Naples, Florida- Salvatore LoCascio paces back and forth in the third-base coaching box. His North Naples 11-year-old All-Star team trails Golden Gate American, 6-5, in extra innings. LoCascio and the All-Stars face elimination.
His son, Nicky, steps to the plate with no outs, and a runner on first base. Three more outs and the season could be over.
Salvatore LoCascio tugs at his ear and rubs his nose, telling Nicky in baseball signs to swing away.
The 45-year-old ignores the finger-pointing and the whispers coming from the opposing team’s bleachers at Max Hasse Community Park in Golden Gate Estates.
He knows people are questioning why a convicted felon is managing a Little League team. Yet, as the son of the former right-hand man for notorious New York mob boss John Gotti, LoCascio is adept at ignoring insults and innuendoes.
“I know what people are thinking,” says LoCascio, who pleaded guilty to money laundering charges earlier this year. “I’m here for my team and my kids. And I don’t care if it bothers other people that I’m coaching. If I thought it was a situation that was detrimental to the team or the kids I would step down. But it’s not about me, it’s about the kids.”
LoCascio doesn’t consciously think about going to prison for the second time in his life. In 1999, when Nicky was 5, LoCascio spent five months in a federal penitentiary for tax evasion.
Now, with a possible sentence of 70 months, he might not be able to see any of his three sons – Nicky, 11, Torre, 13, or Frankie, 17 – play baseball again. Nor would the stay-at-home dad be able to care for his three sons while his wife, Diane, battles her multiple sclerosis.
The pitch comes and LoCascio’s eyes widen.
His head jerks abruptly as Nicky belts a shot to deep center field. LoCascio yelps “Go, go, go!” in a thick Bronx accent, but it’s inaudible over the loud cheer from the North Naples fans.
The Golden Gate center fielder dashes to the temporary plastic fence. And before LoCascio’s feet could get back on the ground from a pre-celebration leap, the Golden Gate player catches the ball.
LoCascio smiles. He isn’t disappointed. He knows there are two more outs.
Since March 2003, he cherishes his son’s every at-bat.
LoCascio was throwing Nicky batting practice adjacent to their home in Bay Colony in Naples. This was a father and son after-school routine. But that all ended when six federal agents surrounded the makeshift ballfield.
LoCascio didn’t resist. Nicky didn’t yell. He only cried.
Nine years old at the time, Nicky didn’t understand. He didn’t know why these men in suits were there. He couldn’t comprehend why they were taking away his batting practice pitcher, his best friend and his dad.
“Nicky was devastated,” LoCascio says. “He told my wife that he thought he’d never see his father again. He cried for weeks, and knowing that I’m not going to be around for them, for my boys and my wife, is one of the hardest parts of this entire ordeal.”
END OF THE FIRST:
Golden Gate American 0, North Naples 0
LoCascio understands Nicky’s muddled emotions. In June 1992, he sat in a New York courtroom as a jury sent his father, Frank LoCascio, to prison.
“You want to talk about someone getting scared straight,” Salvatore LoCascio says. “I was petrified about what the government could do to someone.”
Frank LoCascio, better known as Frankie Loc, was indicted and convicted with Gotti for violations of the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act of 1988 and various other acts on separate counts. Gotti and Frank LoCascio were charged with conspiracy to commit several murders, conducting two illegal gambling businesses in Queens, N.Y., and Connecticut, extortion related to the extension of credit and obstruction of justice in a murder investigation.
The charged enterprise actually was the Gambino family of organized crime and the indictment called Gotti the head of the organization. The court documents accused Frank LoCascio of being the “under-boss,” or second-in-command.
After the jury verdict, Frankie Loc professed his innocence to the packed courtroom.
“I am guilty, though, of being a good friend of John Gotti – and if there were more people like John Gotti on this Earth, we would have a better country,” Frank LoCascio said on June 23, 1992.
Salvatore LoCascio still calls his father his best friend. And he says if his father’s questionable past makes him an accessory, so be it.
