To honor Lazar LaPenna, ballplayers suit up for school
A makeshift memorial Monday at a Little League field in Point Lookout, where Lazar LaPenna, 10, died during a game last month. Credit: Howard Schnapp
Ten-year-old Long Beach Little Leaguer Lazar LaPenna loved few things more in life than what he was doing when he died last month — in his team uniform, playing a baseball game.
On Monday, Lazar's fellow youth league ballplayers on Long Island and beyond paid tribute to him by wearing their baseball uniforms to school.
Lazar's father, Gregg LaPenna, said family members have sent him screenshots of youngsters in their jerseys. Lazar's mother, Monique Scharf-LaPenna, said Little League is for "kids like Lazar."
Lazar, who died April 29 after having an epileptic seizure during a Long Beach/Lido Little League game, had previously been diagnosed with a brain disorder that caused frequent, unprovoked seizures.
"Little League evened the playing field for him," Lazar's mother said. "He was just like everybody else and he could try his best."
Young ballplayers on the Island and as far away as West Virginia wore their jerseys to school in memory of Lazar -— whose name is pronounced laser.
Monday, May 9, was chosen because 9 was Lazar’s uniform number said T.J. Koerner, Seaford Little League president, who helped come up with the hashtag, a way to show support for the LaPenna family.
Lazar, a fourth-grader at East Elementary School in Long Beach, suffered the seizure after hitting a baseball and running to first base. Lazar, who had suffered from epilepsy for several years, was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.
On social media, schools such as Maysville Elementary School in Maysville, West Virginia, posted a picture of students wearing their youth league jerseys. Other pictures online showed baseball bats outside young players' homes to honor Lazar, a Mets fan, with the hashtag BatsOutForLazar
Craig Kute, president of the North Bellmore/ North Merrick Little League, said Lazar’s passing “resonated” with him and other parents.
“We all have kids that same age range,” said Kute, who has three boys ages, 13, 10, and 7.
Honoring Lazar will continue, Kute said, as helmets of Little Leaguers in North Bellmore, North Merrick, Seaford, Wantagh and parts of Massapequa will include stickers with No. 9 through the rest of the season.
