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Read the press release here.

Village Little League Players Take On Traveling Italian Team

By Andrea Swalec | June 22, 2012 12:49pm
Greenwich Village Little League printed special English-Italian t-shirts in preparation for a game with Italian players Friday, June 22, 2012.
Greenwich Village Little League printed special English-Italian t-shirts in preparation for a game with Italian players Friday, June 22, 2012.
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Todd Irwin

MANHATTAN — How do you say "strike 3" in Italian? 

Some of Greenwich Village's best Little League players will get their first shot at taking down a foreign team Friday night, when they will battle kids visiting from northern Italy. 

The Villagers, a Majors A division team of 11- and 12-year-old boys, will take on the Italian Dream 6 p.m. Friday at J.J. Walker Park on the northeast corner of Hudson and Clarkson streets, Greenwich Village Little League coach Greg Epstein said.

"It will be a cultural experience for our league and have a little pomp and circumstance," he said. 

GVLL printed special English-Italian t-shirts for every player and members of the Italian team will play both countries' national anthems on a violin and flute. 

Players on the Villagers are 11 and 12 years old.
Players on the Villagers are 11 and 12 years old.
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Greenwich Village Little League

The Italian Dream, a team of the Italian traveling sports group Baseball on the Road that is making stops along the East Coast this summer, contacted GVLL about a month ago to see if the team wanted to play ball. 

Players and parents of GVLL, which was founded in 1984 and had more than 800 participants last year, will show the Italian players and their parents around the city and dine with them after Friday's game. 

Few of the GVLL parents and none of the players speak Italian, but they'll share the international language of baseball, Epstein said.