother, but nobody knew it was to this extent.”

The police sent patrol boats, helicopters and scuba divers to search the river, but they did not find any remains of Mrs. Platt or her younger son, Nashan A. Platt, 22. The search was halted at nightfall and was expected to resume today.

The motive for the killings and their exact date were unclear, the police said. Ms. Hawes said that Ms. Platt told a mutual friend several days ago that she wanted to get a court order of protection because her older son had been threatening to kill her.

Based on his interrogation by investigators yesterday, Lamar Platt was charged with two counts of murder, the police said.

The police were called into the case by Ms. Platt’s mother, Elveda Wright, 63, of Washington. She expressed concern about her daughter and grandsons, saying that she had been trying to reach them on the telephone since Nov. 18, but was getting no response at their Morris Heights apartment.

She decided to come to New York to find her relatives and met police officers at the apartment, 1-C, yesterday.

There was no answer at the door, which was locked. Around 4 p.m., the police said, officers entered through a window and found the apartment empty. There was a trail of blood between the living room and Lamar Platt’s bedroom. Investigators then went outside and found him on the street nearby, the police said.

Under questioning, the police said, Lamar Platt admitted killing his mother and brother, and cutting their bodies into pieces, the police said. Then he put the pieces in a bag in a cart, wheeled it several blocks to Roberto Clemente State Park, on the banks of the river, and dumped the remains into the water, the police said.

Ms. Hawes, who said she had known the family for more than two decades, described Ms. Platt as a hard-working nurse. “She took care of those boys by herself since they were babies,” Ms. Hawes said. “She was a good, upstanding citizen.”

She added: “Nashan was a really good kid who never got into any trouble.” As for Lamar, she said, “He was a decent kid as well, but it seems like this year he hasn’t been himself.”

“This is really crazy,” she said. “Everybody is in a state of shock.”

SOURCE: NY Times

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