“I’ll always be my father’s son,” LoCascio says. “And people will always want to connect me to my father. I can’t run from the fact that he is convicted. …”
END OF THE SECOND:
Golden Gate American 2, North Naples 1
Salvatore LoCascio was 32 when his father went to prison for life.
He admits being with his father but says he’s never been involved with Gotti or the Gambino crime family.
Yet, after the most recent indictment against him, the government called Salvatore LoCascio a made member and a captain of the Gambino family.
“I didn’t associate with the mob,” LoCascio says. “I wasn’t part of it. I was with my dad but not with the mob. After my father went away, I went away.”
In 1985, LoCascio started what he considered a legitimate business. With $15,000, the seed money coming as wedding gifts when he married Diane, LoCascio and a few friends started Creative Program Communications Inc.
As LoCascio tells it, CPC began as a small-time phone operation with a couple of phone lines and passed fliers out on the streets of New York. It was a successful business with users spending 99 cents a day to get access to lottery numbers and sports scores. One profitable venture was a Santa Claus line that kids could call.
Over time, the business grew. Then, with the introduction of the Internet, it exploded. The Internet made LoCascio and his associates a lot of money and tipped off the authorities, too.
The FBI and federal prosecutors say that from 1996 through 2002, LoCascio, Richard Martino, Zef Mustafa and seven others made nearly $1 billion in what was later described by authorities as phone cramming and Internet fraud.
The exact figure in the indictment was $430 million, but federal officials say that number likely pales in comparison with reality because not every victim complained.
In the phone cramming, mainly through a Kansas City firm named USP&C Inc., customers were billed for services they either ordered or received. In the Internet fraud, people were lured to what was described as “free samples” of dating and adult porn Web sites. Yet, when they used their credit card to gain access, unsuspecting victims were hit with hidden charges, authorities say.
LoCascio says he had nothing to do with the Internet business. But he accepted the money and that’s what got him into trouble, along with the others.
“The Internet made us money and also made us high profile,” LoCascio says, “and that’s what attracted them to the business because it was making so much money.”
He also contends his business wasn’t a mob operation and none of his proceeds went up the chain of command to higher bosses in the Gambino family.
“I wasn’t a bag man for the mob,” LoCascio says. “The government proved that no money went to any higher authorities. I spent all the money myself.”
After the fact, LoCascio admits he accepted illegal money. He says he knew all along, but made a conscious decision to look the other way.
In court in March, as part of his guilty plea for money laundering, LoCascio told the judge: “At the time I received the money, I learned that the businesses which generated the money were being investigated for fraud. I did not take action to determine if the money I was receiving were the proceeds of criminal activity. In other words, I was aware of the high probability that some of the money I was receiving were the proceeds of criminal activity and I acted with a deliberate disregard of that.”
As part of the plea deal, racketeering charges were dropped against LoCascio and his associates.
END OF THE THIRD:
Golden Gate American 2, North Naples 2
Before agreeing to the plea, Salvatore LoCascio made what seemed like a simple request.
He wanted to talk to his father, who is at Federal Medical Center Devens, 20 miles from Boston. But because of strict Bureau of Prison regulations, Salvatore LoCascio has been prohibited from visiting his father since his March 2003 arrest.
Prior to his arrest, LoCasio normally visited his father once every two months and talked to him on the phone twice a week. Now father and son only communicate through letters.
Frank LoCascio, now 74, has spent 13 years in prison. He has emphysema and a heart condition, which is why he’s at Devens, an administrative lockup housing male offenders requiring long-term medical care.
Salvatore LoCascio understands his father is going to die in prison. He only hopes he’s also not in prison when it happens.
“Not being able to see my dad for two years has been excruciating,” Salvatore LoCascio says. “He’s not good. He uses a walker and has a hard time breathing. It’s not a good situation. And now I can’t see him.”
Salvatore LoCascio still appreciates being able to write the letters though. He always tells his father how much he appreciates him and how much he loves him.
LoCascio even took the letter writing to another level with his Little League team. This past Father’s Day, LoCascio had his players write a letter to their dads. And instead of sending them in the mail, he had the players read them out loud to their fathers as they sat in the stands.
Steve Morrow, whose son plays for LoCascio, first thought this was silly. When it was over he called it “incredible.”
