Joann Vazquez, former president of Farmingdale Baseball League, dies at 82
Joann Vazquez, former president of the Farmingdale Baseball League, at her retirement party. Credit: Farmingdale Baseball League
Joann Vazquez dedicated nearly half her life to youth sports in Farmingdale...
The former president of the Farmingdale Baseball League, a youth league for baseball and softball, was heavily involved in the league for 40 years. She also was a former head of the Farmingdale Youth Council.
Vazquez died from an infection at East Northport Hospice House on July 23, her 82nd birthday, said family friend Michelle Kannavos.
Vazquez graduated from Plainview High School in 1961 and later went on to work as a controller for Firefighters Charitable Foundation.
Kannavos met Vazquez’s daughter, Victoria, when they were 6 and formed a close friendship that carried into adulthood. When Victoria died from cancer in 2018, Kannavos stayed in touch with Vazquez. She spent about five days a week with Vazquez over the last year as she battled multiple health issues.
“She was a woman of the community, especially Farmingdale, in addition to Plainview, which is where she lived. But her heart was Farmingdale,” Kannavos said. “She was a coach and a mentor by nature. She wasn’t that for me, but she was that for everyone in that community.”
Lauren Marino grew up playing softball in the Farmingdale Baseball League and was coached by Vazquez. She admired Vazquez’s honesty and genuine care for all softball players, not just Vazquez’s own.
Marino played collegiate softball at Sacred Heart and said that Vazquez constantly made trips to watch her play, even when the team took road trips to places like New Hampshire and Florida. Many of Vazquez’s former youth players, including Marino, later joined an adult softball team called the Roughnecks, which Vazquez was the manager of for several years.
“It didn’t matter if she didn’t even know you, she still made you know that you were important,” Marino said. “She became a staple spectator to my college team. My college roommates, who didn’t even live on Long Island, would come to Long Island in the summer to play for the Roughnecks with us because she made you feel special.”
Vazquez worked with the Farmingdale school district to develop plans for turf baseball and softball fields that were part of the district’s $36 million sports complex that opened at Weldon E. Howitt Middle School in 2019.
Before her retirement in 2022, Vazquez was presented with the first-ever key to the Town of Oyster Bay, which proclaimed April 24, 2022, to be Joann Vazquez Day.
“She was probably deserving of a lot more, but that was a really nice thing that they did for her,” said Rich Zarrilli, current president of the Farmingdale Baseball League. “It was a proud moment for the league and the community for her to be presented with that.”
Zarrilli said Vazquez’s leadership and commitment to the kids of the community was a big part of what made the league successful for such a long time and serves as a guideline for himself and the rest of the executive board.
He said Vazquez often presented herself with a tough persona when she first met someone, but once they got to know her, it wouldn’t take long to realize that her heart was “as big as the world.”
“She was a very strong woman,” Zarrilli said. “Her presence was known when she was around. She was somebody that you wanted to do things for because her heart was always in the right place.”
“She was a tough cookie,” Marino added. “She told you exactly what was on her mind, the good, the bad and the ugly… She didn’t back down to anyone. She could be in a room full of men and she had everyone’s respect.”
Vazquez is survived by her grandson, Salvatore.
Her visitation was held on Monday at Chapey Funeral Home in Bethpage. A funeral Mass was held Tuesday at Our Lady of Mercy Church in Hicksville, followed by burial at Pinelawn Memorial Park.
Matt Lindsay is a high school sports reporter who joined Newsday in 2022 after graduating from Stony Brook University.
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