By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Downtown’s baby boom isn’t just overcrowding the local elementary schools — it’s also flooding the neighborhood sports leagues.
As more and more children apply for the nonprofit, parent-run leagues, organizers are struggling to find enough field space to accommodate everyone, a problem that is expected to worsen this year.
Downtown Little League has already received 30 percent more applications for the spring 2011 season than they had gotten by this time last year, said Mark Costello, a member of the league’s board of directors.
"It’s just like the public schools," Costello said. "Every time the league gets bigger and field space doesn’t, quality of life goes down."
As the fields grow more crowded, players get fewer games and practices, and younger kids have to travel farther outside the neighborhood to play, Costello said.
While some parents may be applying earlier this year because they want to make sure their child gets a spot, Costello still expects the league to grow from about 950 children last year to between 1,000 and 1,100 this year.
The Downtown Soccer League has also seen dramatic growth, swelling from 650 players to more than 1,100 in the past three years, said Bill Bialosky, the league’s president.
To squeeze in the extra children, the league has already added more teams and enlarged the teams from 12 to 13 players, Bialosky said.
But there’s only so much shuffling the league can do before it reaches a breaking point.
"Were going to need more ballfields, or we’re going to have to say no to kids," Bialosky said. "We don’t want to have to say no."
To address the field shortage, Community Board 1 recently started a School Fields Task Force, which Costello chairs.
Potential solutions include more time on existing fields like Pier 40, and practices in private gyms at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and Pace University.
The leagues will also be able to use their home base, the Battery Park City ballfields, more heavily once artificial turf is installed there this summer.
Bialosky, though, said the city ought to look into building an entirely new field for the community, possibly on an underused asphalt lot he spotted in the Alfred E. Smith Houses just north of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Costello said the leagues are a necessary part of downtown, and not just because they help keep kids healthy.
"We’re turning into more and more of a vertical community," Costello said. "The fields are one place where people come together."