“At first I thought it was a joke,” Morrow says. “But then these boys starting saying things that boys don’t normally tell their fathers, like, ‘I love you,’ ‘You are my hero,’ ‘I want to be just like you.'”
Jon Ayres, the baseball coach at Gulf Coast High School, had stopped by the field to watch a game. Instead, he witnessed what he called something special.
“I thought I was going to see an exhibition,” Ayres says. “But here are all of these grown men, bawling and crying. I had never seen anything like it. Salvatore showed these boys that there’s more important things in life than winning or losing baseball games.”
The FBI agreed to LoCascio’s request to visit his dad. In an extraordinary act, he talked to his father before pleading guilty.
“I really didn’t want to plead,” LoCascio says. “But my associates wanted to. They had families and they faced longer sentences and by pleading they could get out before they died. I couldn’t deny them to see their families.”
END OF THE FOURTH:
Golden Gate American 3, North Naples 2
Salvatore LoCascio says his father wasn’t much of an athlete.
Yet, when Salvatore’s Little League coach didn’t show up one day in East Chester, N.Y., Frank LoCascio took over.
“My father didn’t know much about baseball,” Salvatore LoCascio recalls. “But he was willing to do whatever it took for his kids. He ended up coaching for two years.”
This year, when there was a lack of coaches in the North Naples Little League, Salvatore LoCascio stepped up, just like his father.
For the past five years he’s helped out with the North Naples Little League, watching Frankie, Torre and now Nicky go through the system. He’d rather sit on the sidelines and watch. But he felt this may be his final opportunity to make a difference in his children’s lives.
“Maybe next month I will be going away,” LoCascio says after a heartbreaking 2-1 loss to the San Carlos All-Stars, the day before the game against Golden Gate American. “I have three sons and they all play baseball. I’ve coached all three and introduced them to the game. And shortly it could be that I won’t be able to see them play anymore.”
Yet, not everyone thinks LoCascio should be allowed to coach.
“That’s terrible,” says Dameriz Montanez, whose son plays on the Greater Naples team, when told of LoCascio’s conviction.
Many parents point to The Little League Pledge, which hangs on the wall of the concession stand at Max Hasse Park, 15 paces from the field’s backstop.
The first three lines read:
I trust in God.
I love my Country.
And will respect its laws.
Todd Baxter, manager of the San Carlos All-Star team, feels strongly about this creed.
“I wouldn’t let my son play for a convicted felon,” says Baxter, who didn’t know of LoCascio or his past. “To be a coach, I believe you have to be a team leader. You have to lead by example. I shave every day because I want to portray a clean-cut image to these boys. And I think those clean, wholesome standards should be upheld in Little League.”
LoCascio scoffs at that reasoning.
“It’s not like I’m telling them to commit crimes,” he says.
END OF THE FIFTH:
Golden Gate American 5, North Naples 3
At one point during the Little League tournament, LoCascio straddled home plate, quietly arguing a close play at the plate where a North Naples runner was called out.
“Stop your crying,” a parent from an opposing team yelled out.
Another spectator leaned over to the boisterous parent to give him a quiet heads-up.
“You know he’ll put a hit out on you,” the parent says, causing a raised eyebrow from the other.
Several parents on opposing teams during the tournament for 11-year-olds were unaware of LoCascio’s past and present legal situation – he is scheduled to find out in September when his sentencing will be on the money-laundering case.
One mother became hysterical upon learning. Many others who knew of LoCascio refused to speak on the record about him.
“How can they allow him to coach?” parent Montanez said.
Baxter posed the same question.
As San Carlos coach, Baxter knows first-hand that Little League does an extensive criminal background check.
However, LoCascio’s crimes don’t restrict him from being a Little League coach. The world’s most recognized youth baseball organization only prohibits sexual offenders or predators and those who commit crimes against minors from being a coach, says Jen Colvin, regional director of the Little League in St. Petersburg.
“Those are the only crimes that would prevent someone from coaching,” Colvin says. “Other criminal matters and the question if someone is unfit to be a coach are left up to the local leagues.”
