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LaFesta Legacy: North Adams Boy to Follow Father in Annual Baseball Exchange
By Stephen Dravis, iBerkshires Staff
03:53AM / Thursday, July 19, 2018
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Jordan, left, and Peter Greenbush. On Saturday, when the 100th game in the LaFesta Baseball Exchange is played at Joe Wolfe Field, Jordan will be the first son of a LaFesta alumnus to compete in the event.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Peter Greenbush cannot tell you the scores of his games in the LaFesta Baseball Exchange, and that's not just because the games were played a quarter-century ago.
 
"I honestly remember it like it was yesterday," Greenbush said this week. "The field in Boston sits right on the bay there. It's an unmistakable right field fence that's 50 feet high. I remember the food they cooked for us, the parade they did for us.
 
"When they came up here, I remember eating tons of food here and developing friendships and bonds with kids who had never seen grass before, let alone the mountains.
 
"It's something that at 13 years old, I'll never forget."
 
But he doesn't remember the scoreboard.
 
"I could not tell you who won," Greenbush said. "The whole goal was to get the kids together from different walks of life. It had nothing to do with winning and losing.
 
"Of course, when you're playing any sport at that age, you're always trying to win and do the best you could. But it wasn't an all-star team, per se. It was just a bunch of kids getting together and doing what they loved back then."
 
Greenbush, like so many fathers before him, has passed along his love of the game to his son Jordan.
 
Unlike any other father, Peter Greenbush will get to watch his son follow in his footsteps on Saturday at Joe Wolfe Field, where North Adams will host the North End for the 100th game in the 28-year history of the event.
 
"More than 900 kids have gone through this program," said North Adams' George Canales, who started the exchange with Boston's John Romano back in the early '90s.
 
"A father who went on this exchange [Greenbush] had his son picked for the team. That blows my mind. It's the first time we've had a father and son playing."
 
On Saturday, the kids from the North End will arrive in the Steeple City for a day that includes a cookout and time on the ROPES course at Windsor Lake. At 6 p.m., there will be an opening ceremony recognizing the visitors from Boston and the historic significance of the 100th game, which will follow.
 
The teams will play again on Sunday at 10 a.m., and then two more times next month when the North County team makes the return trip east.
 
While the players and the coaches may change through the years, there have been a few constants: Canales, Romano and a focus on having fun.
 
"While playing their hearts out on the field, a friendship is created between players who never met before this two-weekend extravaganza," Romano wrote last year in the online publication northendwaterfront.com. "Sharing dinners and lunches, a breakfast, even a pickup basketball game at Polcari playground, these two teams became part of the longest baseball exchange program for this age group (12 to 15) on the East Coast, maybe beyond.
 
"What started out some 28 years ago as a one-game road trip to the far end of the state by a group of North End baseball players, has now seen over 800 players participate in this extraordinary program."
 
Greenbush said the connections made during those two weekends lasted after the final out was recorded.
 
He remembers corresponding with some of the kids he played against, although, he notes, that correspondence is even easier for today's ballplayers.
 
"Back then there was no Internet, no cell phones," Greenbush said. "It was a lot of handwritten stuff. And, of course, as you start to age and go to high school and then college, you lose touch with kids.
 
"But I think the kids nowadays have a lot better chance of staying in communication with these kids from across the state because of social media, because of their cell phones, because of the internet. It's easy to follow anyone anywhere in the country. There's obviously some things that aren't great about social media, but it can also be a huge help to allow these kids to stay in contact with each other."
 
There is some evidence that those connections are stronger than ever. Canales said right now there are two sets of LaFesta alumni who are college roommates with one of their former rivals.
 
Greenbush went on to be a professional baseball player, getting drafted by the Colorado Rockies in 2001 out of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. He went 4-2 in 14 appearances for Colorado's Rookie League affiliate in Casper, Wyo. And he describes his love of baseball as "never-ending."
 
"Jordan and I have looked through things all the way from when I played in Little League right up through my pro career," he said. "We didn't hit specifically on LaFesta until a year ago, year and a half ago. I didn't even know about the first father-son thing. It's crazy to think there's been a hundred games and to find out my kid is going to be a part of that.
 
"Back then, none of us knew what the longevity would be of this program. But as the years went on, and I continued to follow Mr. Canales, I had no doubt in my mind that he would do it until he couldn't do it anymore.
 
"Everything he has put into this program is second to none."
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