Barbara Hafenbrack, president of the North Naples Little League, is well aware of LoCascio’s current plea and past conviction. She says the board of directors discussed the potential pitfalls. Yet, they felt LoCascio’s dedication to the organization and knowledge of the game made him the best choice to coach the 11-year-old All-Star team.
“He was the least controversial choice,” Hafenbrack says. “All the kids wanted to play for him. He’s a true coach and a true dad.”
Mike Walker, coach of the Golden Gate National 11-year-olds, doesn’t have a problem with LoCascio in the opposing dugout. Walker wishes more parents were as giving with their time.
“He’s making a difference in a lot of kids’ lives,” says Walker, a father of four, “and that is what I place value on.”
Loretta Trapani’s son plays for LoCascio. The North Naples mother says LoCascio gives “150 percent,” goes the extra mile and genuinely cares about each kid. She also points out that it’s the parents of players on other teams who are talking about LoCascio’s pending sentence and potential prison time.
“We don’t know about his other life,” Trapani says. “We don’t want to know. The kids don’t know. We don’t want the kids to know. We don’t care. He’s a great coach and that’s all that matters.”
END OF THE SIXTH:
Golden Gate American 5, North Naples 5
The North Naples All-Stars rallied for two runs in the bottom of the fifth to tie the score, yet needed another dramatic comeback to stay alive.
Golden Gate American pushed across a run in the top of the seventh inning to go ahead 6-5 and was on the verge of clinching a spot in the championship game against Golden Gate National.
When Nicky LoCascio, one of the team’s best players, made that long, loud out, North Naples had only two outs remaining.
But two hits and a walk followed, and North Naples tied the game 6-6.
Greg Hierro, the tiniest player on the team, stood on third base representing the winning run.
“I’m going to score,” Hierro said to Salvatore LoCascio.
To LoCascio this represented hope. It’s the same hope that he has that the judge will understand his wife, because of her multiple sclerosis, is unable to take care of the three boys full time if he’s not there.
It’s the hope that he won’t have to serve nearly six years in prison.
The pitch got by the catcher and before LoCascio could get out the first “g” sound in “go,” Hierro broke toward home plate.
Hierro slid underneath the tag. The umpire called him safe. North Naples won, 7-6.
The players danced and hugged each other in a wild celebration.
LoCascio remained calm, still in the third-base coaching box. The slightest of smiles curled on his face.
As the coach, he knows North Naples still needs some help to get into the championship game. For North Naples to have a chance, Golden Gate American would need to lose another game becauses it takes two losses in the tournament to be eliminated.
Even so, LoCascio savors the dramatic comeback win in his own way.
“I’m real proud of the way they handled themselves,” LoCascio says. “I’ve never coached a finer bunch. You play your game. You lose some and win some and you come back again and play another.
“It just hit me that it could be all over,” he adds. “This could be my last game.”
The next night, the North Naples Little Leaguers sit in the same bleachers where fans were whispering about their coach. They are hoping for one of their rivals, Greater Naples, to defeat Golden Gate American.
LoCascio keeps them in order, buys them popcorn and comforts them. Golden Gate American pulls out the victory over Greater Naples, eliminating North Naples from the tournament.
As the final out is recorded, Nicky LoCascio hangs his head. His teammates empty the bleachers. He remains there, obviously sad that baseball is over for the summer.
The loss is also a signal that his father’s time enjoying freedom, out of prison, could soon end.
Today, Nicky LoCascio still takes batting practices in the field adjacent to his house. He has a machine that tosses him the ball. But he still prefers to have his dad pitch to him.
“It’s a great machine but it’s not the same,” Nicky LoCascio says. “I’m going to miss my father pitching to me.”
Months from now, Salvatore LoCascio most likely will be pacing back and forth. Except a cell at a federal prison will replace the third-base coaching box.
His thoughts, however, will be the same. He’ll think of his family, his dying father, his ailing wife and his young sons.
And oh, yes, baseball.
If there’s one thing Salvatore LoCascio – the son of a reputed mobster, loving father and Little League coach – understands, it’s that you only get so many outs.